brewerkz, dempsey

good, quick-and-dirty american food at this chain of restaurants across singapore. mostly popular with the drinking crowd (unsurprising given the name of this place, and their booze-making status), I’ve recently rediscovered this place, as well as my love for comforting, gut-filling american dining.

there’s a certain impatience that comes with age – it’s got to be age or disposition, and I prefer to blame the first – and a meal of ribs and burgers is exactly the thing when you’re not into a foamy, decorated plate.

I had the pulled pork burger – a mass of meat bound with barbecue sauce and topped with thick slices of pickled jalapeno. the chillis pack a mild heat that creeps up on you, and the sauce could be a little cloying if you’re going bun-less (so don’t). it’s quite a generous mound of meat, so eat whatever doesn’t fit between the buns with the crisp salad on the side.

you get a choice of sides – and I usually go for just a salad, but the onion rings are thick and pretty decent, even if it came slightly greasy this time. and if you’re into beer – their daily specials are usually a tad cheaper than the other menu options.

the dempsey hill outlet is a little dark and small – basically a porch with a couple indoor seats – and doesn’t have the character of the one at riverside point. but it’s still a decent place to get a meal (without overpaying, as the locale would typically require), and relax at the end of a long day.

Brewerkz Microbrewery
18 Dempsey Road
Singapore 249677
tel +65 6634 1229
$$: easily under thirty a person, which is almost a steal

&made burger bistro, pacific plaza

I am back! I’m going to pretend you are just about excited about this as I am – it’s possibly the longest hiatus between posts on this blog, and I feel a vengeance. you never know how obsessive connected you are to your electronics until you’re separated.

we’ll start the engine up with a set of rather out-of-the-ordinary photos taken at this okay cafe at pacific plaza. I’ve been here before (how has it been two years since!) – and it maintains its rather meh-but-edible status.

roosevelt’s diner & bar, outram park

pretty good brunch place – with enough classics and twists to be interesting in its class – and rather conveniently located next to the mrt, which is a lovely characteristic that must not be overlooked (in a market full of eating establishments that pride themselves on inaccessibility).

so I came here when there were barely any reviews out there on this place (not that that matters, as by the time I publish this – there are bound to be many, many more) – and in singapore, that in itself is a feat – on a leap of faith, really; so it was rather a pleasant surprise that we enjoyed our meal.

mos burger (central world), bangkok

it is friday, y’all – so I’m taking it easy on the bloggin’, and so should you. perhaps a snack mid-morning.

I stopped eating fast food (in general – the big M’s hotcakes still slide in) nearly 8 years ago – just sharing, not proselytizing, so all the exposure I get to it now are mostly through the partner (a man’s gotta get his fries, right?)

so we popped by mos burger during a hot afternoon’s break in bangkok, and found out that they actually have a menu option of a fries+onion rings combo! this used to be one of my favorite chains (aeons ago) for the rather high-quality fast food dining experience: you’ve got to wait, but the food comes piping hot and freshly-cooked, their offerings are usually an awesome japanese interpretation that breaks the monotony of burgers-n-chips (rice burgers with shrimp and eel? yes please!), and it’s served to your table in these lovely baskets and gorgeous wrapping.

the fries and rings were crazy hot and well-browned when they arrived at table – but were quite a bit on the greasy side, disappointingly. not that the partner had any problem finishing them off with ketchup and chilli, no no.

it’s a good quick break, and hey – with a glass of cola (deliciously more vanilla-tasting here than in singapore) – sometimes, there’s no better way to escape the heat and while off a bit of time.

do you guys get mos where you are, and do you like it too? have a great weekend!
xx

bali buda/bali buddha, bali (eat-in)

good food – incidentally, healthy too – at this holistic café-deli chain, nearish kerobokan. this place has a slew of good reviews on tripadvisor, and I was lured by their online menu, which had a large range of healthyish (and very interesting) options for brunch and lunch – though if I were honest it was most likely the pancake and cereal options on the menu that truly reeled me in.

the food veers toward the healthy-sounding, which scares off people like my partner – and I think men in general – and even has options for vegan/vegetarian/macrobiotic-sounding diets, but which appeals to me. I like the idea of having a large and satisfying brunch with wholesome ingredients (dimsum excepting), and this place certainly served up. but for all you manly men out there with a fear of supposedly healthy food, they do have things like burgers and pizzas – so you can certainly get your share of the mornin’ grease here.

mishkins, london

great little diner in covent garden. I have to say I came with mixed expectations, as I had a great experience at spuntino but not such a great one at da polpo, and there is such a mix of reviews online about mishkins that saying I was sceptical would have been an immense understatement.

straight up, I have to say that this was a very good meal, well-executed as the diner it is meant to be, and the food was both tasty and quite special. not too expensive as well, though the portion sizes vary quite wildly (and rather illogically). I loved the kitschiness of the place, with its bar at the front and its warehousey-type feel, and its diner-style serve-yourself-cutlery and ketchup/mustard squeezy bottles.

byron, london

good american food all over london. so I wish byron expanded their menu to include breakfast, and more specifically pancakes, as they do do american food pretty well, such as milkshakes and burgers.

my partner loves this place for their thick milkshakes (he always gets oreo) that come in a huge rustic metal cup and tastes as though there are two to three scoops of ice cream in there.

the nice thing about restaurants like byron and ASK is that they are a breed that I think is unique to london: decent, good food at a reasonable price, quite a step over fast food. they have a sufficiently wide menu that you can go back often to, have good deals that make them even more worth the money, and use noticeably good ingredients.