Singapore House
This place isn't super expensive, but I'm giving it a try anyway. It certainly looks fancy. At least it won't leave me in the singa- poor house. :D
I ask the waiter for something that doesn't have any coriander. He tells me to wait a minute, and walks off. After a few minutes, I assume he's gone off to deal with other customers. However, he does return, with a menu covered in ticks (no, not like an infested sailor.) All fourteen items on the main menu contain coriander. I'm forced to choose from the street food.
Me: "Can I stay inside and eat the street food?"
Waiter: "Yes, sir. Yes you can."
Excellent tip: If you really don't want to eat even a tiny amount of something (maybe you share my hatred of coriander, or you're a vegetarian and don't want to eat any meat), just say you're allergic to that thing. Then you'll be taken seriously. :)
With cumin, cheese, and chilli jam.
The melted cheese really complicated the texture of this dish. It's like eating meat with a skin, or some other complex texture. It's hard to believe this is just a mushy mushroom. All the potent herbs add a variety of very potent flavours. The chilli is a bit much for me, but that's just me. :)
In plum sauce.
The duck here is nice and crispy, but the plum sauce is really strange. It's like cordial. It's very sweet and sour, and watery. It just doesn't go with the duck.
Fresh chilli, salt, pepper and spring onion.
When I see this dish, I assume it's going to be the typical battered squid you get everywhere. However, it has much more depth than that. The batter is very crunchy in places, and the herb sauce adds a real fruitiness. The little bits of spinach and spring onion don't look like much, but they just add a touch of interest to the dish.
They go out of their way to accommodate me here, separating both the chilli, and the sauce (which might contain coriander) out into separate little dishes.
With vanilla bean ice cream & Malaysian-style butterscotch sauce.
This pudding could more accurately be described as "a cake". It's actually even less like a pudding than a regular banana cake is. This would be okay if there was a good amount of the butterscotch sauce, which there isn't. The small amount of butterscotch is in a wild and artistic loop on my plate, instead of doing its job hydrating my banana cake.
I'm not sure what the fruit is. It looks like something has spawned on my plate, which is probably not the case. I expect some kind of a taste from this fruit-based substance, but there is none.
With the bill, I'm given a voucher for a free meal. There's no catch. I must be a VIP!
On the way out, I'm handed another of the same voucher at the till. :|
Update: it was sesame seeds in papaya juice.