Address: 119/121 East Coast Road, Singapore 428806
Tel: +65 62477857, +65 63462131
Operation Hours: 11.30am to 11.00pm, closed on 1st Monday of every month
Date of visit: 6 April 2008

Food. Why is there such an obsession in our little country?

Restaurants sprouting out in every nook and cranny. Food reviews and articles populating our newspapers and media. Everyone and someone is a food critic or food blogger. Entrepreneurship aspirations for the executive crowd being predominantly in the food and beverage direction…. Everything revolves around food of somewhat.

Ask someone to describe Singapore to a foreigner..and inevitably the topic of how the food is fantastic in the country would come up. There will hardly be any sharing on the mechanics of our unique political system..or the vibrancy of our street culture…or even the character of our people. No. Instead we will be relating how our national dish is (i) chili crab, (ii) chicken rice, (iii) laksa…etc. There will be boasting on how people should come try out our food courts and hawker food. On how there would be always a food stall or outlet open in our city state.

Forty plus years of national building and our national identity is de-constructed into either (i) a crustacean boiled in some spices, (ii) a fowl left to boil in its own stock and with some boiled rice, or (iii) noodles boiled in gravy.

What the hell is going on? Would it be because our stifling environment is such that the question of where to dine is the only safe topic left? To avoid stumbling into some sort of sensitive issue, and going against some rule and guideline, we turn to food as the last haven of free debate…

Thus…my next food posting. Ironic and a bit sad…

There have been many positive reviews on Astons Specialties. This has contributed to the long queue of would-be patrons waiting their turn to be seated. I would normally have given the place a miss but the queue was slightly shorter that day.

The eatery does not have the most spacious of dining areas. In fact, the decor reminded me of a Hans eatery or a more run down Jack’s Place eatery.

Bloggers all over the country (you know who you guys are…) have been raving about their steak dishes, particularly their Wagyu Beef. And so, we tried the Wagyu 5/6 200gms item (S$38.90, which I suppose is cheap for Wagyu). The verdict. It was a nice piece of meat. Yup. You heard it. It was ok.  Nicely marbled.  However, although we asked for medium rare, it was a little bit overdone for our taste.

We also had the Ieat Super Burger (S$12.50). This was pieces of beef stacked with lettuce, onion rings, tomato and assorted garnishing packed in between two slices of sesame seed bun (anyone remember that promotion from McDonald’s where you had to recite a few verses from their advertisement to get a free burger or something…I remember, as I failed in getting the burger due to my poor pronunciation…I was only like 8 years old then…trauma man).

It was not bad lah.

Oh well, at some point in time, we must acknowledge that food is just poo(p) with nutrients waiting to be extracted by our bodies (hmm…sounds quite deep if I can say). Thus I could say Astons served its purpose that day.