American-style BBQ meats at Red Eye Smokehouse

When eating out, the darling and I like places that serve up food that isn't easily replicable at home. For example, for American-style barbecue'd meats like brisket and ribs, you'd need to smoke them in a smoker for hours on end (expensive, and not practical for the majority of us who live in HDB apartments).

It's this train of thought that leads us to a honestly rather ulu corner of the Jalan Besar neighbourhood, where Red Eye Smokehouse has set up shop, serving up varieties of smoked, fatty, sinful meats!


Red Eye Smokehouse's dining area is industrial chic while yet maintaining a casual vibe; We particularly dig the huge blackboard menu outlining all the available meats. There are the usual suspects, of course - brisket, beef/pork ribs and pulled beef/pork - and some other interesting items like salmon fillets and sriracha bbq wings. Oh, and of course a number of sides, and a complement of beers and soft drinks.


We end up going with 116gm of Brisket ($17.40), 152gm of Smoked Salmon ($12.16), 356gm of Short Rib ($39.16), and sides of Broccoli Salad and Sweet Potato Fries ($8 each). No GST or Service Charge is tacked on to the blackboard/menu prices, which is a nice surprise.

The sides first: Sweet Potato Fries were pretty delicious! Nicely seasoned, crispy on the outside while still adequately moist and fluffy in the center. Broccoli Salad - nice vinaigrette providing a bit of acidity to cut through all the fats in the meats.


Speaking of meats - Red Eye Smokehouse's short rib was the most expensive but also the best meat of the three. Nice bark, terrific juiciness/moistness, and a great balance of fats to meat. A tad bit bland in some areas, but nothing a dash of either of the two supplied BBQ-sauces can't fix.

The brisket, on the other hand, was rather a disappointment, being too low on smoke in the flavour profile, and being too dry. Salmon was somewhere in between the two - nicely seasoned and having retained an adequate level of moisture.


At over $40/person, Red Eye Smokehouse's meats are ... somewhat reasonable. It's got the potential to be a regular hangout for carnivores who live nearby, but otherwise we feel that a better place to feed a brisket addiction would probably be Meatsmith in Telok Ayer.

Red Eye Smokehouse is at 1, Cavan Road; Reservations accepted for parties of 6 and above. Non-halal.

Ribs and Wings at Jerry's BBQ and Grill, Telok Ayer.

We totally love Ribs! Perhaps not quite as much as we love Steak or Sushi, but Ribs are easily a strong second runner up! There's just something magical about finger-handling tender, sumptuous fall-off-the-bone rib meat that's been smoked and basted for hours in a barbecue sauce glaze.

Our default go-to place for ribs is Morganfield's - partially because they've got a variety of flavours, mostly because they serve the St Louis rib cut - but we're always on the look-out for other places and so find ourselves walking up a really quiet Club Street in search of Jerry's BBQ and Grill.


Like many Club Street joints it's a pretty small shop - with probably no more than 20 seats total. 8pm on a Sunday night was quiet with the darling and I being the only diners, though more customers joined in a little later. We started the night's feasting with a small basket of Deep Fried Mushrooms ($7.95) served with a creamy ranch sauce. This basket is quite value for money, actually - it could easily feed 3 or 4 mouths. Crisp batter contrasted well with the juicy mushroom inside, too.


We had heard good things about the Buffalo Wings so we ordered four of them for $10.95. The chickens that sacrificed their wings to this plate were some mighty huge birds - these are substantial, meaty wings! You have a choice of several spice levels - we tried the lowest spice level and it was pretty tame (for me) but a little spicy (for the darling). The drumlet meat - all too often dry and overcooked - was moist and juicy here.

Having said that, these really totally aren't Buffalo Wings. The sauce is too tame and has zero vinegar (which is what makes a proper buffalo wing). Yes, I'm a wing elitist.


The Full Slab of Mesquite BBQ Pork Ribs costs $35.95 and comes with vegetables and your choice of starch (baked potato, potato slad, or fries). Jerry's serves up baby back ribs, which are the cut of ribs from the back of the pig. The darling and I much prefer the St. Louis cut from the "side" of the pig - we feel that cut is meatier, fattier and overall just more delicious.

Although baby backs are still delicious if cooked right, we weren't that impressed with these ribs. They were okay, but a tad bit dry and overcooked. The Mesquite BBQ gravy was delicious, at least.


Overall, prices are decent with sizeable portions, and food's pretty good. It's not a bad place for lunch or dinner if you're in the area, but perhaps not good enough to go out of your way for. Jerry's BBQ and Grill has two outlets - 92 Club Street and 277 Jalan Kayu. Non-halal.

Eat everything with your fingers - at Tung Lok's Dancing Crab, Grandstand!

"Remember when your mummy said 'don't eat with your fingers?' That doesn't apply here!"

Today we're visiting Dancing Crab - Louisiana Seafood, the newest concept by the Tung Lok Group. Occupying what was previously the sparsely-patronized Modern Asian Diner at the Grandstand, this restaurant aims to bring Lousiana style seafood to the Singaporean palatte - with an interesting twist: You're actively encouraged to eat everything with your fingers!


Utensils are optional here - they're not even provided unless you specifically ask. What's even more enticing is that if you order any of the seafood combos, the entire bag is dumped right in the middle of the table (on new plastic sheets, of course) for everyone to just grab whatever they want and lick off their fingers afterwards.


The restaurant itself is a weird East meets West fusion concept. On one hand the food is Louisiana style and you have American Top 40 Pop and Rock hits blasting out of the stereo. On the other hand there's a Carlsber Beer Lady walking around serving Beer, and occasionally a restaurant-wide yum seng toast; If you empty your drink during this toast you get a refill on the house.


Fizzy Lemonade - $4 each
The restaurant is immensely popular, with queues of up to an hour on weekend nights. If you've made a reservation (or are willing to wait), once seated you might try the Grilled Butter Roll ($2) - good for soaking up the sauces that come with the Seafood Combos.


Truffle Fries ($7) were as competent as can be for re-fried frozen shoestring fries sprinkled with truffle-aroma'ed olive oil. Comes with a small sauce plate of dip but we much preferred to just dip the fries in the seafood combo sauce.


We also tried the Garlic Soy Sauce Wings ($9) which were a mixed bag - we really liked the oriental/asian flavour profile and the usage of a tempura-like batter, but thought that the batter absorbed too much oil (or the wings weren't drained well enough) making the wings a tad bit soggy and oily.


Of course, the stars of the show are the various Seafood Combo Bags - we go for the Combo Bag #01 ($80) which comes with a whole ~1kg Sri Lankan Mud Crab, 300g Prawns, 250g Mussels, Potatoes, Corn and Sausages. In your choice of Gravy of course: Signature (Mild, Spicy, Extra Spicy), Herb Butter or Beurre Blanc. Prawns are fresh and have a great solid bite, Crab was delicious with our Signature (mild) choice, but the mussels were strangely and disappointingly small (hardly any bigger than a 20cent coin).


The aftermath of the meal certainly isn't pretty! Thankfully the restaurant provides plastic aprons so you won't get any seafood juices on your clothes.


We really did enjoy ourselves a lot at the dinner. It's a little strange and yet liberating to eat your food directly off the table - and to hell with forks, plates, spoons and other utensils. The amount of seafood that comes in that $80 bag is fairly reasonable, too! On the flip side on weekends the wait staff - comprising mainly of attractive sweet young things (both genders) - can't quite cope with the crowd and as a result service is a little slow and spotty.

Nevertheless Dancing Crab is now firmly one of our favorite restaurants in the Grandstand area - and we'd definitely recommend it. Reservations highly recommended unless you don't mind wandering the nearby Giant or Pasar Bella shopping areas for 30-60 minutes while you wait for a table. Non halal.

Cooking the Perfect Steak - Freezer Blow Torch Oven Method

If you're a regular reader of our blog you might have figured out that our favorite foods are Japanese - and Steak. We don't eat as much as we'd like, though, because cheap steak isn't good, and good steak isn't cheap. The more well heeled among you might have no problems putting down 300 bucks regularly on a prime piece of meat at Morton's, but for the less financially endowed, we've always recommended cooking your own steak at home.

Typically we've always just gone with the Pan Sear method which we've previously blogged about here. That post is pretty old though; since then we've moved on to using a heavy bottomed stainless steel pan, using just salt and pepper, and flipping every 15-20 seconds ala Heston Blumenthal style. It's a common and competent methodology of searing your meat, but there are a few drawbacks:

- It takes a lot of practice (and error) to get the steak to your desired cooked level via touch
- Pan searing leaves a greasy, oily mess in a surprisingly large radius around the pan
- You need a really hot pan to get a nice crust; but that heat can also overcook the edges before the middle gets up to temperature

So we've been experimenting with a few alternative methods to see if we can get a 'better' cooking method. Today we're reviewing Modernist Cuisine's low temperature Oven steak! For this method you will need, at minimum, an Oven that can go low temperatures (70 degrees C), and a meat thermometer.


Today's guinea pig cut of beef comes from an Australian Omugi Gyu (Barley-fed Japanese-origin cattle reared in Australia) cow. The first step in the process is to freeze the steak for at least 30 minutes. This is supposed to get the steak cold enough to get a nice sear on the outside without at all cooking the inside. For this steak we spent about a minute on each side with an Iwatani Propane blow torch - completely optional, though. If you don't have a blow torch (or are worried about getting unburnt propane on your steak) you can also just pan-sear on as high heat as possible.


The next step is to then bake! We set our oven on 70 degrees and plonked the steak right in the middle. That wire you see sticking out the right side is our meat thermometer probe, and the dial on the lower left is an oven thermometer. For medium rare you're looking to cook until the internal temperature reaches 55-56 degrees Celcius. For our try it took about 45 minutes. If your oven doesn't go that low it's OK, just cook at the lowest temperature you can.

A point to note here when adding seasoning. When you pan-sear, a lot of that seasoning flows off into the oil, however using this method most of it stays on the steak; Pepper is fine but you should add a lot less salt than you would typically add to a pan-seared steak otherwise you might end up with something too salty.


So after 45 minutes - all done! As a bonus, resting is unnecessary, serve immediately :)


We find that the steak is cooked very evenly all the way through (except for the edges which we crusted up with the blowtorch, of course). The meat also loses a remarkably miniscule amount of juice, possibly because it's effectively been 'resting' for almost an hour. And because we haven't added any oil to the steak during the entire cooking process, we end up with a cleaner plate as well.

On a side note, we find that when cooking a rib eye, the cap is always redder than the other meat - you can see it very obviously in the photo as well. Is this because the cap takes longer to cook? Or is it just as well cooked and the red color is due to some other reason? Leave us a comment below if you have any knowledge on the matter!


The rib-eye is delicious, and cooked just the way we want it!


The disadvantages, of course, are clear - prep and cooking time is something like an hour and a half, which is a whole lot of time more than the 10 minutes it would take you to prep and pan-sear. However what we like about this method is that it takes a lot of the skill out of the equation - cooking to a set temperature ensures you consistent, accurate results every time, and it works no matter how thick your slab is. Don't need to mop the oil splatter off the floor after, too!

The next method we're planning to try is of course the sous vide method. Unfortunately sous vide machines (even the home ones) are pretty freaking expensive, so it'll probably be the ghetto freezer box style :) stay tuned!

Click here for our blog page Cooking Classes for more recipes. Hope you will be inspired~

DeBurg (Home of the Burgasm) - Singapore's Best Burger? Hmmm ...

DeBurg, home of the Burgasm. With a slogan like that, how can we possibly not pay a visit? We take the drive over to Bukit Merah Lane 1 on a rainy weeknight, and place our orders at the counter. Quite a few signs proclaim loudly that 'burgers are not fast food,' so we take our seats in what can probably be best described as an atas kopitiam and prepare for the wait.


Our burgers arrive about 40 minutes after our orders are placed which could really suck depending on how hungry you are. My Bacon Cheeseburger costs SGD15.50 for a 200gm patty of Aussie striploin.


The darling decides to go a bit easy on the meat and downsizes her Mushroom Cheeseburger order to a 100gm patty for SGD9.00. The 'mushroom' in this burger isn't a whole portobello mushroom, but instead it's mushroom gravy.


For both burgers, we were somewhat disappointed given all the glowing reviews all over the net. We thought that the flavor profile for the burgers were impeccable, with great choices of ingredients and proper seasonings. However, the patties were (in my opinion) overcooked and sorely lacking in the 'juiciness' department, and the burger buns were dry. We were also put off by the horrendous sides - salad bordering on being inedible thanks to way too much balsamic vinegar in the dressing, and chips and tater tots that had obviously been fried ten or twenty minutes before the burgers were ready.


Taking into account the wait time, how inconvenient it is to get here by public transport, and how difficult it is to get a parking spot at peak hours, I honestly don't understand all the hype. If you live in the area then sure, it's a great place for some relatively cheap burgers, but for the rest of us it makes more sense to satisfy any burger cravings over at Omakase Burger, which is also as inconveniently located but which comes with juicy patties and freshly fried truffle fries. Non-halal.

De Burg
Blk 119 Bukit Merah Lane 1
Closed on Mondays

Ribs & Burgers at Billy Bombers - American-Diner style restaurant/cafe.

Offtopic: We are now on Twitter, so Follow Us on Twitter to get first-hand updates whenever we ... update!


Billy Bombers! (With random Singaporean girl in the background :P) The darling and I wanted to go somewhere else nearby for eats, but we sort of forgot that in Singapore, during dinnertime, even marginally crappy places have queues. So we shouldn't have been surprised that the joint we wanted to eat at had a "45minute to 1hour wait time." Ah well! Billy Bombers looked like a pretty interesting alternative, so in we went!


The interior design and theme of the restaurant tries to take inspiration from the typical American Diner - what with their red seats and all. Nice, bright, colorful and loud :) I go for the set dinner, which comes with a soup, lemonade (pictured below) and a set of Smoky Baby Back (pork) ribs for SGD25.90. The darling - being a huge Big Bang Theory fan - spots a Green Grasshopper (SGD5.50) on the mocktails section on the menu and orders! ... only to be disappointed that it doesn't turn out anything like what we were expecting.


Enter the Soup of the Day (cream of vegetables)! You'd think that after all Billy Bombers being a Diner, and this being the soup of the day, means that it can't be anything great. And you'd be absolutely right.


The ribs were actually pretty good! They come with a baked potato with sour cream (mediocre) and a mango salad (nice and refreshing). The ribs themselves were tender and came off the bone easily, with a nice BBQ sauce with a hint of smokiness - nice stuff! Unfortunately the portion was also remarkably small. 4 ribs are not enough to qualify for a full meal.


The darling feeds her inner carnivore with a burger, done medium. We don't remember the full name but it was something-something Whisky Burger (lol, best food bloggers ever), and it cost SGD17.90. The portion is big and nice and filling, but sadly we can't say that we're particularly impressed. For some reason the patty just tasted ... bland.


So in conclusion, an American Diner-style restaurant at Cathay Orchard, with decent prices. Shame that the food, at least from the two dishes we tried, were either delicious but too small, or generously portioned but mediocre.

Betty's Midwest Kitchen - Aman Suria Damansara

Apologies for my muslim friends reading this, but it's going to be yet another non-halal post. Been reading a lot about Betty's Midwest Kitchen so headed there on Friday night for dinner.


Reaching at 9.20pm, we needed to queue for about 10 minutes before getting a table. The place itself isn't very big. Decorations are nice and the dining area is bright and cheerful - I like! Dim places can be a bit gloomy at times :)


We start off with Dog Food (MYR7.50). These are fries drenched with gravy, smothered with cheese and then baked. The concept sounded cool on the menu, but in execution, perhaps not as awesome - the fries soak up the gravy and get soggy, and the cheese was a bit on the burnt side.


The darling had (ok, it was my choice) Country Fried Chicken ($13.00), which in hindsight was perhaps not the best of choices. The chicken was well battered and juicy without being oily (like some fast food places tend to be). A tad on the salty side, though. Comes with sides of peas and a generous serving of mashed potatoes, and the whole dish is smothered with gravy. Nothing particularly special, though.


I go for the Classic Meatloaf (MYR15.00). In case you were wondering, this is a pork meatloaf. The loaf is juicy and quite tasty, and the finely-minced pork (and other things) breaks apart nicely in the mouth. Also comes with a small cup of chili-like sauce that brings out the rather unique flavors.

We go for Lemonade (MYR2.50) and Root Beer (MYR5.50) for drinks.

All in all, I'm a bit underwhelmed by the food. It's unique and probably not available anywhere else in Malaysia, but other than that there's nothing particularly special. And I don't get the deja vu feeling either, having spent 99% of my U.S.A. time in the North East :) Prices are very reasonable though!

Betty's Midwest Kitchen
A-G-40, Jalan PJU 1/43,
Aman Suria Damansara,
47301 Petaling Jaya, Malaysia