GRUB: Responsible eating to please the palate
PUBLISHED September 19th, 2013 12:00 am | UPDATED April 14th, 2016 05:25 pm
The crowds keep coming. Clad in shorts and crocs, wailing kids in tow, family after family feed through GRUB’s advanced queue management system. A stroll in the scenic environs of Bishan Park, an SMS and a phone call later, you’re shuffled to your seat by one of GRUB’s perky, young crew. It’s an experience that’s engineered to please.
You can so tell from the food too. Self-taught chef-instructor Mervyn Phan – the brainchild behind Cookyn Inc – takes his first entrepreneurial plunge into the transient F & B scene with a restaurant to call his own. Together with his affable wife Amanda Phan, he makes a compact menu count.
Take for instance, a Beef and Guinness Pie ($12). It makes a mockery of the sudden flurry of hipster cafes sprouting in town by serving up polished, well thought-out food beyond eggs and hollandaise. Knobs of grassfed beef shank stewed to yield tender flesh with lovely tendons are laid on a puff pastry square, playing soft with crisp, meaty with flaky. A competent mashed potatoes flecked with parmesan, juicy pearl unions and sweet baby carrot complete the deft construction.
Equal heart must have gone into the Pork Steak Burger ($12), stuffed with a slow-cooked pork collar so thick it must have come out of a Man Vs Food episode. Sous vide, glazed with sweet sauce, then grilled, topped with apples and a cashew chimichurri, it’s a $12 worth every cent – nutty, creamy, sweet and tart all at once. And did we mention toasted buns the weight of clouds?
Burgers are evidently their strong suit. One comes with a surfboard of hake fillet ($12), buttered with remoulade and really crisp, if only the choice of fish was a softer variety. The classic GRUB cheeseburger ($11) isn’t too shabby either, moist and well-seasoned with a lava of Monterey Jack cheese. The burgers’ presentation on a wooden kitchen board, accompanied with a ceramic cup of competent fries, is picture-perfect.
On a sweeter note, French toast with sour cream and macerated strawberries ($12) doused with maple syrup leaves little room for complaints. A pork sausage thrown in might seem odd at first, but the sweet-savoury pendulum does work its magic.
For a sure-fire hit, GRUB’s churros is a crowd-pleaser that has become a purpose of visit for some, beyond a sweet end to a meal (rumour has it that it’s a popular take-away item too). A duo of bitter chocolate and crème anglaise are finger-lickin’ foils to the strips of hot, sugared dough, crisp outside, delightfully mushy inside.
The industrial feel from GRUB’s stained and bricked walls is broken by jars of flowers and soft sunlight filtering through its black-rimmed, floor-to-ceiling glass facade. An alternative playlist curated by Chef Mervyn himself and a noticeable buzz permeates your dining experience. We’re glad that the restaurant has caught on the zeitgeist of responsible eating – from 100% grass-fed beef to hormone-free, antibiotic-free chicken – but one wonders if it’s lost on a largely heartlander crowd. But GRUB harbours such ambition and a dedication to good taste that there’s little wonder why even with a considerable wait, the crowd keeps coming.
Written by Mr Nom Nom
