Monday, July 17, 2006

Korean Restaurant, Singapore

Rosqui

This place (Specialists' Shopping Centre #05-35, 6235-0018) wins the award for having the most creative restaurant name in the world (well, to be fair, I think these guys have been here so long that back then, they were probably one of the first Korean restaurants in Singapore?). Anyway, I'd been here ages ago, and while I remembered the food being decent, I never really made the effort to come back, as I was a bit bummed at the time that they cooked my Korean BBQ in the back for me rather than letting me do it myself (despite the presence of grills on the table). Tonight, we were in the neighborhood, and thus stopped by on the way home for a quick bite. This time, I made sure to tell them that I wanted to cook the stuff myself.

Neng MyonI went straight for some boneless version of kalbi, which they called rosqui or something. To my delight, they provided little dishes of sesame oil and salt to go with it, and - interestingly - some butter to help cook it, even if it didn't really seem necessary. The beef quality wasn't anything spectacular (they claimed to use US beef, BTW), but it did the job. The cold naengmyeon was also refreshing with slices of apple as well as the very frigid (but dressed with scallion) soup.

Something was a bit creepy about this place though. Being only one of two occupied tables in here tonight, the three staff members appeared seriously bored, and basically stood in a line there watching us intently while we ate. It got to a point when I turned and shot a big artificial smile right back at them, after which they finally backed down and tried to occupy themselves with something else to do. These guys were a bit stingy with the kimchi too. Well, that aside, actually I have to admit that I actually did enjoy the food quite a bit. But I'll probably just wait to go to Korea itself or LA rather than make any huge effort to come back.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well, Singapore is well regarded as a gastronomic paradise in Asia, but I guess you win some and you lose some... :)

Look forward to more reviews from you! BTW, I just went to a restaurant at Paradiz Centre called Tao's, and the fusion food there is not bad but I'm not sure if its to your taste.

Unknown said...

I dined at Tao's twice - both service and food were good. For ladies like us, we like variety of food in small portions. You should try.

Anonymous said...

hi, chanced upon your website when searching for korean restaurants to go to. thought i'd leave a note to say 'hi' and that the picture of the drink (with the lemongrass stalk in it) was well-shot. :)

Anonymous said...

is this a shameless self advertorial?

the food at tao's sucks. waste of time and money.