That little voice in the back of my head kept telling me that I shouldn't go in here (who the heck in their right mind goes to Big Splash to eat??), but I'd been curious for the longest time about this place: I've passed by so many times on the way back from the airport, noticing the big neon sign with the lobster and "If it swims, we have it" logo, as it was identical to a big place in Bangkok (yes, that was the one that Anthony Bourdain did his show at), and I wanted to know if it was the same. Granted, the Bangkok one is quite a tourist trap, but it's kinda fun picking out all your food and getting it cooked, and it tasted pretty good too. So I was hoping for the same in Singapore (902 East Coast Parkway, 6345-1211), but somehow I knew it couldn't be as good.
The first sign was that something was amiss was the seafood selection area, which was maybe only a third or a fourth of the size of the one in Bangkok. The second sign was that the food preparation choices were missing some that I had in Bangkok, including the butter sauce. The third sign was that the lively row of chefs cooking with huge woks and flames at the front of the Bangkok location were seemingly absent from this one, hidden away from view instead. Still, we went ahead and picked out a seabass, to be deep fried and eaten with a Thai chili sauce. This was a bummer - the chili sauce was sweet and drowned out the deep fried taste of the fish, and we ended up not eating a whole lot of it. To get some carbs, we added the Black Bean Hor Fun, which were also excessively burdened with corn starch, and used some questionable ingredients.
The veggies in garlic weren't too bad though, and the pandan chicken was decent (I love the grease glistening on it). They also vigorously refilled your tea, albeit a bit overzealously, and they took forever to get our check.
Apparently this is a joint venture with the one in Bangkok, but I prefer the Bangkok location by far. In other words, I might return to the one in Bangkok, but I'll definitely steer clear of this one. At least I was able to confirm my suspicions either way.
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