Scruffy Muffy's rather scruffy food

The sea breeze in our hair, the smell of charcoal-crackled barbecued meats and seafood waffling through the air and the sweet carefree melody of happy laughter heard just about everywhere -sure signs that the weekend has arrived, when time stops and the whole world goes to the beach. The East Coast Park Beach, specifically.

The ECP has undergone a major revamp of late, with new restaurants popping up like mushrooms after spring rain. A new dining cluster has even sprung up at the old Big Splash. So on serendipitous, spontaneous Sat evening, Mr Cool Jim (Bean) and myself decided to play epicurean at the East Coast Beach, and settled at Scruffy Murphy's Irish Pub to kick back, relax and eat some really good food. Scuffy Murph is one of the Irish pubs under the Gaelic Inns family.

Scruffy Murphy's has the quintessential "drinking hole around your hood" kind of laid back charm. At that rather early dinner hour of 8-ish, families were the main crowd, although as the night progressed, the crowd gets more "Saturday beer buddy chill out. Scruffy Murphy's has an extensive and completely transfat-laded all-day breakfast of essentially different permutations of fry-ups. The rest of the menu while extensive, was an unexciting rendition of pub food. I decided on their chef's recommendation of fish & chips (Cream Dory in a Kilkenny Ale batter) while Mr Cool Jim (Bean), had the traditional English Sunday lunch of roast beef with Yorkshire pudding.

When me eyes first fell on the fish & chips, I knew it was over-done. The fish was not evenly fried and had patches of brown dry biscuit-like batter around it. The dory itself was fishy, fishy, fishy. It tasted as if it was bred in vile drain water. The only slight saving grace was the lovely sourish tannic malt vinegar, which I sprinkled generously to mask the bad fishy taste. The dory was velvety-textured, although that did nothing to save the dish. And the portions was not generous. For me, they have violated the cardinal rule of fish & chips - freshness. Although the fish is deep-fried in batter, that should never be an excuse to compromise on freshness. In comparison, the fish & chips I had at Sunset Grill earlier in the week beats this rendition hands and legs down.

Mr Cool Jim (Bean)'s roast beef was much more palatable. The beef was nicely flavoured, although it was too well done for my liking. The Yorkshire pudding has an interesting chewy texture, but was a tad bland and somewhat dry. It definitely fell short of my expectations, especially as traditional Yorkshire puddings are usually baked underneath a roasting rack of meat to catch the fats and render it ah-all-so-sinful. The service was good, homely and prompt, with cute waitresses in little denim shorts. Given that this is a Irish pub, where understandably, the focus is not on its food, culinary blips like these can be somewhat, with one eye half-open and the other eye closed, forgiven. Nevertheless, if I ever do go back to Scruffy Murph's again, I'll be sure to skip the food and stick to my trusty mug of ice-cold Kilkenny.

Muddy Murphy's Irish Pub

1000 East Coast Parkway, B7 Marine Cove, Tel: 6449 7717

Food - 4.9 / 10
Location & Parking - 6.5 / 10 Lots at ECP are not easy to find on weekend nights. A stake-out is usually needed
Service 6.9 / 10
Bang for the buck (value for money) - 2 out of 5 Mama Tang's thumbs up.

Nan Hwa Chong Fish-head Steamboat Corner

It all started a random Sat night when Papa Tang was driving me home after bargain-hunting (with oxygen tanks) at the IT fair few weeks back... We were on auto-pilot, traversing between the familiar Arab Street and North Bridge Road on the road home, when a hitherto unfamiliar eating house, bursting at the seams with raucous noise, at the end corner of North Bridge Road caught our eye. It turned out to be fishhead steamboat place. Papa Tang nudged me and said "wah, like very nice hor?"

So when Mama Tang wanted something simple for Part II of her birthday treat, (Part I was at the usual Heng Hwa restaurant Pu Tian, which we usually dine at for special occasions and Part III would be Dim Sum brunch @ Wah Lok for their yummy yummy yummy bo luo buns!), the lazy daughter suggested raiding Nan Hwa Chong Fish-head Steamboat Corner for some soupy fishy comfort

Even though it was a nondescript Tuesday evening, Nan Hwa Chong still packed a decent crowd of mainly families and some spillover crowd from the nearby Arab Street community. A curious walk around the eating house betrays several newspaper reviews of this fish corner, even citing it as one of the "four heavenly kings for fish-head steamboat". However, I did note the lack of the ubiquitous local celebrity endorsements, a must-have for all self-respecting purveyor of good food...

Nan Hwa Chong has an impressive fish menu (with at least 4 different types of fish (red snapper, Pprompret, garuopa and bighead carp) and a decent side menu. According to the fish-order aunty, if u like your fish slabs more meaty, an order of the garoupa would be more appropriate, while the red snaper would give more flavourful meat.

We ordered the red snapper and was greeted with a lovely hot pot of absolute delight! The plump pieces of red snapper was elegantly stewed with yummy bits of fried taro and generous slabs of soft tasty cabbage. The fish slabs (for they came attached to soft cartilage and bones) were soft and chunky and often slid off my chopsticks effortlessly. For me, the crown jewel was the absolutely flavourful and rich fish broth. As the fish soup is stewed over charcoal, it has a distinct earthy-woody-charred richness and fragrance. Slices of fried flatfish ("bian yu") infused the soup with a heavenly aroma too. Sista Tang thought the charcoal-infused broth was too strong for her liking, but I like my soups earthy and rich. But then the health-control freak in me started to insidiously wonder if the soup has heaps of MSG to render it ah-so-tasty... so I could not resist the un-PC urge to ask the stall-owner, at the end of the meal, if they use MSG. Alas, they assured me that what I've just tasted was wholesome fish essence.



We also ordered the seafood tofu, sambal belachan green vegetable with Q-Q sotong, and Yam Ring. Papa Tang liked the Q-Q Sotong; the sotong slices were interestingly sliced and had an al-dénte resistance to the bite. The sambal belachan was only average chinese-cuisine hot; nothing like the real McCoy. The seafood tofu was tasty but a tad over-fried. Nothing to shout about.


The Yam Ring was aesthetically pleasing and the chicken was nicely marinated with plump slices of capsicum. A decent rendition but I have had better Yam Rings before, so I will not exactly do a cartwheel over it.

The service was homely, but service staff seemed to have a "out of sight, out of mind" mentality. We sat at the further end of the eating house and often had to, literally attract, the attention of the service staff. But we liked the generous top-ups of fish broth, which kept the charcoal over the steamboat crackling happily.

As Papa Tang is the de-facto barometer of good hearty food in our family, the fact that he gobbled up the fish slices in glee indicates that this was a "yummy-enough" fishy corner to go back again!

Interesting after-dinner banter - Mama Tang sighted another Nan Hwa Chong fishhead steamboat literally across the road and wondered why aloud. Papa Tang blasé-ly informed his wife that the Nan Hwa Chong across the road was opened by the owner and his Chinese mistress, while the Nan Hwa Chong we ate at was opened by the owner and his original Singaporean wife. My first thought - "wah, open new resturant with mistress, also don't choose across the road mah... so inconsiderate husband behaviour..."

Nan Hwa Chong Fish-head Steamboat Corner

No. 814/816 North Bridge Road, S 198779 Tel: 6297 9319

Opposite Jalan Sultan Textile Centre and and OCBC Branch Corner Shop House

Food - 7.0 / 10

Location & Parking - Plenty of legal and illegal lots around and centralised enough 7.8 / 10

Service 5.5 / 10

Bang for the buck (value for money) - 3 out of 5 Mama Tang's thumbs up.