06 January 2016

West Coz Cafe (West Coast Plaza)

Singaporean food January 06, 2016 0

The name 'cafe' is a little misleading: West Coz Cafe sells zichar-style food like curry fish head, oyster omelette, sambal kangkong and ma bo beancurd. But zichar by any name tastes just as sweet, and this store has a huge number of loyal customers. We walked in for lunch on Christmas day, and the joint was packed. But the kitchen and wait staf are so efficient, once you get a table, get ready to feast within 10 minutes of ordering. All of our food came in 10 minutes, and the waitress dropped by to apologize that because they are in the midst of making fresh prawn paste chicken, our order may be delayed. (But it was promptly served within the next 5 minutes.)

Curry Fish Head is their most celebrated dish. It's unapologetically rich, thick and yummy. I was thisclose to dapao-ing the curry home. (The kicker is of course, boxing up this dish costs $2.) The fish in the dish still had a lot of scales, and it's no pleasure to bite down hard on one. It's a common problem here, but other than that, no complaints.

The Prawn Paste Chicken here is the best I've had in my life, bar none. Crispy fragrant exterior with piping hot, juicy meat within.

The tomato and cucumber just get in the way of the deliciousness. If we order deep fried chicken, I don't think health is our top priority.

The Claypot Chicken sounds like stewed chicken, so I was pleasantly surprised to find that the juicy chicken thigh meat was fried to a crunch. Be sure to scoop the sauce at the bottom and drizzle it over the chicken.

Oats Prawns is a dish I'm psyched about, especially since I requested for the shells to be removed. The deep fried oats are definitely crisp enough, but they lack fragrance. Sounds silly to say for a savoury dish, but I think the oats need more sugar.

Because my sister is wary of spicy food, we had the non-offensive Hong Kong Gai Lan instead of Sambal Kangkong. It was a decent dish, but nothing note-worthy. Get the Garlic Potato Leaves instead.

The Hotplate Beancurd wasn't very spectacular either. I had a couple of spoonfuls, then pushed it away to make space for the Prawn Paste Chicken in front of me.

We paid the set menu 2 (for 4-6 pax) for $82.80, which includes all of the above, and comes with 6 drinks. Rice is not inclusive. Luckily, I had a $50 voucher from West Coast Plaza when the churros photo I submitted won their #wcpsnaps competition. Shameless brag. I told my sister that since she paid for the churros, I'd use the voucher to buy an extra big christmas present for her kids. But we ended up using the voucher here, though she didn't seem to mind... Priorities. We have them. Best Christmas lunch ever.

We had an additional Salted Vegetable Soup ($10), which was so over-poweringly salty, I could feel my tastebuds shriveling from dehydration. And all I had was a spoonful. It was so salty, we couldn't even eat the meat and vegetables from the soup. Sorry. There's no way someone could finish a bowl without developing acute kidney injury.