The Canteen ~ My Kind of Fun Food!

It was the saddest thing that the Les Amis Group had to close the “old” Canteen in 2006 after a fleeting 3-year existence. It’s probably due to the fusion-confusion concept diners weren’t used to back then, or maybe Singaporeans couldn’t stomach paying $16 for a plate of Hokkien mee (but it was really good!) in a restaurant. I’ve dined there a few times and found the food to be comme ci comme ça, nothing unforgettable but it certainly wasn’t god-awful if memory serves me good.

Oh well, with the profusion of outfits and the like serving fusion food, (we are Les Amis) we can’t be losing to them. Wagyu Char Kuay Tiao (waste of the cow)…Hainanese Chicken Salad…Hmmph…

And so we reopen and call ourselves an eatery that serves fusion Pan-Asian cuisine. We dish up fun and the strangest chow like duck spring rolls, chicken consommé lamien with truffle oil *woa!*, black pepper beef spaghettini, chili crab sandwich…but oh I like!

X.O. Sauce Lo Shi Fun

Hmm…What was that mee tai mak with the $16.50 price tag doing on the menu? So I happily tucked into this humble hawker dish made very incredulous with spicy meat sauce, taukay and oh my favoritest pidan! Curiously and bizarrely undreamed of, but someway this X.O. Sauce Lo Shi Fun didn’t seem to be suffering from an identity crisis.

Spicy meat sauce with Chili nduja de Monteporo

Chef Han then amps up the heat with a secret formula that’s not actually mentioned in the menu. And that’s what exactly made this whole dish so very piquant I was literally smokin’. SoShiok! My mee tai mak tastier ritzier and a whole lot fierier coz of the addition of Chili nduja de Monte Poro. This is an extremely hot sausage made of meat, lard and the leftovers from the processing of the pork and very hot chilli pepper. It’s a soft and spicy spreadable salami, really a pork sausage from Monte Poro in Calabria, South Italy, which is stuffed with chili. It added fire and a slight sourness against the savory pork mince.

My guess was spot on, as this chili is not new to me at all. Gunther, then at Les Amis, had used this superior salami on my grilled Alaskan Crab Leg. How’s that for an added premium on this modest dish here?

很好吃!

I wolfed down the mee tai mak down so quickly like I would back in my school canteen. I’m really not greedy really! But it can’t be helped when the noodles were so slippery they all just slid down my throat effortlessly. Utterly scrumptious! But very spicy!

Red Bean Potong with coconut and sago

I don’t fancy red bean desserts but Red Bean Potong is another story altogether. :) This is a Japanese take on an old favorite, somewhat akin to a deconstructed potong ice cream. A scoop of Hokkaido Red Bean Ice cream floats on a sea of sago and chilled coconut cream ($6). How cool is this reinvention? And it’s no wonder why this azuki ice cream tasted so fragrant!

Food was delicious, confident and well thought-out. If food was so enjoyable, I like the casual ambience even more. Here at this Canteen I can enjoy my meals in the comfort of a spruce café setting and not get sweaty in the hawkers or pay exorbitant restaurant prices. Nor do I have to resort to the unscrupulous *wags finger* tissue-paper choping method. Here I get congenial service within a cool interior with delectable local fare (chic haha) to boot. Hey why not?

Sinalco – so old school!

We are not whimsically named after some orange Fruit, Salad greens or rare Herb. We are just called the humble Canteen, albeit a more sophisticated one.

So what’s cooking at the Canteen tomorrow?

Monday = Crab Mee Pok ($16.50) + Goreng Pisang Katsu ($5) = $21.50
Tuesday = Bak Kut Teh ($13.50) Laksa Udon with Tiger Prawns and Quail Egg ($13) + Elvis Peanut Butter Banana Sandwich ($5) for munchies = $18
Wednesday = hmm...better dabao food from home lol :P


The Canteen (newly opened beside Canelé Pâtisserie Chocolaterie)
1 Scotts Road
#01-01B Shaw Centre
Tel: 6738 2276
Sun-Thu: 11am-11pm
Fri, Sat: 11am-1am