Siam Square Mookata (Review)
It’s date night and thank God for precious date nights after marriage. My parents offered to take care of the toddler while we enjoyed a semblance of time together when we were dating. Thank God for understanding parents.
And as my aunty told me before so wisely, “don’t waste time watching movies when you date.. Go have a meal..” she advised. Those were words worth its weight in gold. The simple reasoning behind those words were, you can’t get to know and understand each other if you don’t communicate. Conversations over a good meal are way better than watching a movie.
So we decided to have Thai BBQ for dinner as we could better afford the time and what better place than to try out Thai Mookata Steamboat and BBQ (in a nutshell it is BBQ meats, seafoods and vegetables on a rather unique looking hotplate with soup combination). I did a search and realised that there was only one outlet in Singapore. It was at East Coast Road and kind of out of the way.
Also I knew it can’t be true as I was sure there were plenty more of these Thai BBQ places around, most notably the ones located all over Golden Mile Complex. So I did another search but this time more ambiguous and that result yielded more than 50 weblinks of Thai BBQ places in Singapore. Nice.
Plus my friend told me that there was a tiny stall at a coffee shop located at Block 332 Ang Mo Kio Ave 8 (just behind Christ The King Catholic Church). Siam Square Mookata was the name of that stall and it seems the reviews of the place are that they were “cheap and good”.
That sounded good with us and off we went. I remembered there was a time almost all of our construction was completed by Thai foreign workers. And that just makes sense that Thai food places begun springing up all over the island to cater to their tastes and needs and over time everyone loves Thai foods as well.
It was just a tiny little stall space in a coffee shop and their BBQ plates of ingredients were reasonably priced at either $1.80, $2.80 or greater as you order the more premium stuff like scallops ($3.80).
They have a rather interesting price menu where they offer ala carte prices first and if you feel at any one time you would wanna go all out at the buffet, you can change to buffet price (about $29 per person). Of course the caveat is you can only switch to buffet price if you are still ordering another round of items and not when you are paying up. But the stall people are very nice about it, they will frequently ask if we wanted to convert to buffet. Such nice people, always thinking for their customers.
Apart from that, the freshness of the ingredients was undeniably good, and for what it’s worth, the entire experience was very nice. They offered both marinated and meats without marinate, but I preferred them plain without the sauces. They taste much nicer after BBQ-ing. Plus it wasn’t crowded even at dinner time, so that was an added bonus. I always love these quaint coffee shop places that are located next to a big spacious carpark, it just gives me a feeling of comfort and I am naturally at ease.
Conclusion
So would I go again? Maybe, if I lived nearer. They didn’t offer anything very special, and in the end we almost ordered the equivalent of their buffet price. But still a very nice experience.