Inle Myanmar Restaurant, a little something different

Inle Myanmar, a restaurant that located in Marina Square, specialises in Burmese cuisine. This outlet has opened in this location for some time and is their 2nd branch. Their original restaurant is located in Peninsula Plaza.

A little education here: Inle is actually a lake in Myanmar and it is nearly 100 km North to South but only 5 km wide. There are more than 200 villages on or around it, supporting a population of about 150,000. Inle’s most unusual feature is its extraordinary 'one-legged fishermen', who have developed an original, eccentric method of rowing with one leg. With the other, they balance precariously on the back of their sampans, leaving their hands free to drop their tall conical nets over passing fish, which they can spot in the shallow lake.

I was searching for something to eat and chanced upon this outlet. Burmese cuisine in Singapore is not really well trended but i decided to try it as it is something different.


Food
Gourd Fritters (S$8.90 comes as a set with Mohinga)

Presentation:
The portion of the gourd is just nice for a 1 person meal. This is a set that comes with the main course of a noodle called Mohinga. The gourd is golden brown. Inside the fried flour, is one quarter piece of the gourd, with the skin peeled off. It is presented just like a normal home cooked dish. The sauce that comes with this dish is made from tamarind.

Taste:
The gourd is covered with a huge portion of flour. The dish itself is quite tasteless and is only cripsy because of the deep fried flour surrounding the gourd. Once into the gourd, the gourd is soft while still retains a little crunch and does not have the 'green' taste since most of the skin were peeled off and it is quite sufficiently cooked. As with any gourd, there are seeds, which were not removed and although these seeds were edible, just like those from the cucumber, a few of them i find were quite hard.
When dipped with the sauce, it gives the fried gourd a mild sour and slight spicy taste. It is a definite must to eat with the sauce, else it is just a tasteless deep fried gourd.


Pork Sausage (S$6.90)

Presentation:
As with the fried gourd that was served, the dish is not really well presented. The pork sausage was cut into 7 pieces, showing the slight pinkish colour of the pork.

Taste:
The sausage meat is very dry. However the deep frying makes it very crispy and you can really hear the crispy sound of the outer crust being devastated as you crunch your way thru the piece of sliced sausage. The taste of pepper is very apparent in the pork meat although it has been marinated with other ingredients too, but they were just enough to almost nullify the porky taste. This dish is a little oily.


Mohinga (S$8.90 comes as a set with fried gourd)

Presentation:
This dish comes with quite a lot of ingredients. There were chickpeas fritters, hardboiled eggs, fish cake, radish and noodles served in fish broth. This is an all time favourite noodle dish of Myanmar and is eaten throughout the day and during festive occassions.
The ingredients were nicely laid out on the noodles, with the basil leaves giving it the extra vibrance.

Taste:
The noodles were very smooth, though some chinese would think that the noodle were too soft. The impression that i had when i was eating the noodles was that of Penang Laksa, but without the strong prawn paste smell and taste. Apart from that the fish broth also has a mixture of different spices. There were also generous portions of onions in the broth.
The chickpeas fritters when soaked in the broth makes it brittle and gives the soup an extra texture. This is a fine addition to the soup.
This noodle dish is a must try, given the sweet broth and the soft and smooth noodles.

Hsanwin Makin (S$3.00)

Presentation:
This is a sweet cake, Myanmar style, baked with semolina, sugar, butter and coconut.
It is a simple dish with only a few raisins on top of the cake. There were tiny little beans on top of the cake.

Taste:
Though this cake is baked with a mixture of coconut and butter, the typical taste and smell of the coconut is non-existent. In fact, there is a faint taste of banana mixed with coconut and this really attracts me. It is definitely a must try on this dessert, even though it is slightly oily.


Inle Service Attitude
The staff in this restaurant are Burmese and sometimes you may need to repeat your orders, especially if you speak too fast. However the staff are quite attentive and respond to you relatively quickly. Their service is overall still acceptable.

Inle Cleanliness
Overall cleanliness is acceptable. One of the staff even clean the table with disinfectant when one of the guest request their tables be cleaned up after their meal, but continue to be seated.

Ratings
Food Presentation: 2.5/5
Food Taste: 3/5 ( for the dessert and Mohinga Noodles)
Service Attitude: 3/5
Cleanliness: 3.5/5
Value for Money: 3/5

This is a good place to grab a fast bite, if you know what to order. Not all the food are nice. Even some of the recommendations didnt turn out too good. May have to try a few of the different dishes and know what is good before going in for the fast bite.

Changing Appetites

It was after my national fireworks shooting and people were trying to rush home. I wanted to avoid that so i decided to walk around Marina Square area for food. Everywhere was packed with people.

I saw this restaurant with its huge letters "Changing Appetites" and with words "The All American & Dessert Cafe". I like dessert and so decided to give it a try.

Since i am alone, i managed to get a seat very quickly.

The menu looks good and i took some time before being able to decide what i want. The choices were quite a lot with explaination on each one.
Finally, I ordered a Honey Grilled BBQ steak and a Frankenstein Mudpie, both of which were recommended on the menu.

FOOD:
Honey Grilled BBQ Steak:



Presentation:
Nice and quite appetising, there were nachos crackers, onion carrots and cucumber salad, a piece of pineapple on top of the steak, a small cup of bbq sauce and a scoop of mash potatoes.

Taste:
Lets start off with the salad. I skipped the onions as i dont like them. The carrots were hard and cold, but luckily not old, else it would have tasted even more terrible.

The steak is totally bland in taste, even with the sauce on the outer layer fails to cover the bland taste. The bbq sauce porvided did little to add to the taste.
The whole steak is full of veins and i really had a hard time cutting it even with the steak knife provided. With all these veins, I also had a hard time chewing the pieces that i put in my mouth.
The pineapple is one of the best in the whole dish.

The nanchos were those that can be bought from supermarkets, so there isnt anything special except they gave your the bbq sauce which you can dip in.

The scoop of mash potatoes has got 2 layers, the outer layer are the mashed potatoes, which the texture is neither smooth nor coarse. The inner layer contains slim slices of potatoes that gave a different texture. This is either deliberate or they didnt do a clean job. It is also lacking the faint taste of milk.

Frankenstein Mudpie:



Presentation:
The mudpie has oreo on top of the mudpie together with choc sauce dripping down from the side of the mudpie. The small choc dots on the green layer are choc chips which there are plentiful of them. The colour combination together with the dripping dark choc sauce makes it look like a frankenstein. (You will have to use a bit of imagination here).
However what i cannot tolerate is the use a (mee rebus) plastic plate for the dessert, squishing the bottom of the mudpie. Dessert deserves better presentation which can be achieved by using a simple broadbase square plate.

Taste:
The green layer is essentially full of mint flavour and the choc layer is choc ice cream. The choc chips gave a different texture to the ice cream and it is fun pick each one out to crunch on them. The choc sauce and oreo couldn't give much additional flavours to the mudpie. In the mudpie that were 2 pieces of mashmallows which has been compressed and is quite smooth and melts in the mouth.


CA's Service attitude:
CA's service is quite horrendous.

1. Firstly, I was given a discriminating face by the captain when i told him 1 pax at the entrance. Well even though i am just 1 person, i am still a paying one. That doesn't give him the right to give me that kind of face.
   
   
2. Secondly, their own staff are quite impatient to each other. One staff was passing the dish to another and told her the table number but the receiving staff couldn't hear it and asked it again. The tone and face that came out wasn't friendly and it was almost a scream. This happened right in front of me, and this kind of incident should have been kept hidden from the customer.
   
   
3. Thirdly, the moment i put my fork down after eating my dessert, the captain immediately bring me the bill and stood there waiting for me to pay up. What kind of service is this. I have not even wiped my mouth. I told him to come back later without even looking at him.
   

CA's Cleanliness:
I witness this:
One waiter accidentally dropped some clean plastic spoons on the floor. THe next moment, he picked it up and put it back into the drawer. These plastic spoons are for the jar drinks which are on the menu, so i dont think i will be ordering any of that if i were to go back.

Ratings:
Food Presentation: 2.5/5
Food Taste: 2/5
Service: 1/5
Cleanliness: 1.5/5
I am definitely not going back given the type of discriminating service and poor cleanliness. The food is also not exceptionally good. I think my money is better spend elsewhere.