Hapless execution ruins moments of brilliance

WE will come, soon enough, to Singapulah’s intriguing backstory and its manifold multisensory distractions; we will come to the richly staged retro interior, the stacked displays of purchasable larder items, and the flavours that, at their best, flare and sparkle with jolting, technicolour vividness.

- Jimi Famurewa

But, in the case of this Soho launch from Singaporean restaurateur Ellen Chew, I’m moved to begin with The Uncooperative Beef Rib Rendang.

Billed on the menu as “fork-tender”, this bone-in rendition of the hallowed Malay-Indonesian staple arrives as a fragrant, glowering mass of browns that is, in fact, so unyielding that the spoon it is pointedly presented with is useless. If you are anything like me or the poor guy on a date I saw doing the same later, your first bite is likely to be preceded by lots of impotent spoon jabbing, sauce spray and a desperate final request that one of the passing servers please, please bring you a knife.

This is a small detail. It is also not the same as saying that the rendang itself — which slices away in sweet-edged, dry-spiced shreds that are soft enough, if not quite fully collapsing into submission — is wholly unenjoyable. It is more that the fact of something not quite delivering on its advertised promise seems to strike at the heart of one of the prime frustrations at an otherwise perfectly serviceable opening.