Boat Quay, Singapore

The restaurants ambiance was welcoming and the honey moon table attracted me walk in to the restaurant along the riverside.The service was awesome and we were treated like VIPs.Especially on the honeymoon table, we looked very special and we were like the center of attraction.Just felt like I was in India.An authentic and must go restaurant in Boat quay.This is the best Indian restaurant in Singapore I have ever tried.

Favorite Dish: My favourite dish was assorted meat platter which had tandoor chicken,chicken tikka,fish tikka,prawn tikka,seek kebab.

Boat Quay is a nice place to hang out for lunch or dinner, but recently the offering has basicelly been reduced to Indian, Thai and Seafood. The mexican restaurant is gone, among some other nice places. Good to see that another country is keeping their flag up: Korea. SU Korean Cuisine is the only Korean Restaurant at Boat Quay and offers the regular Korean dishes.

Favorite Dish: SU is not very authentic, but does serve the purpose. If you go for dishes like Hot Stone Bibimbap you can't go wrong. Price was SGD 16. They don't charge sidedishes (normal for Korean Restaurants, unusual compared to peers on Boat Quay) but they do charge Towels with SGD 0.30.

Reamnam Thai Restaurant is just another Restaurant on Boat Quay. But there are 2 things that I want to tell:

Peanuts and Towels are not free:
I really don't like Restaurants who bring you towels and peanuts and then charge these things without telling. Peanuts come at SGD 1 and Towels at SGD 0.30 each. I know, it's not much money, but it's just not nice.

Discount:
A lot of Restaurants along Boat Quay give you discount during off-peak. But make sure, that the discount appears on your bill as well! It was not the first time that I had to complain to get my 20% discount.

Favorite Dish: Food was o.k., but not outstanding.

Well, why not get caught in some tourist trap at Boat Quay? After a refreshing pint of Tiger beer at the Irish pub, we walked along the restaurants: Thai, Chinese, Indian, French, Italian, you name it, they all try to get you to enjoy their cooking. And they offer discounts or special drinks or even both if you negotiate hard enough. We sat down at an Asian local whose food was alright and the drink cold.

A must-try dish in Singapore is chilli crab. I tried mine at Jumbo Seafood Gallery at Boat Quay, a popular restaurant amongst locals and tourists (reservations recommended). There are a few Jumbo restaurants in Singapore, another one located just a short distance away at Clarke Quay. A nice accompainment with the Sri Lankan chilli crab are Chinese-style bread rolls ("man tou") served either steamed or deep-fried to mop up any remaining sauce from the chilli crab dish (not as spicy as I originally thought).

The Chilli crab dish is very popular, with many tables just ordering the dish and nothing else.

Be aware that on your bill, you will also be charged for Chinese tea, peanuts and wet towels, even when you haven't asked for them.

My partner and I went to this restaurant on Thursday 4th January '07. After a wonderfully authentic Northern Indian meal in Little India earlier in the week, we were pleased to find this place whose tag line on their outside signage reads 'Authentic Northern Indian Cuisine'. We ordered an onion bajji, a cheese bajji type dish and 2 vegetable dishes and a garlic naan bread.
What can I say. The onion and cheese dish turned up with TOMOTO KETCHUP as the dip (yuck yuck yuck) and the vegetable dishes (aubergine and daal - lentils) made a plain omelette seem tasty.
For this to be 'Authentic' is a complete falsehood. After complaining to deaf ears we had one vegetable dish taken off the bill. This still cost us $52.00 (with beer). The worst Indian meal I have ever tasted (and I have tasted a lot!) and a complete rip off that left a bad taste in our mouths - literally!

Even though I do not have any complaints about the quality of the food, I am totally unsatisfied with the service. They only serve lunch outside, no a/c, no ventilators. Fine. They did not have my first choice on the menu. Fine. They also did not have the second one, they were terribly sorry. Good. The third choice came after an hour, I had to remind twice. Then I was stupid enough to order a desert. 10 minutes to wait for the desert menu, 30 minutes for the desert itself, 20 minutes for the bill (I had to remind two more times). I did not plan to spend two and a half hours in this restaurant, I was just one day in Singapore and I could find some better investment of my time. Just do not go there.

4 more images

Royal Bell's and Lanna Thai seafood restaurants are located midway along the long stretch of bars and restaurants at Boat Quay.

All of these establishments look similar from the outside, with tables next to the river, large menu boards outside and persistent touts trying to entice people in.

I never ate at any of the restaurants at Boat Quay (the food is generally more expensive due to the riverside location and the proximity to the offices of the business district), but I did have a beer here on a couple of occasions.

Most of these places open between 11am and noon and remain empty for much of the afternoon, only coming to life after dark. This is therefore a good place to enjoy a quiet pint in the afternoon, while looking out across the river at Raffles Place or along at the skyscrapers of the CBD.

Royal Bell's and Lanna Thai has a Happy Hour from 4pm to 7pm, where a mug of Thai Chang beer costs just S$3.50 and a jug costs S$12.90 (these prices are exclusive of 10% service charge and 5% tax, but the prices are still reasonable). The beer is served in iced glasses, making it a welcome afternoon refreshment!

The atmosphere and setting are pretty informal with green plastic chairs, red tablecloths and few customers during the day. Unlike some of the bars further along Boat Quay nearer the CBD (such as The Penny Black and Harry's Bar), these restaurants don't tend to attract as many suited and booted businessmen during the lunch hour and the prices are certainly lower than in those bars frequented by the office workers!