Amanda FooIf you are one of the rare few who visits Bon Goût (good taste in French) Café every day, in a year you’d still not have exhausted the menu. This is because owner Setsuko has created over 400 different dishes with the aim of producing a different special every day. It was Japanese Pork Soup Set on the day UrbanWire visited.
If you, like most of the population here, has not heard of Bon Goût Café, you have missed out on a lot. Don’t worry, you won’t be blamed, this is a secret little eatery that is almost reluctant to make itself known.
While the name aptly describes the fare served, this place is about as French as shepherd’s pie and vodka. In fact. the management team is entirely Japanese, save for one Singaporean and this keeps the Japanese expats swarming the cafe every night, which is a good sign as it shows that the food is as close to the real deal as possible.
UrbanWire tasted 3 dishes from the menu as recommended by Setsuko. While the menu is ever-changing, there’s a fan favorite that will always remain: Bon Goût Beef Curry ($10).
Most Japanese curries have the reputation of being overly sweet and not spicy enough. The one served here is different, while not immediately fiery, you start to respect the dish as a bona fide curry when the flavors arrive in their own time.
The giant cubes of beef are so generous, they impress even without any potatoes or carrots to act as filler ingredients. Instead, apples and carrots have been cooked into the dish. While the meat is tender, its own flavor is muted by the overwhelming spices. UrbanWire tried finding out what spices exactly, but the owner kept mum. If red meat doesn’t agree with you, you can also have the curry with chicken (stewed and deep-fried) or just vegetable.
Next up was the Cold Ramen with Spicy and Sour Sauce ($12). This was, as its name suggested, cold ramen served with a myriad of ingredients: tomatoes, cucumber, egg, seaweed, bean sprouts and pork. The pork is very tender and pleasantly salty.
Unfortunately, this is a dish that’s only just the sum of its parts; it’s not actually coherent as a whole. Even after mixing the ingredients together, the ramen is rather bland. The lemon imparts freshness and the sharp mustard hits you at the back of your throat, but other than that, the noodles are nothing to shout about.
Finally we sampled the Fried Chicken with Negi Sauce ($14).
The chicken is tender and crispy, it is also light despite being deep-fried. While the sauce may be a touch too salty, the rice, fluffy and sticky, balances that. The owner also insisted that the Negi Sauce needed no explaining. UrbanWire thinks that she feared the secret recipe being leaked. The set also comes with a little dish of blanched bean sprouts and peas, which makes for a good palate cleanser.
Bon Goût Café is not just a place for you to have lunch and dinner before moving on to another establishment for coffee and dessert. Because it’s also a bookstore, in fact, the first Japanese used bookstore in Singapore having started business in 1998. Stocked to the brim with Japanese books and manga, fans of Japanese culture will happily stay for the whole afternoon to browse.
Don’t worry, Setsuko will not chase you out. In fact, when UrbanWire visited, there was a patron who had fallen asleep and the wait staff were extra quiet so as not to wake the man. That, ladies and gentlemen, is customer service at its best.
For more information on Bon Goût Café, head over to www.ctv.sg to find out more.
Address:
60 Robertson Quay
#01-01 The Quayside
Telephone No.:
6723 5234
Opening Hours:
Open Daily
12nn – 10pm