Unlike Thai and Vietnamese cuisine, Singaporean food has never really caught on in Taipei. Maybe that's because the cuisine is an amalgam of Malaysian, Chinese, southern Indian, Indonesian, and Western styles - all of which are available in a multitude of varieties here.
The Merlion, a restaurant on Heping East Road directly across the street from the Technology Building (科技大樓), won't by itself change this situation. Not that it's bad. It's a decent place for lunch if you're in the neighborhood and want something a bit different, polite and attentive service, and a quiet atmosphere. But I was expecting something more.
If I had ordered one of the several fish entrees on the menu (NT$180 to NT$280), I might have formed a different opinion. That's what I saw staff eating both times I ate at the Merlion. Instead, on my first visit I chose the laksa soup noodles in a coconut curry gravy with shrimp, egg and chicken (招牌星式叻炒麵). The Merlion's version adds dougan (豆乾), or dried bean curd, and pink-and-white artificial crab meat. At NT$150 for a big bowl, it could be a lunch for one moderately hungry person. The curried coconut broth was sweet and not too spicy, the shrimp fresh and the boiled egg, surprisingly, one of the tastiest items in the mix. On the downside, there were only two shrimp, the soup was mostly broth, and the dougan and artificial crab both detracted from the flavor.
PHOTO: NOAH BUCHAN, TAIPEI TIMES
My second meal was better. I went with a friend and we shared chicken rice (雞飯, NT$20), spring rolls (春捲, NT$80), double chicken (雙拼雞肉, NT$160) and something called the Malaysian feng guang (馬來風光, NT$100), which was actually just kongxincai (空心菜). The spring rolls were unremarkable; they had a thick pastry skin, like store-bought egg rolls. But everything else was good. I recommend the double chicken, a combination Hainanese chicken (海南雞肉) and Singapore-style smoked chicken (星式燒雞). The meat - dark meat for the Singaporean chicken and white for the Hainanese - was served in two rows over sliced cucumbers, smothered in a dark soy sauce, and served with a tangy chili-and-garlic sauce for dipping. The kongxincai was crispy and not overcooked. Sliced red chili transformed this pan-Asian staple into something a bit more flavorful.
If you were wondering, the merlion is a mythical half-fish, half-lion - "mer" is Latin for "sea" - and the emblem of Singapore. The beast represents the story of the legendary Malay prince Sang Nila Utama, who thought he saw a lion while hunting on the island of Temasek, where he founded ancient Singapura, the Lion City.
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