Big Street

So SH has been meaning to bring me to Big Street because he read really good reviews about this place. On Resurrection Sunday (otherwise known as Easter Sunday to the greater population), he decided to bring me there after Sunday service because it coincided with our 20th. I don't know why I just didn't have very high hopes for the place and thankfully I didn't because it was nothing I expected it to be.

It was nestled at the corner of a row of shop houses just along Jalan Besar and the cafe looked pretty decent from the outside with industrial-feel lighting, white walls and wooden furniture - my favourite kind of cafe decor if I were to be honest.

The first thing that truly shocked me was the prices in the menu. When I flipped the menu opened, I was some what prepared to see your typical cafe food. Bearing in mind that I didn't do any prior research to coming here, I was pretty dismayed to realise that they basically sold your typically hawker center food, just nearly 300% more expensive.

I would be pretty appalled to pay $4 for Hainanese chicken rice at any hawker center but they sold that for $10. Hokkien mee costed $16, Nasi Briyani with chicken was $10. They even sold roti prata, at $3 for 2 pieces of plain prata or $2.50 for an egg prata. Say what?! The prices were breathtakingly expensive and I wanted to walk right out of the place but SH asked me not to. This prices are like black market prices for normal hawker food if you ask me. It doesn't matter if the hokkien mee comes with "jumbo prawns", I don't even eat prawns.

The ice teh tarik was pretty decent and strong and it wasn't diluted at all which was great. But I wouldn't pay $4 for this on it's own. Would you?

Ice Teh Tarik (came with my prata set)

The ice berry sensational was... for lack of a better word, interesting. I didn't like it one bit and I actually think it wasn't meant to be drank with sugar syrup but SH didn't like it at all so he requested for sugar syrup and he managed to finish it so I would assume that it tasted a lot better with sugar in it.

Ice berry sensation dashed with lime & mint ($5)

This was probably the only redeeming factor to this place was this dish, the chunky crab meat prata wrap. There was a whole lot of crab meat in this prata wrap and according to SH (I don't eat crab), he said that there wasn't bits of shell inside the meat. Apparently it is hard to deshell crab without getting bits of the shell inside the meat? I don't know because I don't eat seafood but I would assume that $12 for deshelled crab meat is pretty darn reasonably.

Chunky crab meat in garlic chilli sauce ($12)

My dish was basically prata with chicken thigh in the curry. Now I didn't like how the phased it on the menu at all, it was massively misleading and I believe any one would have the same misconception as I did. 

On the menu, this was the description: Plain prata, (2 pcs) egg prata, curry chicken thigh, teh or kopi tarik.

This was what I assumed it would be, 1 piece of plain prata, 2 pieces of egg prata with curry chicken thigh and either coffee or tea. OR. If you give them the benefit of the doubt that they may have accidentally placed the comma in the wrong place, then 2 pieces of plain prata, 1 piece of egg prata and the rest.

OH NO. None of the above by the way. They meant that for $9 you only got 2 pieces of plain prata. If you wanted egg prata, you had to add on $1 per piece of plain prata that you wanted to change to egg prata. Say what? Some one needs to vet the menu before sending it to print because it is totally misleading in what the price offered. I snapped a picture of the menu for reference.

The prata was your normal coffee shop prata, maybe a tad less oily, but the curry was pretty good. Even then, $9 is a very steep price to pay for this dish.

Chicken ($9)

Plain prata, curry chicken thigh, teh or kopi tarik

Big Street

Address:

| 104-106 Jalan Besar, Singapore 208828 |

I will have to say though that staff were really helpful and polite (but they only spoke mandarin and I'm not the strongest speaker in that language), and the ambience was really good probably because there was only 2 other tables that were occupied when we reached so we basically had the place to ourselves. I only wished that they didn't play mandarin songs there but then again, I am biased because I prefer English songs over mandarin ones. 

I feel that if the prices were lowered by maybe 20-30%, or the food selection was more impressive than just food I can find easily at any hawker centre, I MAY come back again. But despite the great service and decent ambience, I'm sorry to say that I will not be visiting this place again.