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Mac ‘n’ cheese is usually served on a simple plate but Mr Peh, who previously ran Legitimeat in Bukit Merah, wanted to shake things up a little to give the dish a Singaporean touch. The Cafe Menu, a western food stall situated in Sengkang West’s Happy Hawker’s coffee shop is a new venture and boy, are they upping the standards of Singapore western food.
Peh certainly knows his stuff.
The Claypot Mac ‘n’ Cheese ($5) requires a 15- minute wait. Baked upon order, the dish is served piping hot in a claypot. So hot, you could see the gooey cheese melting before your eyes.
The serving was substantial but wasn’t full to the brim. More like three-quarters filled. The macaroni was blanketed in milk, bechamel sauce, stringy mozzarella and cheddar-like nacho cheese sauce.
Like how you would eat a claypot rice, I mixed it around, tossing the small slices of chicken and macaroni around, breaking through the cheese that held them together.
The macaroni was al dente, and it wasn’t too soft. It tasted more milky than cheesy too despite the huge amount of cheese smothered on it, but that made the dish much easier to chow down and perhaps more stringy than just using pure cheesy.
The chicken, covered in the bechamel sauce too, was juicy and tender. The seasoning also gives this much-needed peppery touch to the dish to balance the creaminess.
Overall, it was a very comforting mac ‘n’ cheese despite being served in an out-of-the-box method. The mac ‘n’ cheese was indeed more moist and warmer than other mac ‘n’ cheese in Singapore due to how it was prepared.
It seems like more eateries and food places are sprouting up in Sengkang, and I would travel all the way there to eat The Cafe Menu’s claypot mac n cheese again if there’s the craving.
Expected damage: $5
