Fusion Western: S$8.50 Salted Egg Crispy Chicken & More Affordable Astons-Like Western Dishes Hidden At Sembawang

Typically, I’m the one introducing food lobangs to my friends, so when I asked whether I could do a review on Fusion Western, I was taken by surprise when my video intern beat me to it and said, “Oh! I know that place. I love it!”

We dropped by its Sembawang outlet for dinner one day and I was mildly amused when my video intern started gushing about how he remembered this place from his army days. “We’d order Fusion Western all the time because our camp is pretty ulu and not many places deliver to us, and man, the Mexican Grill Chicken Chop is great,” he said.

Fusion Western has two outlets—one at Clementi and another at Sembawang—and apparently it’s a well-kept secret by army boys whose camps are in the vicinity.

It offers a wide variety of Western dishes, such as chicken, beef, lamb, seafood, pasta, mixed grill, and burger dishes. Plus, its main dishes come with two sides, just like Astons. It’s halal-certified as well.

Its Sembawang outlet is located within Foodfare, which is at Blk 361 Sembawang Crescent. It’s a 10-minute walk from Sembawang MRT, but there’s also a couple of buses that drop you right outside the kopitiam.

It shares the space with other typical kopitiam stalls, like cai fan, fishball noodles, roasted meats, vegetarian dishes, and more.

The minute I laid eyes on the Salted Egg Crispy Chicken (S$8.50), I immediately went, “Wow.” Just look at how big that slab of fried chicken is, as well as its glistening salted egg yolk sauce!

For this dish, we chose to pair it with French Fries and Potato Salad. You can also opt for salted egg yolk sauce on the side.

Its salted egg yolk sauce was so good that I actually went back to the stall to ask for an extra cup. I mean, when things taste this good, we need to be a bit more buay paiseh (not be embarrassed; thick-skinned) right?

It was runny, creamy, thick, and rich—just like melted butter. I loved that it was authentically sandy and gritty with just a tinge of spice from the sliced chilli padi. That was when I could tell that the stall had made its salted egg yolk from scratch and not from power or paste.

The chicken cutlet was really, really huge. Though some parts were just pure crust (which reminded me of crispy chicken or salmon skin), the parts that actually had some chicken meat were really juicy and springy.

I wouldn’t say it’s the best chicken cutlet I’ve ever had, but it was certainly indulgent and comforting, something you’d want to reward yourself with after a tiring day at work or school.

The French Fries were pretty nondescript, but I really loved the Potato Salad.

There weren’t any vegetables in the Potato Salad, so to be frank, I was a little confused about where the “salad” was in the “Potato Salad“, but the potatoes were cooked just right—it was firm on the outside but the minute I sank my teeth into each cube, it broke apart really gently, and the insides were creamy and soft.

Personally, whenever I do a review of a Western hawker stall, I find it a must to order the Black Pepper Beef Steak (S$11.80). It’s a classic Western dish but it’s super tricky to get right.

It came slathered with a thick black pepper sauce. As for side dishes, we picked Onion Rings and Cheese Pasta.

The beef itself was a little disappointing. They didn’t ask for my preferred doneness and the beef was cooked through and through, but its saving grace would definitely have to be that it wasn’t tough or stringy. In fact, I didn’t have trouble cutting through or biting the beef at all.

The black pepper sauce, however, was surprisingly piquant and delicious. I could taste strong hints of rosemary, a woody and zesty spiciness from the black pepper, as well as an underlying sweetness from what I guess must have been from the beef juices.

If I mention Cheese Pasta, I’m sure something like macaroni and cheese would pop into your mind—the cheese would be bright orange, like nacho cheese. However, Fusion Western’s cheese pasta came in a dubious white sauce that didn’t look like cheese at all.

Hesitantly, I took a little bite and was surprised to find out that it was a garlic and cream cheese sauce! I would’ve liked it to be a little more creamy and rich, but as it stood, the Cheese Pasta was deceptively addictive and appetising.

I also got the Grilled Fish w/ Garlic Sauce (S$7.20) at my video intern’s recommendation and asked for Coleslaw and Mashed Potatoes for my side dishes.

Fusion Western used dory fish for its grilled fish, which was a huge thumbs up for me because dory tends to be softer, juicier, and more tender.

This was the exact case with its Grilled Fish w/ Garlic Sauce—it was so tender that some might even say it’s too soft. I even had problems picking a whole piece up for a photo because it kept breaking up into tinier pieces!

Despite that, the fragrant roasted garlic sauce complemented the natural briny sweetness from the grilled dory really well, and my video intern and I ended up polishing off this entire plate of grilled dory first.

You know how there are some Western stalls out there that you find yourself gravitating towards because of its large value-for-money portions and its addictively comforting dishes? Fusion Western was like that for me.

In some ways, it reminded me of Astons because of how its mains are cooked, plus the fact that there are two side dishes for each mains. I’d even go so far as to say that Fusion Western is better than Astons because of how much bigger its portions are.

Plus, that Salted Egg Crispy Chicken… Mmmm. Just thinking about it makes me want to eat it again.

Expected Damage: S$7 – S$12 per pax