WOLF is the latest F&B foray by the same folks behind The Local Coffee People. Located conveniently on the first floor of Chevron House, opposite H&M, this spiffy joint serves up a variety of lunch bowls and is also a great place to grab a coffee during your tea break.
Taking over where Bottle and Bones used to be, one can’t miss those beautiful neon signs even when it’s glaringly hot from the sun outside. I especially loved their green three-eyed Wolf signage bearing the restaurant’s name that is also featured on their Instagrammable takeaway cups.
The interior is furnished with black high tables and bar stools, complementing its industrial theme and concrete floors. This place also turns into a bar at night, making for a great place to go for after-work drinks and bar snacks.
WOLF has two separate counters, one for ordering food located on the right of the shop, and another for drinks and takeaway coffee, on the left.
We started off with the Fresh Seafood Bowl ($16.80) which featured white rice topped with an assorted of seafood sashimi and tamago. The salmon and tuna cubes were tossed in soy sauce, along with two fleshy pieces of scallop, followed by a generous amount of ebiko and ikura.
This dish, albeit featuring fresh seafood, was a little too briny for my palate, and seemed to get saltier with each bite I took. The scallops offered a mild respite from the strong flavours of the ikura and the soy sauce.
We also tried the Short Rib and Foie Gras Bowl ($23.80), which came with thinly sliced beef short rib, a small slab of seared foie gras and a lovely soft onsen egg on top of rice.
The short rib slices were slightly on the drier side, and its texture reminded me of cured meat. I appreciated the fact that the meat had a good amount of fat and chewy gristle. The piece of foie gras was smaller than what we expected and had an unusually strong gamey taste.
You can give this a miss, or go for the original version of the Short Rib Bowl ($16.80), because I think topping up $7 for that small piece of duck liver is really NOT worth the amount; definitely not the best beef short rib bowl around either.
The only dish that made the cut for us was the Salmon Mentai Bowl ($18.80). A thick piece of pan-fried salmon smothered in creamy mentaiko sauce and ebiko, with an onsen egg at the side.
The salmon was cooked to a perfect pink on the inside, and it was seriously one of the best-cooked pieces of salmon that I’ve had in a long time. It went really well with the creamy mentaiko sauce, which didn’t overpower the flavours of the salmon.
We got three of their Cold Brews ($6.50 each) in White Coffee, Black Coffee and Matcha. Each of them had their own strong, distinct flavours so I would recommend not drinking each drink one after another to avoid unpleasant aftertastes.
The Black Coffee cold brew had robust notes that reminded me of a milder version of the kind of Nanyang coffee that you can get at Toast Box or Yakun. Matcha was my overall favourite and would appeal to those who love the slight grassy bitterness of matcha powder. I loved that it wasn’t sweet at all and the milk added a nice mellowness to the drink.
I’d say WOLF’s appeal lies in its convenient location and interesting dining concept, but what a shame that the food and coffee weren’t able to live up to it.
Apart from the Salmon Mentai Bowl as it’s saving grace, all the other bowls and cold brew drinks made for an overall unimpressive and underwhelming dining experience. Considering that they are still pretty new, it seems that they still have room for improvement.
Expected Damage: $16 – 20 per pax
