10/20/12 - Holland Village

This blog is rapidly evolving, some may even say devolving, into our adventures of eating in Singapore.  I feel like I have always heard that food is what brings people together and I couldn't agree with it more after having been here for 3 1/2 months.  Restaurants or food stalls seem to be one of the first topics of conversation whenever you meet someone, especially if they are from back home.  All you have to do is mention you found a good BBQ place and you have a new best friend for life.  Next time we go to Smokey's BBQ I'll do a better job of truly capturing it, its just hard when you're enjoying beef brisket and coleslaw 10,000 miles from home.  I digress though.

We are lucky enough to live one MRT (subway) stop from Holland Village.  Its one of the original expat hangouts on the island and when you go there now its a complete mix of people.  If we need something beyond our local hawker food this is usually the first place we head, to the point that I'm probably getting close to being able to write a Top 10 list Letterman style for the restaurants in that area.

Friday night we had a craving for Mexican food..... whats more American than chips and salsa, right?  The two closest Mexican Cantinas to us are of course in Holland Village. The ironic part is they are literally right next to each other to the point they actually share a physical wall.  When you sit on the patio of one you can actually see the other one.  We aren't talking about large restaurants either, they are both about as wide as a large living room and not much deeper.  It almost seems like at one point there was just one restaurant run by two siblings who got in a fight and ended up splitting the restaurant down the middle.  No one has ever been able to confirm my conspiracy theory, but it at least seems plausible.  Its what King Solomon would have done, that's for sure.

Anyway, the winner between El Patio and Cha Cha Cha is El Patio..... and its not even close.  We did try Cha Cha Cha first, tough to turn down a restaurant that is named after a type of dance.  The next time we went to El Patio and the free chips and salsa were honestly almost enough alone to tip the scales in their favor.  It always seems to be a warning flag if a place doesn't have that.  I think what I love best about this place though is the mountain of cheese they put on everything, whether its the enchiladas or nachos.  It easily could be the Wisconsin in me that is suckered in by that, but there really is something satisfying about pulling your fork away from your dish and having an 8 inch string of cheese trail after it.  The fajitas may not have as much cheese, but a sizzling iron skillet full of grilled meat and vegetables has always made me smile.  Finally, although we've never managed to make this, they have $25 pitchers of margaritas from 2-3 everyday and then $35 from 3-6.  Big time steal here on the island.

Back to traveling next weekend.  Tales of our 1 (actually 2) Night in Bangkok are on deck.  Cue this guy....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9mwELXPGbA