Everyone has, at some point, wanted their mothers and grandmothers to open a restaurant. This restaurant would serve the same dishes we would see on our dining tables - Singaporean mee siam and pound cake would be on the menu at mine, but that’s a story for another day! Imagine the pride we’d feel when we see old and new friends enjoying the stuff that have nourished us for years. Co-founder Michelle Pong’s family did just that and to great success.
Fat Spoon is located in Uptown, Damansara Utama, an oasis of calm in a terrifying nightmare of parking. Its quirkiness is immediately apparent upon sight of the outdoor seating area: mismatched chairs and tables, teal sunshade, and fat spoons (!) for door handles. It gets even better indoors, with its brick walls, giant chalkboard menu and wallpapers made out of pages of old comics.
My lunch buddy and I took a seat by the big glass window and perused their cute little menus made with old Peter & Jane Ladybird books. Friendly chatter buzzed around us as we waited for our food, and we were both quiet, finally relaxing in the coziness of it all (We’re told that service slows down quite a bit during peak lunch hours, plan accordingly!) There’s a rack of clothing off the side full of vintage fun, hinting at Michelle’s passion for clothes.
Drinks arrive first. The freshly squeezed orange juice was served in a mini glass milk bottle. Super tangy - a sign that it wasn’t poured from a carton. The ice blended lychee and mint was extremely refreshing, perfect as my first proper drink of the day. Prawn fritters arrived next. Usually savory fritters like these are lumps of fried dough with minuscule amounts of meat in them. These, however, barely had any batter, only enough to hold together little piles of fresh prawns. We crunched these loudly in our mouths, heads, tails and all. Delicious!
"Quirky decor and good food!"
Since we were feeling slightly under the weather, we had spicy beef macaroni soup and claypot lou shee fun, a speciality of the chef’s. The macaroni soup was brilliantly tasty; tender slices of beef swimming in a not-overly-spicy broth, with a dollop of wakame-like vegetables on top. Swirled together with the elbow macaroni, it was a great combo of tastes and textures. The claypot lou shee fun was of the slightly soupy variety, with the customary egg broken over the top for you to mix in yourself. Very subtly spiced, it was hot and comforting, lifting us out from under the weather. Definitely recommended.
For dessert, we ordered their now-famous hot chocolate. Available in several sizes and varieties (affogato hot chocolate, anyone?), it is an incredibly intense chocolatey dream. The foam is so thick you can eat it with a spoon, and the chocolate barely settles at the bottom of the mug like many other hot chocolates. We polished it off in record time, barely saying a word to each other as we ignored the heat of the drinks, guzzling away.
A little nyonya, a little Chinese, a little Western, Fat Spoon serves up good bang for your buck when you want something different for a special meal out with your family and friends. If we had to gripe about anything, it would be that they were a little too generous with the macaroni and lou shee fun in the bowls. But that just means it’s great for a big hearty dinner! You really feel like part of Michelle’s family here, even if for just a mealtime. Next time, we’re trying out the fried rice...
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Quirky and cool!
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