9 One-Dish Meals To Check Out

The Hawaiian poke bowl (rice topped with cubed raw fish) trend is well and alive here. Four types of salmon and tuna are available here, like Spicy Mayo Salmon. It's a build-your-own-bowl concept here, so we choose lemon herb quinoa (out of four healthy bases including brown rice), before the staff drapes a blanket of salmon cubes tossed in a miso avocado sauce on top. And then you can pick as many of the nine available toppings as you want (such as flying fish roe). What's special here: the premium toppings like Kalua Pork (juicy Hawaiian-style oven-roasted pulled pork marinated with salt and liquid smoke, add $2).

A Poke Theory, 27 Boon Tat St, S069623. www.apoketheory.com

Think Spanish-inflected grain bowls at this new 60-seat casual diner at Golden Shoe building, modelled after the colourful markets in Spain. Mercado's co-owner is Italian-Spanish chef Jean-Phillippe `JP' Patruno, 45, who also runs the nose-to-tail restaurant Dehesa nearby. He splits his time between the two restaurants, and cooks the paella at Mercado "most of the time". There are five types of pre-fixed `Hola Bowls' here, such as a sadly unmemorable Cerdo Bowl ($14.50), which comes with braised pulled pork shoulder with roasted celeriac on brown rice. Create your own bowl instead (with two sides, a topping and sauce), and get chef JP's skillfully-made, flavourful paella crammed with fresh seafood, chicken and sliced chorizo sausages. The Roasted Pork Belly was tender, but we found the thick and tough rind of fat circling the meat a tad disconcerting.

Mercado Spanish Food Market, #01-23, 50 Market St, S048940. Tel: 6532-2155. www.facebook.com/Mercado-1232859160092717

Opened by the folks behind the Cedele Group, Chiak (Hokkien for `eat') is tucked away in an obscure corner in a Mapletree commercial building. Pity, 'cos the food here is an interesting marriage of Asian and Western cuisines. The 50-seat diner serves local grub with a slightly healthy twist, like a Char Siew Salad ($11.80) with sliced pork marinated in sugar, dark soy sauce and fish sauce, on a bed of fresh greens. This bright yellow Pumpkin Porridge, available all day, is the result of blending pumpkin with rice porridge, so it's sweeter and richer than the light, silky blend we're used to. But it's no less delish.

Chiak, #02-37, Mapletree Business City, 40 Pasir Panjang Rd, S117383. Tel: 6358-2313. www.chiak.sg

`Katto' is Japlish for `cut', and all the ingredients here are cut into bite-sized pieces. It specialises in "modern chirashi bowls", with raw fish dressed in sauces like Chicken Rice Chilli. You can build your own `Katto Meal' here. Choose from white or brown rice, two types of fish and two veggie sides. Sadly, we didn't much fancy our insipid Ginger Shoyu Tuna (top left in pic) and Mushrooms pickled in mirin and ginger (bottom left). But the piquant chicken rice chilli (bottom right, made in-house with chillies, garlic, ginger and lime) coating tender salmon cubes fared much better.

Katto, #01-21 Galaxis Building, 1 Fusionopolis Place, S138522. www.facebook.com/kattosingapore

The Peranakan-style number stars springy bee hoon stir-fried in a fragrant house-made rempah (spice blend) to order, so the strands are kissed with chilli, dried shrimp and other delicious things. Three fresh, fat prawns, fried beancurd cubes and half a hard-boiled egg join the party of flavours. Pro tip: ask for extra gravy on the side as it kicks up the savoury, tangy and spicy flavours a notch. The cheery 70-seater offersjust five types of local noodles with a slightly modern twist.

Now Noodles +, #02-65 Square 2, 10 Sinaran Dr, S307506. Tel: 6251-0177.

We are rarely convinced that a salad makes a satisfying enough meal on its own. But this one, which has succulent poached king prawns on a bed of veggies and grapefruit spiked with a bracing yuzu sesame dressing, is almost as filling as a grain bowl. But we say skip the Korean Chicken Bowl ($18.90), a grain dish with sous vide chicken breast tossed in a kimchi soy dressing that was unfortunately too dry. The nosh here is cooked upon order, and salad dressings are house-made.

Sprout Salad Bar, 41 Duxton Rd, S089505. Tel: 6221-1227. www.facebook.com/eatatsprout

5.Mixed Tendon, $14.90

The latest tendon (tempura on rice) offering from this new casual joint by local food company Ministry of Food. There are only three types of tendon available at this no-frills open concept space. The Mixed Tendon bowl comes with nine pieces of mostly seafood tempura like prawn, dory fish, and also mushroom, eggplant and an oozy egg, all coated in Japanese rice flour batter before being deep-fried. The batter is not as crispy as we'd have liked, even when we ate it freshly fried. But the tempura is still yummy with its sweet soy-based dressing (we particularly like the springy prawns and mushroom), and goes well with the fluffy short grain Japanese rice at the bottom of the bowl.

Tensho, #B1-20 The Centrepoint, 176 Orchard Rd, S238843. Tel: 6733-0449.

Doodles is a takeaway joint which offers mod `cai png', but with noodles. Just choose your favourite bites from 27 types of ingredients. The staff will pack your picks in a neat re-sealable plastic ziplock bag, which features a cute cartoon dinosaur with a transparent tummy (so you can see the contents). Toss and eat at leisure later with a pair of chopsticks. Yes, it's like the popular Hongkong noodle street snack `lo lo', where your choice ingredients are tossed into a scrummy pile with garlic in a plastic bag. While its HK counterpart sells common nibbles like sausages and crab sticks, Doodles offers more atas picks like yummy baby octopuses coated in a sweet-spicy sauce, which goes well with our choice of kimchi, mushrooms and al-dente angel hair pasta coated with chopped raw garlic. There are four sets you can order, including the mixed Omnivore Set with two portions of veggies and one helping of meat.

Doodles, #B1-111 Tiong Bahru Plaza, 302 Tiong Bahru Rd, S168732. Tel: 6702-4311. www.facebook.com/doodles.sg

(This story first appeared on Issue #1362, Nov 21, 2016)