Clan Cafe Serves The Amal Clooney Of Grain Bowls

Designed by local studio Takenouchi Webb, the club’s interiors are beautifully decked in polished brass, shades of green that run from mint to moss, and tropical-colonial wood-and-rattan accents.

If this grain bowl were human, it’d be the elegant Amal Clooney — versus say, George’s waitress ex (which would be a plebeian bowl a la The Daily Cut’s). This is not your typical salmon grain bowl with cold, pre-cooked fishy slabs slapped with nondescript rice and soggy veg. A nutty, al dente blend of red rice, brown rice, koshihikari rice and quinoa is gently saturated with a tasty dashi and shoyu sauce, making it good enough to eat on its own. Slices of moist miso-marinated salmon slices are deftly pan-seared upon order, so it’s nice and toasty on the outside and just barely rare within. A couple of sweet cherry tomato halves, crunchy sugar snap peas, edamame beans, rocket leaves, pickled orange and purple carrots and lotus root kinpira make it all deliciously virtuous. Good value for the quality.

A vegetarian dish we can totally get behind. Bite-sized morsels of kale, okra, purple sweet potatoes, eggplants and shiitake mushrooms are coated in a light, crisp tempura batter and served atop mixed grains flecked with chopped kimchi. On the side is a teapot of genmaicha (Japanese green tea with brown rice) broth that has a deep, tannic flavour brightened by the sweet lilt of wolf berries. Pour in a bit of broth after you’ve polished off some rice and veg; the layers of umami and textures make for a satisfying dish.

Sliced steak in rice bowls below $20 usually means blah beef ­— this one surprised us with its yumminess. Tender, well-salted rib-eye is grilled upon order till a slightly charred, smoky coat forms around its pink interior. It comes with juicy assorted mushrooms and an oozy yolked egg, plus the same appetising grains and pickles as the salmon version. However, the beef was overcooked and slightly burnt on our second visit here. We hope it was an uncharacteristically bad day in the kitchen, ’cos we plan to order this again.

We’ve long loved the seemingly strange combination of otah and cheese, and this sandwich comes as close as it gets to how we’d make it at home — if we had the time. A wodge of spicy-enough mackerel and prawn otak (made for the café by a supplier) blanketed in aged Comte cheese is cosseted between wafers of brioche, which are buttered and fried to a crisp. It’s like the local version of the Spanish bikini sandwich. Crisp, creamy, salty, earthy and spicy — we like it a lot.

We had our rice bowl with a side of the roundly flavourful chicken and leek broth. The broth looked like any other clear soup served in a glass tea kettle, but its flavour was deep and comforting, much like a Chinese-style double-boiled chicken soup. Order this over the tomato soup, which tastes like very tart canned tomatoes.

There are a handful of thoughtfully-made salads too if you're avoiding carbs. This one, starring chicken rubbed in a slightly spicy chilli-and-turmeric marinade, is quite tasty.

Another much-Instagrammed fave that's worth the hype. A layer of delightfully smooth kaya custard redolent of fresh pandan on a perfectly compressed but still-light bed of sticky coconut milk-infused glutinous rice. It was just the right side of sweet and lemak.

Our only gripe is that the slice is way too small for its price.

A great digestive, especially if you’re downing that sinful otah sandwich. Fizzy and tart, with a hint of honey and the flavour of earl grey tea, this Kombucha (a fermented tea known for its probiotic qualities) is cool in the mouth but very warm in the belly, probably from having been fermented for a long period of time.

Clan Cafe's menu is conceived by consultant chef Jeremy Nguee and talented but underrated executive French chef David Thien (above), the latter formerly exec chef of Shelter in the Woods restaurant and the TWG chain of cafes.

Good food that feels clean and healthy, served in a beautiful space. We could eat the grain bowls here almost daily — however, no reservations are allowed and last orders for them are at 6pm.

Straits Clan, 31 Bukit Pasoh Rd, S089845. Tel: 6320-9180 (walk-ins only). Open daily except Sun, 10am-10pm. Last food orders at 6pm; 10pm for bar bites and drinks. www.straitsclan.com.