This post was first posted at The Manhattan Fish Market ~ The Central, Singapore on Deliciouslogy | Wordpress.
I have not eaten at The Manhattan Fish Market before in Singapore, lest KL/Malaysia. There aren't many branches here honestly. The one branch that I do remember is in SOGO KL. And heck, how often do I got there if not for CNY shopping or leeching air-conditioning at the main doors after a long walk down Jalan Tunku Abdul Rahman cloth shopping.
In Malaysia, there are 5 branches in the Klang Valley, 5 in Selangor and 1 in Putrajaya. I will, will, will pay them a visit one day but enjoy Gwen's review for now.
The Manhattan Fish Market's location can be found here thanks to Google Maps! It's main website can be found here.
This logo belongs to its rightful owner and has been hotlinked from ifranchisesingapore.com.
I've liked fish and chips since I was young, but it wasn't till recently after a trip to San Francisco where I tried clam chowder and fish and chips that hunting down decent fish and chips in Singapore became a past-time.
So the other day, while wandering around Central contemplating lunch, I saw an outlet of Manhattan Fish Market there. My interest in the restaurant had previously been piqued by a friend's mention of their crab chowder, so ultimately, I chose to pop in there for lunch.
Maybe I have overly high expectations, but the food there in a word, would be disappointing.
I ordered their lunch set ($9.90), that came with one soup of the day, the main course and a drink, and on a whim, decided to also order one of their desserts.
Firstly, the soup of the day. The soup was Cream of Asparagus, something that I'm not too fond of. Even so, I decided to give the soup a chance, but was thoroughly disappointed to find that the soup was barely lukewarm, as if it had been left out for a few minutes. There was also squid bits in the soup, something that was not mentioned at all in the menu.
Having abandoned the endeavour to try the soup, I waited for the fish and chips to arrive, hoping with crossed fingers that it wouldn't disappoint.
When the fish and chips arrived, I was slightly cheered to find that the fish was fresh out of the pan and still steaming hot (unlike the soup). The fish fillet was quite large and pretty tasty, even though it seemed to fall apart easily when speared with a fork and the batter got quite soggy after a while because of the sauce. The fries however, fell through; they were too dry and pretty much tasted like biscuits instead of fries.
I was quite surprised to see the sauce tray having garlic and sambal chilli alongside tartar sauce. At the same time, the chilli sauce provided tasted like ketchup.
Lastly, the Tuscan Tiramisu.
I will admit that I'm not entirely sure if I was eating a cheesecake or a tiramisu.
There was more cream-cheese than coffee-soaked sponge fingers, and the layers that were coffee-soaked were too dry. Overall, it felt as if I'd had a cheesecake topped with massive amounts of cocoa powder which overpowered the lack of coffee in the tiramisu.
Overall, if given the choice, I wouldn't be going back to Manhattan Fish Market for fish and chips or otherwise, even if they still had the lunch-set meal promotion.