Fifth Season, Race Course Road

After reading a positive review on City Nomads, we decided that Chinese-Tibetan-Indian fusion cuisine was something definitely worth checking out. And so we did!

Located a skip away from Little India station, this place isn't hard to find but can be easy to miss. We were the only diners in the restaurant at that time, but it quickly filled up as we were eating.

 Upon examining the menu we came to frightful realization - items here are not cheap. But was it worth the dough?

 I love to try new cuisines and while Indian and Chinese are definitely nothing new, Tangra / Tibetan did sound like it might be!

{ Steamed Vegetable Momos (5 for $9.80) }

Awarded best dish of the Year at Singapore Food Festival 2009 

 Hmm. So momos apparently were awarded the 'best dish of the year' in the SG Food Festival in '09. Honestly, if this was indeed the case, I have little faith in what that food festival was all about. Not to be mean but.. seriously? This are about $2 per pop and were simply steamed veg dumplings. The skin of the dumpling was a bit too thick / starchy for me. Was nice with the dipping chilli sauce but that's about it. For me this was waay too overrated and overpriced :( 

 While I would usually scoff at paying $1 for a regular dumpling, would this $2 per dumpling live up to its value and reputation? In its defense, flavour was not bad, a good mixture of what I assumed to be cabbage and ... stuff, and a good dollop of the spicy chilli gave it a nice kick. Filling-to-skin-ratio was also actually not too shabby. But I still felt it was overpriced, and definitely nowhere near any form of 'wow' factor I expected to receive in my mouth.

{ Tibetan Thukpa ($9.80) }

Tibetan hearty and spicy noodle soup with minced chicken

This dish came in a thimble-sized bowl. We looked at it incredulously as we fished out approximately two forkfuls of noodles and about a tablespoon of minced chicken. The situation was not helped by the fact that the flavours were nothing as what I'd expected. It was spicy and yet lacked flavour? I don't know, this was disappointing (also).

 Now the thukpa left me absolutely speechless. While contemplating about what  said about it tasting like what she used to cook as a student, I took a slurp and ... yep! Definitely plausible. The soup was a kind of ... drab, bland yet spicy concoction, that I would hardly associate with being hearty. My heart did palpitate faster as my disappointment grew, perhaps this was what it was referring to? Noodles were nice though, thin and ramen-y in texture. Chicken tasteless, and no other ingredients were found to be present besides the garnish. For $9.80 the portion and taste were underwhelming.

{ Coriander Chilli Chicken Dry ($15.30) }

Boneless chicken stir-fried in chilli coriander sauce

 Gah. I had so much hope for this, I really wanted this to be the wow factor. I have to admit this is the favourite dish for me. It was spicy. Yeah.

 [Takes keyboard] not that I have much to add - the chicken felt a little overfried, and were fried with the skin - I could barely detect the coriander's herbiness as well. It was spicey alright, but the dish itself arrived at room temperature which was odd. And again for the portion, $15.30 was overkill.

Maybe this is what tangra cuisine should taste like, unfortunately I can't comment on that. But as food being food, it was overpriced and underwhelming, and for a bill of $40 we were left unsatisfied and fending for ourselves in Komala Villas next door.

Fifth Season

28 Race Course Road

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Main website : http://fifthseason.com.sg/
HGW Link (79% recommended at time of posting) : http://www.hungrygowhere.com/singapore/fifth_season/
Rating (out of 4) :