When I moved to Asia I knew I was going to be giving up a few things. One of those things was easy access to cow meat. Singapore doesn’t have much in the way of cheap beef, or reasonably priced steaks. Or, so I thought.
During my first visit to Singapore in March of 2008 I saw that a typical diet here consists of mostly chicken, pork, or fish and rice or noodles with a small portion of some green leafy vegetable. Soups containing those ingredients are also popular. That’s pretty much all I’ve eaten for the last year as well. Not that I’m complaining! A lot of those dishes are delicious! But, I had a craving for something a bit more solid than that, and the last time I had a good amount of beef was on my birthday in the Philippines in March of this year. Even then it wasn’t a steak dinner as most Americans would envision it.
I had resigned myself to the belief that I would only have a good steak dinner when I was back in the US, so I wasn’t actively looking around for good deals. I didn’t want to break my budget to get something I can easily do without.
When my wife and I first agreed to rent our current place in Pasir Ris, the agent that located the property for us gave us a short tour of the area. Well, actually we went on an hour long walk around a good portion of the neighborhood but it was so exciting that we hardly noticed the distance we covered until we looked at it on a map later.
During this walk, we passed a small shop that was part of a hawker area. It’s called ‘Amigos; Western Food’ and doesn’t have a very impressive exterior, but the agent went into detail about how good the food they serve is. I smiled and nodded, but I wasn’t really convinced, and wasn’t in any hurry to try it. A few days ago I had an interesting conversation with a guy from Egypt, who also had nothing but good things to say about the place.
Last night, my wife and I finally got around to checking it out. Good thing the place is open late, because we didn’t make it over there until about 1am! I think we were the only customers there. We took a look at the menu, and I was surprised to see that there was a steak available for only 13.90, so I ordered it. My wife got a plate of lamb chops, which was also reasonably priced at about 9 dollars or so. Still, it was cheap, so I wasn’t expecting much. I certainly wasn’t expecting something that looked better than the picture on the menu. That’s sort of a joke, where what you order rarely looks as tasty as the picture. This time, the opposite was true, and we were more than pleasantly surprised to find such great looking dishes at a hawker stall.
The lamb chops.
The steak.
So, I suppose the real question is, how did it taste? That was the second surprise. The stuff was better than great! It was fantastic! In anticipation of a potential fail whale, we asked for Tabasco sauce, but we wound up not needing it. As you can see from the pictures above, both dishes came with a sauce. Each had a distinct taste that seemed appropriate to the meat. The potato wedges were also fantastic and the veggies used for the small salad were crisp and fresh. As for the meat, it was tender and had just the right amount of fat on it. My steak was a little undercooked, but it had been so long since I’d had a good steak dinner, and it tasted so good, that I didn’t care. I gobbled the whole thing down, then cleared the rest of the plate, and was very satisfied. My wife and I traded bites of lamb for steak, and her lamb was just as good.
If anyone’s looking for a reasonably priced place to get a great steak or set of lamb chops, this is definitely the place to go!
Bradley Farless 
I think they stay open until about 2 or 2:30 am. Most of the restaurants in that area are open all night, or until really late.
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Well, I think a good way of getting new readers is to leave good comments on other blogs. Comments that let the author know you actually read and thought about what they wrote. That could potentially bring that blog's author, and some of the commenters on that blog, to your site as well. From there though, whether or not they stay depends on your blog's content.
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Thanks for the compliments, but I'm not sure this blog gets enough hits every day to warrant free meals or payments. Maybe sometime in the future! For now though, I'm only averaging about 100 hits per day. Not much, but not bad for a hobby blog either.
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That IS a generous-looking meal and I'm glad for you (both) that your orders ended up more than what you'd generally expect. One in the morning you say? How late do these places stay open??
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Well… I did same as you did. And I actually found you on theinternetisterrible 🙂 it's so easy to comment there, but these people who then come to my blog from there, don't become regular readers, because my blog is different than Raisins' blog. Anyway, I'm doing same. If I find a nice blog, I tend to return and comment. And it gradually increases my hits and comments. I started same as you. And now it's a bit better. But it's also because of the huge amounts of our posts. We wrote like 200+ posts and many people can now google us. our blog is like a virus, haha. It's getting bigger and bigger, it'll become a pandemic 🙂 Great you like this layout, white and simplistic. That's the most important that you like it. I like the arrow, you can't miss it, hehe. Great that you'll add a link bar and some nice photo. KL has a beautiful skyline. I'm sure you'll snap some nice images. When I was there, I made like 200 photos of the Petronas Twin towers. So far, standing under these tall towers was the only building that gave me goose bumps. It's impressive, not only the height, but also the architecture. It's a perfect building. Anyway, you'll see that for yourself.Recent comments was very good on your site, yea. I'm sure it'll blend in nicely. Let's see how things go. 🙂
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I checked again.. maybe I have 50 hits per day.. sometimes is more, sometimes less… 100 is not bad 🙂 I'm sure you'll grow faster than me, but I'm happy for you. If you grow, I grow, too 🙂 I'm your top commentator ^^
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@L., shall see who's his no 1 fan 😛 The competition is on… Kidding.@Tales, well, 100hits per day, that's my average, too 🙂 But still better than 10 hits, right? It did increase in the last 2 months and it'll rise, for both of us. I made some changes. I'm now having more provocative titles (so that the ZRL also has the same words in it) and if it's not provocative, it tend to be descriptive. Instead of 'Oh steak!How I missed you' I'd write something like: “Best steak in the world is in Singapore” or “Amigos, Western food, Singapore”… something catchy that people may google. That's how I write titles lately, even if it's exaggerated. Aside from that, this template is plain compared to your old one. I know you changed it because your friend had problems, but I never had problems and it looked really modern and professional. Well, everyone has it's own ideas about the blog, so don't think I want to lecture you or anything. Just give u my opinion on the blog design. 🙂 I also like the concept of linkbar and I'd have the links to Philippines Travelogue and Hawker reviews in the link bar and even some other series in the future. As u see, I'm making use of my link bar to the fullest and I see on Feedjit many people click on those links. I think the top of the blog is more important than the sidebars, cuz u focus on top first, before u scroll down. And a nice catchy picture (even if it's big like mine) is something that makes the reader curious. It has to have some connection with you, of course, or the content of your blog. I wouldnt say it's a distraction, I'd say it's something that people remember. Think for example those blogs with small or no header pic, they don't seem very inviting. So, to increase the hits, one needs a good template, layout, header photo and catchy titles (my humble opinion). But to have regular followers, you need to haver interesting stories to tell. When I sometimes go from blog to blog, I sometimes only stay few seconds and leave. Why is that? Becausde it doesn't look appealing to me. I'm a neat freak. So if it's too messy, i'm turned off. If it's too plain, I also don't stay too long. Really hard to speak in general. That's only applying to me. I don't know how do you see all that and would be interesting to hear your opinion on that. I'm also not fully happy with my blog layout and few days ago I wanted to change colors, but it looked even worse… So, I'll kee pit like it is for now. First thing I'll do is change my header photo… The rest I don't know… shall see 🙂 Anyway, what i miss also is recent comments 🙂 That was a nice thing to check where's some new buzz on your blog. But that's good for followers yet bad for the SEO, i heard. I don't know… Anyway, sorry for my long ramblings… Wish you good luck and hope our blogs evolve and continue to grow 🙂
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yes he is good isnt he? i keep telling him that. one day he will be famous and he will have to thank you and me because we are his inspiration. hahaha. im his number 1 fan.
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I tell you if you don't send an email to the boss of Amigos, I'll do it! You write the best reviews, they should treat you some steaks for free 😛 You should promote it on your blog more visibly, maybe you could really turn a buck, ask some of these places if they wanna put an ad on your blog and at least give you some free meals 🙂 Then you need a new skin for your blog, more colorful with a nice header photo. No, seriously. These reviews are great and you should get some credit for it.
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