Best eats of 2024: Excellent food at Na Oh, StraitsKitchen returns, Tiger Soju’s new flavour wows
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Hwe-dupbap set meal at Na Oh.
PHOTO: NA OH
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SINGAPORE – Travel to a factory in Jurong West to dine at Na Oh, 2024’s best new restaurant, or head to Pete’s Place to indulge in its tiramisu, which is the year’s best dessert.
From Yelemon’s coriander lemon refresher to FairPrice’s Roasted Corn Cashews, these are The Straits Times’ food and drink critics’ picks for the best newcomers of 2024.
Best new restaurant – Na Oh
Charcoal-Grilled Pork Bulgogi set meal from Na Oh.
PHOTO: NA OH
Who in tarnation would go – no, travel – to a factory in Jurong West for a meal? Turns out, a lot of people.
In 2024, a year when diners deserted restaurants, a booking at Na Oh, the 40-seat Korean restaurant at Hyundai Motor Group Innovation Center Singapore, was hard to get. It entailed stalking the reservation website, planning ahead and jumping on 2pm lunch bookings.
Na Oh, which in Korean means “the journey from inside out”, opened in June. It is is a partnership between Korean-American chef Corey Lee, 47, of three-Michelin-starred Benu in San Francisco, and the South Korean car manufacturer.
Best high-end restaurant – Somma
Somma’s pig snout with lentil cracker topped with Parmigiano Vacche Rosse fondue, along with caramelised onions and black bread sauce seasoned with fried onion-flavoured breadcrumbs.
PHOTO: SOMMA
With diners tightening their belts, new fine-dining debuts were few and far between in 2024. Those that launched played it safe, offering predictable menus that failed to make a splash.
Enter Somma, the modern Italian restaurant that offers so much more than the slew of pizza and pasta eateries dishing out comfort carbs.
Best mid-priced restaurant – Choon Hoy Parlor
Choon Hoy Parlor serves homespun dishes.
ST PHOTO: GAVIN FOO
ABC Soup, Teochew Braised Duck Leg, Masala Lamb, Abacus Seeds – these are dishes your parents might cook or have cooked for you. These are things people here grew up eating, familiar things, the soul food of Singapore.
Choon Hoy Parlor, a 35-seat restaurant that opened in May, serves this sort of food. It does so in a setting that screams kitsch, but which anyone who has attended a wedding banquet in the 1970s and 1980s will flash back to.
Best cafe – Dearborn New Bahru
Try Dearborn’s potato and egg, in which a 63-degree sous vide egg is gently blanketed in potato espuma.
PHOTO: DEARBORN
Has Singapore, as a society, finally progressed past the need for eggs Benedict? Well, maybe not, but one new opening offers a tantalising taste of how brunch can be done differently.
At Dearborn’s fresh outlet at New Bahru, you will not find the lukewarm scrambled eggs, plasticky strips of smoked salmon or plates of pasta with barely perceptible flavour that terrorise diners at lesser cafes. And instead of increasingly eye-watering prices approaching $30, nothing here costs more than $17 (though portions run small).
Best comeback – StraitsKitchen
Grand Hyatt Singapore's StraitsKitchen.
PHOTO: GRAND HYATT SINGAPORE
Buffets were big in 2024, but none received a warmer reception than the return of halal-certified Grand Hyatt Singapore’s StraitsKitchen, which reopened in July.
Priced from $68++ an adult for lunch or from $78++ an adult for dinner, it remains a solid go-to for local and Asian cuisine that stands out in quality and quantity.
The chicken rice, particularly the poached chicken, is better and tastier than ever.
Best new hawker – Yoshi’s Kitchen
Co-owners Desmond Lum (left) and Herbert Bong at their stall, Yoshi’s Kitchen, which sells handmade Nonya kueh lapis and fusion-style nasi lemak rice bowls.
ST PHOTO: HEDY KHOO
Opened on March 6, hawker stall Yoshi’s Kitchen in Toa Payoh serves up traditional dishes with a modern twist: steamed kueh lapis in unusual flavours and fusion-style nasi lemak bowls.
Co-owned and run by Mr Desmond Lum, 59, and his nephew, Mr Herbert Bong, 39, the stall is named after their tabby cat, Yoshi, whose framed photos are displayed on the fridge.
The two bachelors, who do not have formal culinary training, learnt to cook after teaming up to start a takeaway shop in Ang Mo Kio in 2022. Initially, they sold factory-supplied food such as pre-packed nasi lemak, steamed bao and Nonya kueh.
Best heartland watering hole – Get Some
Mr Hendrik Kiew at Get Some's Clementi branch.
ST PHOTO: SHINTARO TAY
Beer lovers, rejoice. One no longer needs to venture out of the heartland for a taste of craft beer.
Local bar-cafe chain Get Some opened its first outlet in Clementi in 2022, and a second one in Ang Mo Kio in 2023. Its third branch opened in Guillemard Road in 2024. At all three spots, a rotating selection of craft beers – the majority of which is locally brewed – flows on tap.
The establishment is part of a growing number of heartland businesses that make it unnecessary to venture into the city centre for a fun and relaxed evening with friends.
Best restaurant dish – Manam’s House Crispy Sisig from Hayop Ni Manam
Manam's House Crispy Sisig, the star dish at new Filipino restaurant, Hayop Ni Manam
PHOTO: HAYOP NI MANAM
Sisig is never going to win any beauty contests. It is unrelentingly brown, with little bits of translucent diced onion. But this crispy platter of pig parts – pork jowl and cheek at Filipino restaurant Hayop Ni Manam – is irresistible.
The dish lives up to its name: Manam’s House Crispy Sisig ($22), arriving on a hot plate. The server stirs it and sizzling ensues. The meat is charred in parts, springy in others. Lime juice and sweet onions try valiantly to stop it from being too rich. To fully enjoy it, however, is to just surrender and relish the dish in all its crispy, piggy and lardy glory.
Best non-alcoholic drink – coriander lemon refresher from Yelemon
Yelemon's Coriander Lemon Refresher.
ST PHOTO: AZMI ATHNI
It is the food and beverage world’s best April Fool’s joke turned top seller.
Home-grown drink kiosk Yelemon’s coriander lemon refresher ($4.90) may have started out as an idea in jest, but it is now the most palatable way to consume the polarising coriander herb – whether you are a fan or not.
Chopped-up coriander, pounded by hand 10 to 15 times with green, perfumed lemons from China’s Guangdong province, then vigorously shaken with fragrant green tea is not a drink you would expect to become an instant hit.
Best alcoholic drink – Tiger Soju
Tiger Soju solidified itself as a favourite go-to beverage for casual drinking in 2024.
PHOTO: TIGER
Local beer brand Tiger Beer launched Tiger Soju – which mixes beer and soju, a grain-distilled spirit from South Korea, in a handy ready-to-drink can – in 2023.
But it was during 2024’s many heatwaves that Tiger Soju solidified itself as a favourite go-to beverage for casual drinking, especially after the newest flavour, mango, entered the fray.
Best dessert – tiramisu from Pete’s Place
Tiramisu from Pete's Place.
PHOTO: GRAND HYATT SINGAPORE
What can be said about Pete’s Place’s tiramisu that has not already been said? Shall I describe once again the sabayon base of organic egg yolks, sugar and white amaretto? Or tell of its delicate taste and creamy luxuriance?
Google reviews have dubbed it “divine”, “worth every single calorie” and – the highest possible compliment in Singaporean food terms – “must try”. For a restaurant so rooted in nostalgia, it is a triumph that Pugliese chef Salvatore Giorgio Catania, who took over the reins following the restaurant’s revamp, has crafted a recipe that holds up even under the glare of comparison.
Best bread – croissant from Ami Patisserie
The croissant from Ami Patisserie has whirls of buttery lightness enclosed in a crisp exterior.
PHOTO: AMI PATISSERIE
Restaurants have ramped up their bread game, new bakeries and cafes offering serious bread spring up all the time. But the best bread of 2024 is the croissant from Ami Patisserie in Scotts Road, which Japanese pastry chef Makoto Arami, 36, opened in January after operating as an online business.
Apart from the eight-seat Tsudoi Dining Room, where he offers a tasting menu, the place also has a 12-seat patisserie-cafe, with pastries, tarts and his signature choux puffs. His heavenly croissants ($6.80 each) are available there for dine-in or takeaway.
Best snack – FairPrice Roasted Corn Cashews
FairPrice's Roasted Corn Cashews has an intense corn flavour and is not overwhelmingly salty.
ST PHOTO: JASON QUAH
Supermarket chains have been trotting out housebrand snacks at a fast clip, knowing how often people here get the attack of the munchies.
Some of these offerings are worth the calories. Case in point: FairPrice’s Roasted Corn Cashews ($4.90 for a 100g bag). It was launched in October, together with Fried Chicken Cashews ($4.90 for a 100g bag).
Best ingredient – lion’s mane mushrooms
Bewilder Farm's lion mane mushrooms. The fungi is versatile and can be braised, stir-fried or coated with sauce.
ST PHOTO: AZMI ATHNI
Braised, stir-fried, deep-fried and coated with sweet and sour sauce, served with pasta, made into rendang – lion’s mane mushrooms, which look like snow white pom-poms, have been appearing on restaurant menus.
An online search for information on the fungi will throw up lists of health benefits. But the most compelling reasons to eat them are these: Their dense texture is satisfying to bite into; their mild flavour makes them adaptable to dishes from every cuisine; and they are grown in Singapore, so the farm-to-table journey is very short.
Best food TV show – Culinary Class Wars on Netflix
Culinary Class Wars, a South Korean cooking competition show, pitted White Spoon chefs from well-known restaurants against a scrappy group of Black Spoon chefs.
PHOTO: NETFLIX
The year saw a long menu of options: Chefs Uncut, Somebody Feed Phil 7, Chef’s Table 7, Chef’s Table: Noodles and The Great British Bake Off 15, but none as riveting as Culinary Class Wars.
The South Korean cooking competition pitted a group of 20 White Spoon chefs from well-known restaurants against a scrappy, rag-tag, sometimes chicken-suited group of 80 Black Spoon chefs.
Elimination by judges Paik Jong-won, a restaurateur and celebrity chef, and Ahn Sung-jae of three-Michelin-starred Mosu in Seoul was swift and – in the case of chef Ahn – ruthless. He expelled one contestant in the first round for not serving rice with her dish.
