tell me about it

Thanks to my trusty 8Days magazine and their beautiful food section, I’m always sharing new eating haunts with Puppy and raring to try out the less expensive ones. Recently there was coverage on Charco’s, which took over the old Botak Jones in Ang Mo Kio (which has since moved to, well, Ang Mo Kio).

After reading the rave reviews in 8Days I did a little online research of my own and came up with one amusing forum (where praisers of Charco’s were accused of being Charco spy-clones) and several mixed reviews. Being discerning diners with our own mind, Puppy and I decided to try Charco’s anyway and decide for ourselves.

Looks like Botak Jones, only with red and orange rather than blue and yellow.

The first thing I noticed was the luscious salad bar.

Photo courtesy of Darth Salacious

The salads look really good. Egg salad, potato salad, Caesar salad, Greek salad, seafood salad. They’re arrayed for your viewing pleasure right where you can see the salad boys dish ‘em out.

After all the bad reviews, I was frankly expecting Charco’s not to live up to my expectations, even though my expectations were already set very low. However, it started off very well - the counter staff girl was bright and chirpy and happy, and after working as waitstaff for a year, I can say that having a cheerful waitress makes the dining experience so much more pleasant. Even if food isn’t too good, a happy and attentive waitstaff will ease the pain considerably.

Thankfully, there wasn’t any problem with the food. Based on this blog review I chose the lamb kebabs with three salads ($6.50) while I instigated Puppy to try the Portuguese chicken, which has been the target of many an online mixed review.

Forgive crappy photo quality, I used my handphone and I don’t have Photoshop :( I’m accepting donations towards buying Adobe Creative Suite 3 for my Mac…

My lamb kebab with Greek salad, egg salad and seafood salad. The salads were amazing. The Greek salad is tart and fresh, with real feta cheese, thank God - I carted my plate back to the salad bar to request for more feta cheese as the first serving came with none. The egg salad surpassed all expectations - it’s surprisingly easy to screw up egg salad - and the egg pieces were hearty and chunky. The seafood salad looked better than it tasted; the crab stick pieces were too huge and a bit overwhelming. More prawns and maybe scallops or something would be nice. But still not too bad. The lamb kebab, however, was a surprising letdown. It tasted fine but it was a tad dry and tough. Still, I was so pleased with my salads that I hardly minded the kebab.

Puppy had the much-maligned Charco’s Portuguese chicken which came nicely charred on top and spiced up. And yunno what, it was REALLY, REALLY GOOD. I don’t know why other people said it was dry and tasteless. Maybe Charco’s has been reading their reviews online and revising their recipe? Even though Puppy and I hate breast meat, the breast meat was tender and soft and juicy and tasted absolutely divine. Botak Jones also has this ability to make breast meat taste good, but because Charco’s serves its chicken in identifiable chicken parts (BJ serves a boneless hunk of chicken fillet) my vote is gently biased towards Charco’s chicken. Not to say that BJ’s chicken isn’t good.

The fries are ho-hum. Botak Jones’ fries definitely win. Cajun spices woo! The sauces are self-dispensed - supposedly good for saving on plastic packets, but the kiasu Singaporean in me makes me take huge saucerfuls of every sauce they have, which results in a lot of…wasted sauce. Heh heh. Their BBQ sauce rocks though. Not watery in the least and nicely spiced.

Definitely going back. I think the important thing is that they’re not blatantly trying to challenge on BJ’s turf - their main selling point is their fantastic salads (though at 8pm their Caesar lettuce looked a bit wilted; shouldn’t Caesar be made fresh?) - and they definitely succeed on the meat front as well. Will be back to try other things. Plus points for their happy counter girl. I love happy staff :)

Charco’s The Flaming Chicken serves Australian fare at Blk 608 Ang Mo Kio Ave 5, next to the Esso station (not association).