Located in the same coffee shop as the popular Rong Ji Zi Char in Northstar building, Steam & Grill is an upcoming and rising new seafood concept kitchen that wants to bring the best seafood to your mouth. I am quite a seafood lover and since Northstar is within walking distance from my house, I decided to make a trip down.
Getting to Steam & Grill
Address: 7030 Ang Mo Kio Avenue 5, #01-30, Northstar Building Singapore
Steam & Grill will be serving their dinner concept every Tuesday to Sunday from 6PM to 10:30PM. I visited on a Saturday night. Before visiting, it is required to make a reservation in advance so that the team can prepare the steamboat broth in advance. Walk-ins are limited and customers will only be served subject to availability of the broth.
Here is the menu for their dinner concept. It’s a disappointment for me that only the seafood in a pot is available. I understand from the staff that grilling section will not be operating till they resolve their manpower shortage issue. Nevertheless, we decided on a Combo 3 ($64) with a few others ala carte items.
The main difference between the $64 combo as compared to $128 combo is that half lobster is served instead. Like most steamboat places, Steam & Grill provides a gas powered steamboat cooker.
We are served our utensils and plates shortly after making the order. Like most steamboat places, Steam & Grill provides a gas powered steamboat cooker.
After around 15 minutes of waiting, our seafood pot is finally ready! I do recommend to keep the steamboat lid closed until the broth started boiling.
In the broth you can find boston lobsters, flower crabs, crayfishes, scallops, prawns, mussels, white clams, pomfret, squid & dory fish. To be frank, I find the broth quite bland and not as rich that I thought it will be. I actually expect the broth to taste as rich as the Sumo Big Prawn‘s one.
Seafood In The Pot Combo 3 – $64
Below are some other ala-carte items we ordered. For the a la carte items, the veggies is priced at $3.00 or $5.00 each and the meat is priced at $5.00 or $8.00 each. See the menu above for the pricing. I would say that the ala-carte items are pretty normal. It will be better if Steam & Grill can offer some unique dishes though. This is considering that they are positioning themselves as a brand new seafood concept kitchen.
Fuzhou Pork Balls
The staff told me that the Fuzhou pork ball is one of their most popular item here. Basically, it is pork inside a pork ball.
Chicken Fillet
Luncheon Meat
Chinese Cabbage
Maggie Mee
Tang Hoon
Local Lettuce
Quail Eggs
Our total bill is around $100+ at around $25 per pax.
- Quality of Food - 6/106/10
- Customer Service - 6/106/10
- Value for Money - 6/106/10
- Atmosphere - 5/105/10
Summary
The broth tastes bland and not as "rich" as what I expected it to be. Their ala-carte items are quite common - just like what you can buy from NTUC Fairprice. Steam & Grill can work on the sauces for ingredients as well. Add more sauces instead of just chili paddies.
Our table is located just directly under a fan. The fan is so strong and that caused our steamboat to have problems boiling. We even have to cover the flames using empty plates in order to keep the flames strong. A feedback for Steam & Grill is not to reserve tables near the fan for customers.
As Steam & Grill is a relatively new, there are still many rooms for improvements and the team may also be finding ways to improve the quality of food and service for customers.
Overall, it didn't live up to my expectations. (Maybe the hype set my expectations way too high).
