RE: Singaporean Cuisine at The Spice Table

This is Jonathan Gold's take on The Spice Table:

"You might expect a new restaurant from the opening chef of Pizzeria Mozza to be jammed from the moment it opened, and you wouldn't be surprised to find quartinos of crisp Italian white wine. Diligent ingredient sourcing would practically be a given, as would be the wood-burning oven and the complex, small-plate vegetable preparations. What you probably wouldn't expect is that Bryant Ng's Spice Table serves neither regional Italian dishes nor the food of the Mediterranean, but chiefly riffs on the cooking of Singapore: spice-rubbed sticks of satay; cabbage braised with bacon and dried shrimp; and crunchy fried chicken wings whose crust is laced with hot, South Indian curry.

This isn't quite the food of the hawker centers, but it isn't tame. The famous black-pepper crab is abstracted into a kind of juicy crab canape, the curry laksa is jolted with the strong, toasted shrimp paste belacan and the closest thing to french fries on the menu is the deep-fried cauliflower, which is grand. The Hainanese chicken rice is neither dry nor wet, spicy nor delicate, and probably will improve in the coming weeks. I loved the skewers of grilled beef tripe, which picked up all the smokiness from the grill. And the perfect crossover dish? Sambal potatoes, which is Mozza's fried potatoes smeared with spicy chile paste. Maybe we can all get along."

From the LA Times:

Inspired by Singaporean and Vietnamese cuisine, the Spice Table (http://www.thespicetable.com) has opened in Little Tokyo, serving a focused menu of specialties such as catfish claypot and Hainanese chicken rice in an intimate dining room with high ceilings, exposed brick and bird cage chandeliers. (If you saw the space's former incarnation (http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/dailydish/2010/07/the-spice-table-a-singaporean-restaurant-planned-for-downtown-.html) as Cuba Central, you might be wowed by the transformation.)

Chef-owner Bryant Ng, a former Mozza chef de cuisine, is settling into the kitchen, which features a wood-burning hearth for grilling satay and vegetables and otah (mackerel, spices and coconut milk formed into a paste then steamed and grilled in banana leaf). Laksa (spicy noodle soup) and kon loh mee (egg noodles with ground pork, shrimp and char siu roast pork) are among the noodle and rice dishes.

"Snacks" include sambal fried potatoes, headcheese with housemade pickles, and spicy chicken livers with toast. Ralph Waxman, also a Mozza veteran, might stop by your table to suggest the Leitz Rheingau Riesling with the curry fried chicken wings.

Desserts are palm sugar soft serve ice cream and kaffir lime custard. Why not get both?

This is a link to their web site - http://www.thespicetable.com

We will be dining family style, so everyone will be sharing the food and the bill. If you cannot attend, you must cancel at least 24 hours prior to the event.