Wheeler's Yard - 7th Jul 2017
Last Sunday, I decided to check out a rather new restaurant
and enclave at Seletar. If you haven’t already heard, some of the colonial
buildings there have been converted to restaurants. These buildings are located
beside Seletar Airport, Singapore’s first international airport and up till
1970s, were homes to RAF servicemen who worked at the airbase. Some of you may
have heard of Wheeler’s Yard, a restaurant/café in a warehouse catering to the
bike enthusiast. Wheeler’s Estate is their new project, a double storey
restaurant that caters both the families and to people wanting a place to drink
and enjoy live music. The kitchen is located in a separate smaller building
with wood logs lining the outside walls. Reason being the kitchen houses a wood
fire grill which Australian chef Jayd has put together. While I was there, he
explained to me that they have only one grill in operation hence the menu is
limited but they intend to get a few more grills going in the next couple of
weeks and that is when they will increase the menu.
Children's playground
The best part of us with young families is that there is a
playground just 50 metres away. This means my wife and I could enjoy a drink
while our two daughters ran off to play. There is also a large field where kids
can run and kick a ball around. There were no real appetisers on the menu so we
each had a main course. The kids shared a portion of fish & chips. The dish
came beautifully plated and thankfully it tasted as good as it looked. The
golden brown batter was fried till crispy while the fish inside remained moist.
Needless to say my kids finished it in double quick time. (Also because they
wanted to play somemore!)
Fish and chips
I had the philly cheese steak stack. This consisted of a
tortilla wrap and on top was a 200g piece of Angus 150 day grain fed flap meat.
It came with some salad, caramalised onions, cheese sauce, sour cream and
jalepenos. What did I do? Put everything on the beef! Unfortunately the wrap is
not big enough to wrap it around so that I could use my hands. I ended up using
a fork and knife to eat it but still every bite consisted of all the
ingredients. I must say it was a seriously tasty dish especially the smokiness
in the meat that came from that wood grill. The beef was tender for a flap meat
and full of flavour which is why the Mexicans love using this cut.
Philly cheese steak stack
My wife went for the pork jowl with salad. This no carb dish
consisted of cress, rocket and cucumber slices dressed with peanuts and fried
shallots in a Japanese soy dressing. The pork jowl which felt like it was sous vide before finishing off on the grill was very tender and rich. Jowl normally has
a bouncy texture if it was just grilled however when it is sous vide, the jowl
can become very tender. There is a high amount of intra-muscular fat in the
jowl as the jowl muscle is used a lot. This cut is fast becoming popular in
Singapore’s culinary scene and its not hard to see why.
Pork jowl with salad
After dinner, we took a 200 metre walk to the nearby large
grey fence where you can watch planes take off and land on the runway. An extra
form of entertainment for the kids which they enjoy.
Overall the food at Wheeler’s Yard is good for its price.
What it really brings to the table is a next to nature ambience, entertainment
for the kids and a place where Instagrammers can take beautiful shots of the
building, food and signature caravan.
~Andre Huber
Executive Director
