Astons serves up restaurant style Western food at very cheap prices. With $10, you can easily have your fill. Astons doesn't have service charge as well, but the waiters and waitresses are all pretty friendly despite that. And everyone knows that cheap and decent food and good service is a surefire route to success.
As such, this nondescript eatery along the Joo Chiat/ Katong stretch has been getting lots of attention from TV shows, newspaper reviews and of course, floggers (food bloggers) who wax lyrical about the exceptional quality of food for the price one pays at Astons.
As a result of the publicity, queues have inevitably formed in front of the restaurant. Now, Astons' queue system is rather peculiar. It does not accept reservations, so naturally, come dinner and lunch time, there will be hoards of people waiting in line. But the worst part is that customers have to queue outside the restaurant and wait for an empty table before they can place their order at the cashier and sit down. Surely there must be a better way to do this! Maybe coming up with a queue number system would be good. Making hungry people stand in line for at least 15 minutes facing tables which have food laid out on them already is just plain mean. Because of that, I have only eaten at Astons once before. (And I had to go at a weird timing of 4pm just so I could beat the queue and directly order my food).
I. don't. like. queues.
I digress. But because of how absurdly cheap Astons prices its food at for the quality given, I willingly queued two Sundays ago because I had a craving for good Western food (not the hawker centre style Western food) and was feeling quite broke. So naturally, Astons came to mind. The waiting time that day was about 20 minutes. And the food took around 15 minutes to come. (But it sure felt like eternity. I was STARVING.)
I decided to go for the Double up chicken. What that is exactly is two pieces of chicken thigh meat cooked in two different styles. (I chose to have my chicken chargrilled and with black pepper sauce) So for $9.90 (yes, your eyes aren't playing tricks on you) I had two portions of chicken meat with two sides of my choice.
The verdict: Well, there was nothing spectacular or jaw dropping about the Double up chicken. The meat was not tough, but it was not as tender as I would have liked it to be. My guess is that for the price, Astons must have used chilled chicken instead of fresh chicken, which would have been much more tender in texture. Taste-wise, the chicken was grilled a la minute (i.e.: cooked only when the order is made) so it did not taste stale. In fact, the chicken was grilled well, with some charred bits that gave it good flavour.
For the chargrilled version, my chicken was drenched in a sort of mushroom-y sauce that I thought tasted pretty standard. The sauce could have been more robust. But the black pepper chicken was better. The black pepper sauce was one of the fieriest I have eaten, and obviously catered to the Singaporean palette. So if you're the sort who complains that black pepper sauce usually has no kick, you should try the black pepper sauce at Astons.
The portion might look small here, but trust me, it was BIG.
My Double up chicken came along with a choice of two sides. And I had a hard time picking which two sides I wanted because everything sounded so good! For cold sides, you can pick from this list:
- homemade coleslaw
- potato salad
- pasta salad
- house salad
For hot sides, you can pick from:
- baked potato
- BBQ beans
- corn on cob
- french fries
- garden veggies
- mashed potato
- onion rings
- tasty rice
So you see what I mean by being spoilt for choice? In the end, I picked mashed potato and pasta salad. I am a huge mashed potato fan and I really liked the mashed potato here because it tasted really creamy and the sauce that came with it was actually the same sauce that my chargrilled chicken was drenched in. Somehow, the sauce went better with the mashed potato than with the chicken. The pasta salad was chilled, so it was quite refreshing to the palate. It came with julienned vegetables which added a nice crunch. 4/5
Overall, despite my complaints, I still feel that Astons is worth a try because for the price that you pay for, you actually get really decent tasting food.
*****
Now, I would like to mention that Astons is very well known for its beef dishes. (They go for as low as $12 for a ribeye if I don't remember wrongly!) But I didn't order beef that day because I'm staying away from red meat for the time being. However, other flogs online have always been raving about how good the beef is at Astons. Well, looking at what the signboard outside Astons reads, I'm sure the man knows and loves his beef.
The man and his beef obsession
You can read other reviews on how his beef dishes are here and he even created a burger and named it after my favourite flogger, ieatishootipost (who is quite possibly Aston's number one fan)! In fact, Aston has had such success with his restaurant (and beef) that he has opened Astons Prime (have not tried it yet), which is located a stone's throw from Astons Specialties. Apparently, one of Astons Prime's highlights is the prime rib of beef served in a cart. And Astons Prime also sponsored ieat's Charity dinner recently. A good chef with a heart of gold? I like!
Address:
Astons Specialties - 121A East Coast Road (opposite Katong Mall)
Open from 12pm to 1am on Tue - Thurs and up till 3am on Fri and Sat. Closed on Mon.
Tel: 6342 4634
Website: http://astonsspecialties.blogspot.com/
Astons Prime - 467 Joo Chiat Road
Tel: 6344 2447
PS: Astons aside, because I mentioned I was such a big mashed potato fan earlier, I thought I'd share this video I found on YouTube on how to make the perfect mashed potato. I shall try this recipe one day!
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