Fat Belly Steakhouse — Restaurant in Singapore

Firstly, kudos to the good effort put in by the young team at Fat Belly. With further improvement they may pull this off successfully in time, but not just yet... 🙄

Overall, there certainly some round edges that needs to be smoothened out in terms of the service and food quality. The former felt somewhat lacklustic albeit is a friendly way. They kept forgetting things. Small issue but would helped to enhance the whole experience if they can get up to speed on this. Food quality is a more important issue for me. We ordered the set menu, a degustation menu of sorts but could do with more planning. It's an all beef based 6 course meal that is quite heavy flavoured. I tend to like heavy flavours but when it's a multi course meal, this can be a tad intense. Good to give it some further thoughts and include a respite in between with a light salad or a citrus based petite dish to cleanse the palate. What you don't want is at the end, you feel totally bloated. Will comment on each course individual:

1. Truffle infused creme brulee. An interesting way to transform a typical dessert into a savory appetitiser. Liked the taste and texture with a more than adequate aroma of truffle oil. A good start👍
2. Mini beef skewer chimmichurri. Nicely charred grilled tiny beef bits with a subtle salsa dressing. While the beef bits were a tad tough (probably we are using the end bits so some tendons could be theř) but overall a yummy combination😋
3. Beef char siew. This is where is started to get heavy. Well charred beef fillet heavily drizzle with a thick and extremely sweet sauce. Quite intensed and the sauce just totally musked the taste of the beef. Had to eat it with the kale to help lighted the sweeting and oily effects. Not sure if beef would be a good choice as a meat replacement for pork as a char siew...
4. Minced wagyu beef burger. Didn't quite work as well as it should be. Eating minced wagyu is a waste really as its such a flavoursome meat with it fatty marble. Personally I thought this would be a good time to provide that pause and deliver a light citrus food to do some palate cleansing of the weighty oiliness/sweetness of the last dish. Perhaps a petite bowl of pasta in a simple light tomato sauce and herbs? That should do the trick. Otherwise the tradition petite lime/lemon sherbet is equally good.
5. Grilled wagyu steak with a 7-8 marbling. A bit overdone (no one asked us how we would like our meat doneness) which is a shame as wagyu beef is not just the meat but also be able to enjoy the taste of the inherent fatty streaks. My main grouse is really the accompanying brown sauce. It was simply a tad on the saltish side. Again l do like gravy with my steak and at a professional level, l would expect a proper deglazing of the pan with wine to produce a proper brown sauce. Suspect a premixed gravy was used. Pity really, as I would have enjoyed the wagyu steak so much more. 😔
6. Lava cake with cinnamon ice cream. Love the ice cream. 🍦🍨. Personally not such a big fan of lava cakes.

Credit when it's due.. Looking forward to the next improved meal at FB. 3.5...

TL;DR: I wouldn’t go out of my way to recommend this place to friends, but if I’m specifically looking for something to eat in this area and have money to burn, I might (?) come back. Didn’t get the “I would love to come back” feeling at all.

First of all, mans—this place was ✨crowded✨, so we genuinely thought, damn, we’re about to get a good meal soon 🤤. Ambience-wise, there isn’t much of it. Everyone is seated pretty close together, and you can hear their conversations. Many tables were also placed along a corridor with construction barriers right behind them. You will need to walk past these tables to reach the entrance to get seated. I’d assume the constant foot traffic behind you might be distracting during the meal given that the walk way is narrow and extremely close to the person sitting outside. You can tell they really crammed in as many seats as possible to maximize capacity- good and bad at the same time(?)

They have another separate unit just a few seconds’ walk from the main one. There’s no renovation or decor—just an empty space with tables and chairs. From my understanding, this area is mainly for reservations. It’s quieter, and the tables are spaced slightly further apart, but there’s no music or atmosphere that makes it feel like a restaurant or café. If you’re planning a special date night, I wouldn’t suggest this place, as it lacks ambience.

We came on a Saturday night, and many of the items were already out of stock, so we had to order the pricier options instead of our initial plan to get the flat iron steak ($28). We ended up ordering: • 2 Ribeye steaks ($36/pax) • 1 Raclette cheese ($18) – btw, this is JUST cheese on its own with bacon bits • Toasted sourdough ($6) – to pair with the cheese

Food Review: • Ribeye: We were surprised by how normal it tasted. It’s on par with Istk, but honestly, we’d rather opt for the latter at this price point (Istk includes two sides at a lower price, has more accessible outlets, and offers better ambience, in my opinion). That said, the steak was cooked well and tender, but taste-wise, it was just meh.

• The salt: The salt provided was some good good strong stuff—we were actually more impressed with the salt than the meat itself, haha.

• Raclette cheese: To be honest, at this price point, if it at least came with two little pieces of carbs to pair it with, we wouldn’t have found it so overpriced. But clearly, they meant for you to order something else to go with it unless you love cheese until you like to eat it on its own.

• Sourdough: Nothing amazing, but yeah, it was nice.

Overall, for 2 pax, we paid more than $100 for the meal without any drinks or dessert and still left hungry and somewhat dissatisfied… like where is my fat belly!! (pun intended) Service was very good! The staff were well-trained and attentive, but sadly it didn’t make up for the food quality given price point and overall ambience of the place so I highly doubt we will return or recommend this...

steak was undoubtedly one of the BEST STEAKS i’ve had in a really long time. you can really taste the difference between a steak cooked in a regular pan and a charcoal one. the char and crust was so good. it’s absolutely phenomenal. we ordered the set for 2 pax as well as an onglet steak. here’s an in depth review!

appetiser: burratta cheese so so creamy, melts in your mouth. it is light and not overpowering, so i found myself constantly reaching for more. however it is a bit on the pricey side considering the portion. overall i would give this one 4/5⭐️

steak for 2: i can’t remember the exact cuts, but one was definitely a striploin, and the other i forgot 😭😭. both were wagyu, and the striploin tasted much better, and was a lot more tender. it had a nice beefy aftertaste, and this was probably the crowd favourite because it was a nice balance between tender and flavour. the other steak that came with it, though still very delicious, i found that it lacked that beefy flavour, and wasn’t as tender. but this set was so worth it! i rate this one 5/5⭐️,

onglet: the moment i put this steak in my mouth, it just melted and it tasted so good. i really wish it was bigger, though. it super tender but the taste was a little lacking compared to the striploin. kind of like a fillet mignon. still this was so good!! i rate this one a solid 4.5/5⭐️

brussels spouts: this was my personal favourite side. the caramelisation was done so perfect, though i don’t usually fancy brussels sprouts, i would definitely eat this one again. it’s so umami and everything just felt like a match made in heaven. i rate this side a 5/5⭐️

torched creamed corn: this was the most disappointing side we ordered. it tasted like canned corn soup and the corn was very mushy, and wasn’t very appetising. we would recommend to skip this side. i rate this a 2/5⭐️

tiramisu: their tiramisu was very rich, and decadent. however i found it to be a lot more watery compared to what i was used to. but the taste is definitely there. i rate this a 3.5/5⭐️ as it gets a bit too heavy near the end.

shoestring fries: very very crispy on the outside, light and fluffy on the inside. a very good side that you can’t go wrong with. we got the truffle variant, and it came with a lot of cheese on top! even when the fries were no longer hot, the crispiness still stayed, and we enjoyed this one too! overall a 4/5⭐️. it’s a classic.

however, i think the only downside was the service crew. they were rather unwelcoming, and we felt like they looked down on us because we asked many questions about the steak. especially since we were greeted with a cold smile, and it just feels like that server did not want to be there. but everything...