The wisdom of crowds

Two Chefs
Blk 116 Commonwealth Crescent #01-129
Tel: +65 6472 5361

These days, the ease of expressing one’s opinion via a variety of media online has made the views of crowds instantly accessible. There is just one thing wrong with this: the crowds may not always be right. There is a site called hungrygowhere.com which serves as an aggregator of reviews on eating places in Singapore. Now, there are many good things about this site which I like. It is very comprehensive, and can normally be counted on to provide good, up-to-date information on all manner of establishments – from the one-man-operated kiosks to the hundred-seater banquet halls. I have to say that I post my reviews there sometimes (I want to be heard too you know, I believe I am entitled to that conceit). Yet I have found myself disagreeing many times with the collective opinions of certain places, and so when push comes to shove I am inclined not to trust this site.

I still believe in the masses’ general tendency towards accuracy – as in, the collective opinion more often than not points in the right direction, good or bad. But it is a blunt instrument, and cannot provide the level of precision serious foodies need. There is a world of difference between great and good, between divine and satisfactory, and that precision is lost when truly discerning opinions get mixed in with a whole bunch of others that are not so.

One of the dangers of this “crowdsourcing” is the tendency for aggregation to amplify certain attributes. It is human nature to want to know the opinion of others, and human nature for those opinions to subtly influence our own. If we read other reviews that echo our own opinions, we subliminally reinforce, and in some cases intensify, our own impressions of the place. In that way, what was maybe a decent-to-good, two-star restaurant at best, suddenly gets elevated to a three-star.

But as the saying goes, two heads are better than one, and that may be the rationale behind this stalwart of the tze char scene in Singapore. Two Chefs is actually opened by a pair of brothers, who have come together to bring you this no-frills, salt-of-the-earth eating place in the Commonwealth area. So far, and to my knowledge at least, they have not gone the way of countless other family businesses or hawker dynasties, and the two brothers look to be doing quite well together. I’ve heard that lines start forming by 6pm for dinner, and the wait for a place can hit the 45-minute or 1-hour mark. For good, simple, tze char comfort food – that is a long wait.

Two Chefs is an undisputed media and blogosphere darling. Almost every online review of it is generous to a fault, and the place was lauded by the Sunday Times as one of the best tze char places in Singapore. I rarely venture out of the East for food, so until recently had not had the good fortune to try it. But it was recently suggested as a venue for a midweek get-together, and despite there being other, more familiar names tossed in the hat – I plumped for this one just to check it out.

I was quite disappointed, for the food was very average. The one dish that everyone goes there for is the butter pork ribs, which are cutlets of pork breaded and deep-fried, and then coated with a powdery mixture that looks like grated parmesan cheese but is actually a secret formulation made from butter and sugar. This was not bad, I have to say, for the meat was tender and moist, and the buttery powder neither overly sweet nor cloying. But while it won high marks from me for innovation, it didn’t quite deserve the unadulterated adulation of the blogging community.

Other dishes were downright disappointing. The kailan hadn’t been blanched before wok-frying, and so retained a bitter pang. The tofu with golden mushroom wasn’t top-grade tofu, and the sauce tasted a little off. The drunken “dang gui” prawns were large and succulent, granted, but the Shaoxing broth it was in lacked oomph, and could perhaps have been rounded out with a fuller ingredient base.

We were so unimpressed by the quality (and quantity) of the food that we had to order a couple more dishes. To satisfy someone’s craving we got another treatment of pork ribs – this time a coffee pork ribs which was surprisingly good. But the three-egg vegetables that we got on the waitress’ recommendation only served to confirm that either this place was terrible, or the kitchen was having an off day. There is an art to cooking vegetables, for most leafy greens have little, or in some cases even unpleasant, flavour. Many cooks – in addition to their other seasonings – typically add a little sugar to the wok as the vegetables are cooking, which helps them to caramelize and adds both flavour and texture. This did not seem to have been done for the three-egg vegetables.

I do have to mention that the food came unbelievably fast. It felt as though we had only just finished ordering when the first dish came out the pass and was placed on our table. My hypothesis is that the kitchen – used to dealing with a full house on weekends – is such a well-oiled machine that cooking for a crowd of 60-or-70-percent capacity is a piece of cake for them. If that is true, then it is cause for admiration.

I really wanted to like this place. The heartland location, the utilitarian setup. The lack of pretensions, the honest fare. These are all good things, and true things. I tried to disassociate my appreciation of the place from what I had heard about it, to ensure objectivity and while true objectivity is perhaps impossible, I honestly did not think this place was all that great. It is not that it is bad, and I would be happy to go back there again since it is relatively affordable. But it is just not praise-worthy. I am sorry to say, the wisdom of the masses got it wrong on this one.