ok so I lied

*warning: bitchy post*

I just couldn't resist lah. When it comes to bad food, I just have to write about it. Plus right now, a bit of a lull at work, especially since they haven't decided on the order of the stories yet.

Anyway, the family was to go see that yawner of a musical called West Side Story. I have to admit being a WSS virgin, being only faintly acquainted with the storyline (loosely adapted from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet) and not having seen the movie before (which apparently won many Oscars).

But because of heavy traffic, leaving the house a bit later than we should've (as is usually the case in this family), we decided to fk it and eat at Via Mar, originally suggested by my mum but ardently argued against by me. Ichiban Boshi had a long queue and Via Mar looked like it wasn't as crowded so no choice really.

I have no idea what the prices of the dishes are but the tapas were about $12 to $16 each I think.

We ordered whitebait (fried to that brown muddy colour, when the cook should've known was overdone) which is served with an asian-influenced sweet/sour/spicy clear dip when it really should've been served with a creamy sauce or something tomato based, and with a lemon. The whitebait comes first. And it is only when we finish it that the next tapas dish comes. I kinda would prefer it if all the tapas came together.

Anyway, we then had potato skins with cheese and erm... wasn't quite paying attention here, but chorizo? You can't go wrong with potatoes and cheese, except that it took a while coming.

Next was a dish of french beans, which was supposed to have chorizo in it, but that seems to have been chopped up into such miniscule pieces, which probably made up just one slice of spanish sausage.

The last tapas was fried mushrooms, which brilliantly came with that same bland asian-based sauce. Whoopee.

We had ordered a tuna and pepper salad, which truly lived up to its name. It was almost a whole can of tuna. (yes canned tuna) and a load of sliced, grilled peppers. And several salad leaves on the side. I'd say about 8 leaves of salad, mostly iceberg. They should consider naming it "tuna and pepper", and get rid of the word "salad".

The restaurant served the worst for last.

As we were sharing the meal - we had thought tapas would be the fastest way to chow down, since the show was at eight and restaurants in Sg aren't known for their efficiency - we had ordered a pasta to share. I know it's a pseudo-Spanish restaurant but that seemed like the best stomach-filler option. (I don't paella, which in any case would take a while to cook) So it was a prawn pasta we ordered.

And in this case, the title of the dish needed an extra word. The oily prawn pasta.

The strands of spaghetti were drowning in oil. I could've drained the oil into a pan and used that to deepfry tofu. Ok so maybe I'm exaggerating a bit there, but I definitely could've cooked another dish with that pool of oil left at the bottom of the plate. The last couple of forkfuls of spaghetti were just soaked, covered, in oil.

While my family is made up of small eaters, that amount of food ordered definitely wasn't going to make us full. But I wasn't prepared to order more food from that place, so I apologise to the man seated next to me in the theatre if the rumbling from my stomach disrupted your appreciation of the musical. Then again, the musical's kinda mediocre I'm not sure if there's anything to appreciate. However, that all-white interpretative-dance-flashback at the start of the second half was something to remember - and laugh about. Yes, WSS does have the songs Tonight and Somewhere. And that 'I feel pretty' song, which I always think sounds better when sung on Will & Grace. Having seen this, I kinda wonder why it's been around for that long.

Via Mar
8 Raffles Avenue
#01-10/12 Esplanade Mall
Tel: 6423-0900