Old Town Cafe

The trip to Dublin seems to be more about eating than about watching The Watchmen in Imax (which I thoroughly enjoyed, although I have yet to read the graphic novel. It was well-paced and had good backstories. And it did make me want to go and see what Alan Moore's version is like). After the 2 hour 40 minute movie, we emerged with tired necks (we sat a bit too close to the gigantic screen) and stomachs still full from the dim sum lunch. But since we had driven all the way out there, we figured we should at least give Singapore Old Town Cafe a try. As we waited for the servers to put together some tables for our party of seven, we noticed an award for "Best Satay". So that went on our list of things to order. Here's what else we had.

Teh Tarik (quite good actually).

Chow Hor Fun with seafood. Quite tasty. Very eggy.

Char Kway Teow. Lacked Oomph.

Beef Rendang. Beef was very tender but the gravy was quite forgettable.

I must say that the chicken satay was rather good. The beef was a bit tough. The sauce was a letdown. Where were the peanuts??

The Hokkien mee. Supposedly the most authentic dish but in the end, with all the high hopes, the most disappointing. It didn't have enough flavour in it.

The 'fish fillet mee hoon' (鱼片米粉) had a lot of giam cai (salted vegetables) in it. Tasted ok I guess.

So overall, the food was, eh, so-so. It looked authentic enough, but the taste, the flavour, it was just not quite there. It needed more oomph, more wok hei. I don't think I would head out to Dublin again (50-minutes each way, $4 toll on the return journey) for the Singapore food, but I would definitely return for the dim sum at Koi Garden!

Old Town Cafe
4288 Dublin Blvd,
Unit 109
Dublin, CA 94568
925.833.8300