Giant Barbecued Ribs - Meat Fest at Badoque Cafe

I have heard of this place, read about it several times here and there, and it always receives rave reviews. But, weirdly enough, I never wanted to go there (maybe because it was so darn far), until recently.

My husband and I are both red meat lovers, but in Singapore, we don't really have a go to place to satisfy our meat cravings. Well, we had a favorite before, which was Fika, when they still had the Fika Plank Special, grilled ribs the size of my face (even bigger, if you can believe it!).
But, on the last several visits we made, it seems that they no longer have this special on their menu, which is sad news for us (to this my husband would say 'There's just news. There is no good or bad,' quoting Oogway from Kung Fu Panda, to which I looked at him in disdain). And so, we don't have a so called favorite 'meat' place to go to anymore*depressed.

Reading the reviews on Badoque Cafe, not to mention looking at their marvelous ribs and steaks pictures, I thought this place is worth a visit, all the way to Bedok -I didn't realize they had opened a new outlet at Upper Thomson Rd, which would have been closer.
To me, the size matters, the bigger the size, the more appetizing it looks, and the better it tastes, more often than not. Therefore, even if it takes the whole day to travel, I don't mind it. Plus, since I've managed to drag my husband along, to Bedok it is! I personally think he'd do anything to stop my nagging, well not really nagging, I don't nag, I just ask him constantly about it like a broken record, until he caves in. Works every time.

We didn't find much difficulties finding the place, which was good. Because we didn't really know our way around Bedok.

We chose the indoor seating, even though it was dark, making it much harder to take decent pictures. But since we were going to have meat, loads of it, pretty sure I will perspire (gross, I know, but what can I say?), so better than risking having my face to melt -due to the heat and excessive sweat- and fall on to my plate, I chose the indoor seating with the comfortable air conditioning :).

As I opened the menu, I immediately eyed the red meat section.....muahahaha. My personal rule whenever I go to a new place is always goes for the house specialty, in this case it was the Badoque ribs. My husband asked the waitress if the portion was big enough to share, she hesitated a bit before nodding her head. Later when the food finally came, we understood her reaction was because she realized it was our first time visiting, and she may have found it strange. Because returning patrons would not be asking that question. Why? Wait till you see the picture of the ribs. It was enough to feed a village! (or 5 people).

My husband also ordered salad, to ease our digestion. Helping the colons with its big job processing all that meat.
This one was the Badoque Greek salad. It was pretty good. I don't normally like red lettuces, but these ones didn't taste as bitter as the ones I usually have. And of course, the feta cheese was delicious as always.

Left: leftover to bring home, Right: Naylla's portion for lunch

For Naylla, we ordered the fried chicken, I forgot what it was called. Unfortunately we were not told that the portion was huge, enough to share between 2-3 people! So we were quite surprised to say the least, but I told Naylla to finish all of it if she ever wanted to borrow my Ipad again*evil laugh. I do this too many times to her, she didn't care.

In the end, we didn't finish the chicken and had to doggy bagged (da bao) it home, and slowly consumed it for the next 2 days.

Half way through our salad, the ribs finally came.

If we had known it'd come with a bunch of vegetables like that, we would not have ordered the salad. With the amount of food we had on our table, I felt like we were receiving unwanted glances from the other patrons (maybe in amazement), but maybe that was just me being conscious. But, as a family, we are pretty big eaters, so this kind of situation is normal for us.

Look at the fat on top and the thickness of the meat, and this is just 1 rib

There were 2 ribs on the plate, so my husband had the job of finishing the bigger one out of the two, and I took care of the rest.

I have to say, these ribs were phenomenal! The meat was fork tender, the fat was melt in your mouth juicy and sweet (yes, I ate the fat, it helps to wash down the meat, don't you think so?). I don't see how words can do justice, but perhaps the video will :).

Curiously my husband, who, I think, is a bigger meat eater than me scraped the fat of the top (whattt???!). I had no idea what he was thinking, but I suspect he feels as the years go by, his metabolism wasn't as kind as it was before. But, he said, he doesn't enjoy eating fats. My brain just cannot process this, I find it hard to believe, but whatever, to each his own.

My version of the perfect bite

A small hiccup though, I requested the chef to cook the bigger ribs a bit longer, because I saw the fat was not thoroughly grilled, even though it was properly cooked. Probably because it was precooked to tenderize the meat. But after this was done, everything was perfect!

So, I think I have found it: my favorite meat place!
It's a good thing that this place is not that close to my house, otherwise I would come here daily, and before I knew it I'd gain 10 kg in a heart beat, scary.

But I would definitely go there again in the near future. I have even planned my next visit: I think I'll try their Badoque Tomahawk, 1.2 kg of sweet fatty butter like meat, yummmmm. But first, let me burn off the calories from this one.

More information on Badoque Cafe:

https://www.facebook.com/badoquecafeSG/

298 Bedok Road
Singapore 469454

Tel: 6446 6928

Operating hours: 12.00 pm - 10.00 pm