Passion Cafe, Tung Ann Building

This hole-in-the-wall eatery is above Ayesha's Kitchen. It's the kind of place that you only go to if you already know about the place because it's completely hidden from view, being accessible only via a non-descript staircase between the row of eateries below. I had lunch with a colleague who affectionately calls this the "dingy Jap place", mostly because it's quite "dingy" and serves Japanese food. Food-wise, it's best to dial down the expectations, because I didn't think it was good at all. In fact, I thought it was mediocre at best, and terrible in general. The only good thing about this place was the homemade honey lemon drink, and I suppose, the air-conditioning.

The Chicken Teriyaki Udon Soup ($6.50) was really quite unspectacular. Soup was generic and reeked of MSG, chicken tasted of the frozen variety and was lacking in teriyaki flavour, fishcake seemed pre-packed and the udon noodles was no different from the supermarket chiller section sort.

I thought the Fried Lemon Fish ($6) was a safe bet, but I could not have been more wrong. The dory fish, which, in the usual course of events, can be frozen for months, and still taste fresh and flaky, actually tasted fishy. Which in itself, was quite a feat. Even the ultra sweet lemon sauce couldn't mask the lack of freshness of the stale dory.

I would think that the Oyster Sauce Kailan ($3) was idiot proof, but some of the vegetables had pest-ridden holes in the leaves and the oyster sauce had a weird piquant vinegar-ish taste, a sign that the oyster sauce had gone off.

Passion Cafe
Tung Ann Association Building
141 Cecil Street
#01-03
Tel: 6345 5644 / 9742 5722