Margie The Market Bar @ Margaret Market offers local-flavored tacos and rice bowls, and an assortment of alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages.
Thanks to a WFH-on-a-Friday friend who decided to pop down for lunch yesterday, I finally get to sample the wares at Margie The Market Bar, one of the F&B outlets nestled within the boutique marketplace Margaret Market at Margaret Drive which is literally downstairs from my home.
Have to confess that I do try to refrain from eating too often at Margaret Market when one could easily get much cheaper and better tasting food from the Margaret Drive Hawker Centre which is just next door. But when hosting a friend, the air-conditioned Margaret Market admittedly does have its draws.
Anyhoo, after introducing my friend to all the eateries, she decided on Margie which offers rice bowls and tacos with local flavors, next to an array of alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages ranging from craft beers to bubble teas.
Margie, which has its own seating counters, has placed mini menu stands at a couple of community tables but do check out their proper menus as promotional sets and/or discounts would be listed there.
For instance, if you order a rice bowl or tacos, you can order a soda can drink or classic bubble tea for $2, or a mini fries for $3.90.
So drinks-wise, we opted for a Coke and a Sprite each after ordering two rice bowls. (And if the guy at the South Korean convenience store emart24 wasn’t “out for lunch”, we would have gotten cheaper drinks from there…)
We decided to have a proper “big” set of fries to go along with our mains and opted for the Truffle Fries with Parmesan Cheese ($9.90). Served golden hot and crispy, the fries were yummy but though it had a generous sprinkling of parmesan and parsley, there was hardly any truffle flavor. The fries were however still tasty and munchable when the leftovers were brought home and later heated up for dinner.
My pal chose to have the Char Siew Pork Jowl Rice Bowl ($13.90) which, have to say, looked really good. The char siew with its sweet sauce was very tasty, but there were more fat bits than lean meat which was a shame. Otherwise, the veggies and huge poached egg were simply lovely, as was the ample blue pea rice.
I went for the Sambal Stingray Rice Bowl ($11.90) and considering that you can get a full-sized, well-cooked sambal stingray for just $12 at Alexandra Village Food Centre, the very small portion of sambal stingray in this bowl just didn’t seem quite worth it.
Its saving grace however is that the portion was very tasty, and together with all the other ingredients in the bowl—poached egg, well-steamed veggies and blue pea rice—it turned out to be not half bad. And there was surprisingly a lot of rice packed in that little brown cardboard bowl!
We wanted to try their tacos too and had ordered the Grilled “Chomp Chomp” Chicken Tacos ($5.90) but as the rice bowls were rather filling (primarily because of the rice), I ended up keeping this and the fries for dinner.
Okay, so tacos should be eaten when it’s hot and also, I prefer my tacos hard-shelled and with beef fillings. So a reheated soft shell tacos wasn’t exactly ideal. It was edible but did wish there was more chicken to chew on. The veggies were sufficient but for a person who can take spicy, the rather dry pounded chili spread placed on top of the chicken was a tad too strong for my taste.
Well, glad I finally get to try some of the foodfare at Margie. It is a tad on the pricey side, but will await the next opportunity to try their other bar food and draft beer.
Margie The Market Bar is at 38 Margaret Drive #01-01, Singapore 141038. Opens Tue-Thu 3pm-10pm, Fri-Sat 11.30am-11pm; & Sun 11.30am-10pm, closed on Mondays.
Musings on the M49 