Located on the eighth level of Orchard Central is 160-seater mookata restaurant Talay Kata. The Thai seafood barbeque buffet restaurant’s concept is different from most other eateries—you get to cook your food in the comforts of indoor air conditioning equipped with smoke suctions. Barbeques minus the nasty smell? We are in.

Prices range from S$18.80++ per adult during lunchtime buffet and S$28.80++ per adult during dinner buffet. The buffet’s highlight would be their decadent seafood spread such as crayfish, king crab and slipper lobster.

Talay Kata offers a variety of soup bases, from Bonito Soup, Chicken Soup to Tom Yum Soup, and the popular Salted Egg Seafood Soup.

From Japanese scallop, squid cube, slipper lobster to white clam; we must admit that we were pleasantly surprised by the impressive selection of fresh seafood. Furthermore, you can indulge in these free flow for just S$18.80++!

Seafood aside, Talay Kata also serves cabbage, chicken, fish sausage, pork belly, pork jowl, sea urchin ball. If you are too hungry to wait for the food to be cooked, why not help yourselves to the hot food live station first?

Gather all your desired ingredients and start cooking the raw food on either the dome-shaped grill or let them boil in the hot pot. A rich salted egg seafood broth is poured into the appliance’s moat. Just in case you are wondering, you are also entitled to unlimited soup refills.

We dunked heaps of ingredients into the steamboat and watched it cook in the piping hot yellow broth.

Interestingly, the broth actually solidifies when left heated over an extended period of time; it even became charred!

And we are sorry to disappoint but… we are not sure what the salted egg seafood broth’s recipe entails, and we will be honest that we would very much rather stick to classic Thai flavours.

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Talay Kata
181 Orchard Road
Orchard Central, #08-04/05
Singapore 238896
Tel: +65 6634 0551
Daily: 11.30am – 3pm, 6pm – 10pm
Nearest Station: Somerset

Huay Kwang Thai at Upper Thomson has been around for a while and the mookata restaurant remains jam-packed with hungry patrons on a nightly basis.

Hate it or love it, but it seems like the mookata dining concept is here to stay.

Prices for the mookata buffet are relatively affordable; it ranges from S$19.90+ per adult for a Value Mak Mak Buffet to S$29.90+ per adult for a Deluxe Buffet. You will have to add S$3+ on Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays, eve of public holidays and on public holidays.

Choose either the standard pork bone soup or top up S$8+ for clear tom yum broth.

Do bear in mind that the all-you-can-eat mookata buffet is strictly limited to 90 minutes. We chose the Value Mak Mak Buffet (S$12.90+ per child, S$19.90+ per adult) and were entitled to free-flow eggs, chicken, pork, vegetables, glass noodles and rice.

For an additional S$10, the Deluxe Buffet comes with a selection of beef and seafood.

For those of you who are new to mookata, the appliance you use to cook your food has dual functions. The dome-shaped metal skillet acts as a griller and pork lard is used to grease the metallic surface. The BBQ meats here are characterised by a distinct charcoal flavour.

On the other hand, the moat—surrounding the dome-shaped griller—is filled with soup and you can boil your food like you would do at hot pots.

The F&B turnover rate in Upper Thomson neighbourhood is notably high, but Huay Kwang Thai evidently faces no lack of customers. The restaurant is bustling with life every single night – regardless of whether it is a weekday or weekend.

It opens till 2am every day, hence making it a perfect supper destination.

Huay Kwang Thai
244R Upper Thomson Road
Singapore 574369
Tel: +65 8588 9990
Daily: 5.30pm – 2am
Nearest Station: Marymount

The whole stretch of restaurants and eateries along Macpherson Road always leaves us spoilt for choice. We decided to give Aroy Mak Mookata a shot. At just S$17.80 Nett, you get a huge variety of meats and ingredients for your Mookata buffet.

You get a standard pork bone soup broth but for an additional S$2, you get to choose other soup variations.

For the S$17.80 Nett Mookata Buffet package, you get to choose between pork and chicken varieties and an additional but optional S$5.10 will get you more premium ingredients such as Snow Flake Beef, Mussels, Bamboo Clam and Prawns.

There are several homemade Thai chilli sauces too to complement for your meats.

We picked the Chiang Rai Marinated Pork, Black Pepper Chicken, Pork Belly, Purple Scallops, amongst other filler ingredients such as fish roe dumpling, crab sticks, mushrooms and vegetables. The Chiang Rai Marinated meats are part of their signature series and we liked the light and subtle marinate that does not overwhelm the meat.

However, if you are a huge pork fan, go right for the pork belly. When lightly grilled, the pork belly almost melts in your mouth.

Aroy Mak Mookata is perfect for anyone who has a hankering for Mookata on a budget. Best part about this is that you can eat to your heart’s content in an air-conditioned environment!

Weekday Mookata Buffet S$17.80 Nett, Weekend Mookata Buffet S$20.80.

Aroy Mak Mookata
476 Macpherson Road
Singapore 368191
Tel: +65 9052 0555
Daily: 5pm – 1am
Nearest Station: Tai Seng

About the writer:
Cheryl is a staff writer for ladyironchef. She loves a good steak and an even better cuppa. She eats just about anything and everything. In her free time, she regularly starts on sci-fi or fantasy movie marathons.