I Eat Alone at Comnam Vietnamese Street Eats, Raffles City
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The blazing sun recently does not make me feel like going to have lunch at hawker centre or the famous fish soup stall at Arcade (although it’s air-conditioned but you won’t feel it because of the heat from the kitchen + crowd). So when I have no lunch appointment, I ended up wandering in the shopping mall because oh boy, I think all the shopping malls in Singapore blast their air-conditioning system to the max because I really feel comfortably cool inside the mall. So with the blast of air-conditioner in Raffles City, I am deciding what to have for lunch by myself. I’ve been spending me-time so often at Saboten Express, so I decided today is not the day to go to Saboten Express.
That’s when I saw that there is no queue line at Comnam. I quickly scanned the eatery to see if it can be considered friendly enough for a solo diner and ohh, there’s a guy who’s eating alone there. Comnam has table for two/ section with high chair/ communal table which I feel will not make solo diners feel uncomfortable. Since seating seems to be no problemo, I just walked inside and reserve a small table while thinking of what to order. There’s ordering chit and menu on each table so you can take your time to decide what to eat if you manage to reserve a table beforehand.
Comnam has a variety of rice and noodle dishes in its menu. You can order small plates to go as side dishes for your main noodle/ rice too. But since its sister restaurant Nam Nam (which is located right beside Comnam) specialises in pho, which is a form of noodle, I would think that Comnam should be better with its rice dishes. So with this way of thinking, I chose lemongrass chili chicken fragrant rice for my lunch. It costs SGD 9.90 so I suppose it’s still within my SGD 10 budget for lunch in shopping mall. I left my cute Cony to guard the table while I made my way to the counter to make order and in return, the cashier gave me a buzzer. That’s good since I don’t have to stand there forever to wait for my order.
The lemongrass chili chicken fragrant rice comes with onsen egg which I don’t think it’s delicacy in Vietnam, so I suppose this dish must have been touched with an element of fusion-ism. But the lemongrass and chili sauce that they use to marinate the chicken soak into the meats perfectly. The rice that Comnam serve is not normal white rice. It seems to have a bit of quinoa texture although I don’t think they are quinoa (because quinoa would make the price of the dish increase exorbitantly). I quite like the whole dish and polish it together with Cony (ok kidding, I polish it all by myself).
Atmosphere wise, since there are many solo diners having lunch there, I don’t feel awkward at all to eat alone here at Comnam. So I think I would probably come back again for another visit here when I’m by myself.