Hidden amongst the many shophouses at Bugis, the newly-opened No Milk Bistro is a local cafe cum rooftop bar offering a wide array of charcoal grill and tagliatelle dishes, as well as some scrumptious finger food items.

As their name suggests, their speciality is an unassuming milk and dairy-free bowl of clear fish broth packed with 27 years of Teochew style heritage and goodness. Deceptively clear and full-bodied, No Milk Bistro’s fish soup is described as being finely balanced with a generous garnish of Japanese Nori in place of seaweed.

Says No Milk Bistro’s Chef Ho Gern, 29, “Third time’s the charm. You’ll be craving our No Milk Fish Soup after you’ve had your third bowl. And I’m pretty sure I’ll be seeing you again.”

Trained in the culinary arts, Ho Gern takes pride in offering a fish soup menu that’s bursting with umami and available together with a slew of complementary dishes.

While there is definitely no milk used in the fish soup, it must be noted that milk and dairy may be used in some of No Milk Bistro’s other recipes, though.

Invited to a Food Tasting

I was recently invited to a food tasting session at the No Milk Bistro, where I got to try their signature fish soup, together with several other items on their menu. So here are my thoughts and comments on their food and beverages.

Bistro Menu

When you dine at the No Milk Bistro, you should, of course, try their signature dish, which is the Fish Soup. And for this, you can choose either the Sliced Fish Soup ($6) which is served with Mackerel or the Fried Fish Soup ($6) where Sea Bass is used.

For us, we were served with the Mixed Fish Soup ($7) so that we try the best of both worlds in a single bowl.

When I tried out the Mixed Fish Soup for myself, I was blown away immediately. I thought that this was easily the best dish of the evening. The soup broth was clear and refreshing and at the same time, there was plenty of flavour and bite to it. I could pick up a slight hint of sweetness, as well as a savoury taste.

The two variants of fish were also yummy. The Fried Sea Bass retained its texture well and unlike most fish soup dishes that I have tried, this did not get soggy at all in the soup. And the Sliced Mackerel had absorbed the flavours of the broth nicely, as well.

Overall, the ingredients and flavours were perfectly balanced, and the result was a deceptively simple, yet a rich and satisfying fish soup dish that I would definitely come back for.

No Milk Bistro has definitely done a great job with their Fish Soup and they have certainly proven that you do not need to use any milk in fish soup in order for it to taste great.

Besides the Fish Soup, another item that is popular on the No Milk Bistro menu is the Spicy Fragrant Hand Made Dry Noodles ($8) which is served with a choice of Grilled Pork Belly or Fish Belly. This dish is supposed to be No Milk Bistro’s unique local take on mala, and the dish is drizzled with home-made mala chilli sauce.

There are three levels of spiciness, ranging from one to three, and we had the first one.

We had the Fish Belly option and this was served with a side bowl of soup, which is supposed to be mixed in to wet the noodles. I would say that this dish was yummy.

The mala sauce had a spicy and savoury taste at the same time and I thought that the spiciness from the mala was balanced out well with the seafood notes coming from the Fish Belly, which had been put into the dish afterwards and was not cooked with the mala sauce.

This is definitely a dish that I would definitely come back for, together with No Milk Bistro’s Fish Soup dish.

Rooftop Bar Menu

Charcoal Grill

From the Charcoal Grill menu, we were served with the Home Made Ngor Hiang ($2), Home Made Black Char Siew ($12.80) and the Secret Recipe Pork Belly ($12.80).

Usually these dishes are served separately, but for our tasting purposes, we were given smaller sample sizes of each served in a single platter, as there were still several other dishes to try at this stage.

Each meat was also accompanied by its own specially concocted chilli sauce to complement its flavours.

For the Home Made Ngor Hiang, I thought that this was rich and tasty, with a burst of flavours in my mouth upon biting into a piece of this. The taste of the Five Spices in this meat was strong, yet complementary and did not overpower, though I felt it did leave a bit of an aftertaste upon swallowing.

The colour of the Home Made Black Char Siew comes from caramelisation according to No Milk Bistro. I thought that the meat was soft and tender so as a result, not much chewing was required on my part.

And the Secret Recipe Pork Belly was tasty and flavoursome too, even though I had personally felt that the meat was not as tender as compared to the Black Char Siew, though it had more zing to it, with a hint of Five Spices flavour when I bit into some. 

Finger Food

From No Milk Bistro’s Finger Food menu, we tried their the Con Queso with Fresh Cut Wedges ($9), and I would say that this dish was pretty addictive. The Con Queso sauce, which is basically a side dish of melted cheese mixed with cream and chilli peppers, was rather yummy. This was a great dipping sauce for the Wedges.

I could pick up a hint of spices coming from the cheese sauce, and this went very well with the potato wedges, which were a little crunchy on the outside and warm on the inside, when I bit into them. When eaten by themselves, the wedges may have been a tad on the salty side, but the flavours from the sauce had balanced this out.

We tried the Deep Fried Chicken Wings ($8) from here too and I thought that these were rather interesting in terms of the flavour combination present. 

This is because in the wings, I could pick up a hint of spices in it that reminded me of lemongrass or coriander, and this had helped to enhance the natural flavours of the fried chicken, thus making it stand out.

Freshly Made Pasta

From the pasta menu, we had two items, and these were the Thai Red Curry Pasta With Tiger Prawns ($18.80) and the Beef Rendang Pasta ($16.80).

For the Thai Red Curry Pasta With Tiger Prawns, I could pick up a spicy curry note that hit me immediately upon tasting some of this. 

Later on though, after eating several mouthfuls, this gave way to a slight hint of prawn flavour, as well as a subtle tang of cheese, probably because the base of this pasta could have been a cheesy creamy sauce.

This pasta is served with fried ebi as well as prawns cooked in the pasta. I particularly liked the fried ebi because this had a satisfyingly savoury taste to it on the inside, while still being slightly crunchy on the outside.

And for the pasta used, this is made daily in-house according to No Milk Bistro, using a water-less dough of plenty of eggs and flour. And the result of this is an al-dente pasta that is slightly chewy, firm and with plenty of bite that I had really enjoyed.

And as for the the Beef Rendang Pasta, the first thing that I noticed was that the Beef Rendang sauce had tasted a little on the sweet side. I would generally expect Beef Rendang to have a strong savoury taste, so this had been quite different.

As well, I had thought the sauce had been a bit mushy and this caused the overall dish to lack bite. It would have been nice if there were some beef cubes to chew on, in order to give the dish some extra texture.

That said though, it was a very flavoursome and tasty dish and besides the beefy note, I could also pick up a hint of a coconut flavour too, which I thought had added some variety to this pasta dish.

According to No Milk Bistro, the Beef Rendang sauce is stewed for more than twelve hours, in order to bring out the flavours of the dish. And it was definitely a dish that had been rich in flavours, indeed.

Beverages Menu

Since No Milk Bistro is a rooftop bar as well as a Bistro, we thought that we should try some of their alcoholic drinks as well.

The bar at No Milk Bistro consists of a palate-pleasing variety of drinks and fresh fruit cocktails, and they offer regular promotions with discounts ranging from 1 for 1 liquor by the glass, to 15 per cent off bottles, as well as Korean Soju deals such as three bottles for $42.

For the drinks, we had a few varieties. We first tried a Rye & Pint Trippin Wheat ($13) which is a bottled beer.

Coming from Singapore’s very own Rye & Pint Brewing Co, this is a beer with a floral aroma, crisp and slightly sweet body and with notes of banana and cloves.

It is brewed with quality malted wheat, in order to produce a slightly hopped wheat ale and has an alcohol content of 5 per cent.

I thought this was a pretty mild tasting beer and when I drank it, I could pick up a hoppy note to it too. Overall it is a rather easy and light beer to drink.

We also tried the Jinro Green Grape Soju ($16) which is described at having a unique grape flavour with an alcoholic content of 13 per cent.

This drink had a very smooth flavour and a clean and fresh taste to it, though it was also a tad sweet at the same time. Still though, it was quite a refreshing and easy to drink Soju and a good way to end off my meal at No Milk Bistro.

As well, we had some of the Utakata Sparkling Sake – Yuzu ($18) which is made with Japanese shochu, soda water, and Yuzu flavours, and has an alcohol content of 5 per cent.

And this was really nice, combining some sweetness and acidity of Yuzu juice with light carbonation together with an alcoholic kick. The flavour was fruity and sweet, yet sour at the same time, and I thought that this too, had definitely been quite refreshing, as well.

Gather Your Mates for a Night Out

The No Milk Bistro is located at 18 Pahang Street S198615 and the premises are open from 11am – 10pm from Monday to Saturday while the Rooftop Bar, which is located on the second level and easily accessible through the Bistro, is accessible from 5.30pm – midnight.

So why not combine two in one, and gather your best mates for the perfect two-in-one night out, first with dinner at the Bistro followed by a fantastic night of chilling out over drinks at the Rooftop Bar?