My mother and sister love eating sandwiches, so when I hear something good about a sandwich place that is nearby my office, I feel like I have to buy one for them to try. Smoke Shack received most of its attention between 2010 and 2011, but I never managed to locate its Market Street shop. Therefore when my friend led me to Republic Plaza for lunch, I was surprised and excited to see Smoke Shack there.
After a minute of staring at the menu, I decided on a basic pulled pork sandwich for sampling. The menu on Smoke Shack's website does not list any pulled pork sandwich, so it must be a new addition upon its move to Republic Plaza.
At the counter, a man laid out a sheet of paper, then sliced a soft-looking white mini sandwich loaf of about 6" lengthwise on top. He set some lettuce and tomatoes on the bread. Then, unlike Subway, instead of taking the meat from the containers at the counter, he received a small plate of meat from a part of the kitchen that was blocked from my view. As he pushed the meat onto the layer of lettuce and tomatoes, some pieces of pulled pork fell out, onto the countertop but he did not put them back into the sandwich. He squeezed some sauce onto the pork and closed the sandwich with the top flap of bread. Next, he wrapped the sandwich and sliced it in half, then wrapped it all in another sheet of paper and put the package in a brown bag.
When I arrived home about 20 minutes later, the juices from the sandwich has soaked through the wrapping paper and made a wet patch on the brown bag.
A cross-section picture of the sandwich shows the single sheet of lettuce at the bottom, followed by some meat, and what looks like a bit of coleslaw sauce and some BBQ sauce. I pulled out some of the pork to try, and it indeed looked like pulled pork - there were only strands of it, and no chunks. However, the strands of pork had the strangest taste. They had a faint smokey tinge, but did not really taste like pork. My mother thought that it tasted odd as well, and described it as tasting "eastern" and not "western".
For $9.30 and a few good write-ups, I was expecting tender, deep-flavoured, caramelised pork between a toasted sandwich roll... or at least something better than Subway. Perhaps I ordered the wrong item at the wrong time?
Smoke Shack
9 Raffles Place
Republic Plaza #B01-06
Singapore 048619
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