Sahara Bar & Restaurant is one of the only places that still has shisha in Singapore until the official ban on the 31st July. My friend and I went there primarily for the shisha last Friday night but we also decided to try out some of the food whilst we were there too. They serve a variety of Persian food as well as pizzas so we got a starter platter ($16), Falafel Wrap ($10) and Ghormeh Sabzi Stew ($17) which is a lamb stew with herbs.
The starter platter had a selection of 4 different appetisers including hummus, Kashkeh Bademjan (aubergine dip), stuffed vine leaves and pickled cabbage, carrots and gherkins together with some pita bread. The pita and the stuffed vine leaves were nice but the hummus and the aubergine dip were too runny and the pickles were too sour for my liking.
I was really looking forward to the falafel wrap as I love falafel and haven’t really had it in Singapore so far but I was really disappointed to find tiny remnants of falafel in the wraps instead of big balls of falafel like I had expected. There was hardly anything in the wraps apart from lettuce!
The Ghormeh Sabzi Stew was another disappointment. It literally had 5 very small pieces of lamb in it and the rest of it was just lentils. It tasted ok though and came with rice – we chose to have rice with barberries.
After dinner we had the shisha there in grape and mint flavour ($45). They have a good selection of different flavours and they will replace your coals after you’ve smoked the first batch. The drinks in Sahara Bar & Restaurant are good value too and they have happy hour from 6pm – 9pm daily where drinks are $2 off. A pint of Tiger draft beer is only $8 and the wine is not bad too at $10 a glass.
The restaurant itself, although a bit cramped and crowded, has a nice atmosphere as they have a lot of seating outside which has a good view of the river and Marina Bay Sands. They also have seating inside if it gets too hot and humid for you.
The service, although polite, is extremely slow and we and the customers around us were left most of the time wondering if the servers were actually going to come back with our orders. The food did come out quite quickly though.
I’m not sure how Sahara Bar & Restaurant are going to survive after the shisha ban at the end of next month as it seems like that is what most of their customers are interested in and I’m sure they’re not there for the food. It is a good place to have a reasonably priced drink though by the river.
Sahara Bar & Restaurant
Address: 58 Boat Quay, Singapore 049847 (Nearest MRT: Clarke Quay / Raffles Place)
Tel: 6536 6231
Opening Hours: Daily 11.30am – 3.30pm
Hope you’ve enjoyed my Sahara Bar & Restaurant review, please feel free to leave a comment below with your own review or if you have any questions!
