MooJaa, Mookata Thai BBQ Steamboat (CLOSED)

Maureen
Maureen
December 03, 2012

MooJaa

Moo Ka Ta” literally means “pork skillet” in Thai and refers to the special cooking apparatus create to enjoy both BBQ and hot pot at the same time.

Originated from Chiang Mai, a trough of soup sits on a crock of charcoal and a dome shaped grill is placed on the trough. This allows the smoke from the charcoal to waft up to the grill, perfuming the meat with fragrance.

MooJaa

Moo Kata is probably one of the most popular get together meal among the Thai. The price is cheap and the value for the meal is just incredible. This concept has been catching on in Singapore lately and MooJaa is the latest edition. Opened for barely less than 3 months, MooJaa serves good quality Thai BBQ Steamboat in Keong Saik Road.

MooJaa

Here, quality Binchotan Japanese white charcoal is served. It doesn’t produce the soot like the black charcoal and do not cause the food to be acidic after BBQ-ing.

MooJaa

The head chef personally handpicks the seafood and meat every morning from the market and marinates herself in secret sauce that is free from MSG. Hence, the meat here is tender and juicy.

Besides the usual BBQ/steamboat ingredients such as prawns, cheese ball, hot dog, fish ball, vegetables etc, they also serve quality meat – Kurobuta Pork and Angus Beef. And there is also Hokkaido scallops and Surimi crab sticks.

MooJaa

If you can’t decide what to eat, order the 2 Mookata sets.

  • Set Moo ($39.90) features pork collar slice, prawn, fish/pork ball, squid, luncheon meat, hot dog, golden mushroom, tang hoon (vermicelli), xiao bai cai and kang kong.
  • Set Gai ($39.90) features boneless chicken, prawn, fish/pork ball, squid, luncheon meat, hot dog, golden mushroom, tang hoon (vermicelli), xiao bai cai and kang kong.

MooJaa

When the waiter brings you the mookata pan, a piece of pork lard is provided and it’s normally placed at the center of the dome. The pork lard will then melt and produced oil and drips from the top of the dome down to the broth area. This actually allows the dome to oil up so that when you place meat onto the dome, meat will not stick to it and burn. The oil from the pork lard and drips into the soup and this makes the broth even tastier.

The soup base is brewed for 5 hours to create a chicken and pork bone broth that is light in the beginning but turns quite flavourful from all the meaty juices. Initially I am quite uncomfortable with the mookata style of cooking as the dome area is small and my meat kept falling into the soup. But after looking at the other table who were very skillful in placing the whole chunk of meat on top of the dome, I guess I still need more practice on that.

MooJaa

The range of food available for steamboat BBQ at MooJaa is good, but not extensive, with options similar to what you’ll find at other steamboat places. But how a Thai steamboat and barbeque differs is in the unique preparation method of Moo Kata, and the dipping sauces for the food.

Their two dipping sauces – Spicy BBQ and Sweet Sour Seafood Sauce – are excellent. They are made from scratch with 31 different ingredients. The sauces need 6 straight hours of non stop stirring so that it does not burn and it is made fresh weekly in small batches.

I really love the seafood sauce which is full of tangy and umami flavours, dip the fried fish skin into it, very shiok!

MooJaa

Don’t forget to wash it down with house-brewed Thai Iced Milk Tea! During lunch, they serve ala carte Thai dishes such as Green Curry Chicken, Pineapple Rice, Basil Leaf Pork etc.

In Thai, MooJaa is a popular slang word meaning “my lovely pig” and commonly used by couple who have put on weight during the relationship. So if you are there with your boyfriend, rub his belly after the meal and say “MooJaa!”.

MooJaa


Address: 25 Keong Saik Road Singapore
Tel: +65 6536 4780
Opening hours:
Lunch: * Monday to Friday * 11.00am – 2.00pm
Dinner: * Monday to Sunday * 5pm – 11pm

Facebook: MooJaa

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