Magma, Bukit Pasoh
Did you realise that there is a quite a bit of Italian food entries in this blog? That must say that I enjoy their cuisine or favor them in preference over the other types of non local food. Duh! I like pasta and generally think that entrees are more interesting than mains which I think Italian restaurants (and French too) do a pretty good job of. Incidentily, all that pratter has absolutely nothing to do with my foray into Magma. My initial skepticisms of this place is totally dispelled from this dinner. Tonight was a party of 6 with fatpig, ailian, pyrrhous, debbie and akira. Magma is located at 2 Bukit Pasoh, one of the stretch of regions between Chinatown and Tanjong Pagar. Bukit Pasoh (where Majestic Hotel stands) is actually just across the road from Outram MRT station with one of the exits located conveniently just beside the said road itself. That being said, Magma is located right at the end of the road if you're coming from the Outram side of Bt Pasoh along the shophouses on the left side.
Atypical of German places, the menu at Magma is laden with a lot of options for meats, sausages, wine and beer. All of it, housed in a clean and fairly simplistically designed shophouse restaurant equipped with a partial open concept kitchen without any glass walls so some the smoke tends to creep into the rest of the place. It fortunately didn't look like the place has any problem with that so you can quell your worries about having to eat in a oily and smoky room. I said partial open concept because I don't see all of the food being prepared there and we were seated right beside it.
Sausage platter
German pizza (Flammkuchen) with smoked pork loin, garlic sauerkraut
What I like about the german pizzas here is that instead of coming with 
tomato based sauce like most pizzas, this is topped with cream cheese instead (woohoo!). This particular one comes with a very noticeable garlic flavor (woohoo again!) and it's probably the one that holds the most appeal for meat lovers with the bits of fragrant smoked pork loin that is slightly charred and fairly chewy. The pizza actually looks like a sort of giant naan and the crust isn't as thin as some of those from Italian places. With sauerkraut, the whole pizza leans towards a saltish and sourish (appetisingly so) flavor which really gets thumbs up from me because there's cream cheese. That means that, subjected to people who don't like it and detest garlic, it would probably stink a great deal to them. Not me here.
A mixed platter of supposedly pork specialties (Gemischte Schlachtplatte) , but I detected chicken and beef
Atypical of German places, the menu at Magma is laden with a lot of options for meats, sausages, wine and beer. All of it, housed in a clean and fairly simplistically designed shophouse restaurant equipped with a partial open concept kitchen without any glass walls so some the smoke tends to creep into the rest of the place. It fortunately didn't look like the place has any problem with that so you can quell your worries about having to eat in a oily and smoky room. I said partial open concept because I don't see all of the food being prepared there and we were seated right beside it.
Sausage platterA regular plate of mixed sausages which was on the whole not bad. I wasn't really able to identify specifics of the sausages, but they're generally juicey and some of them contain an assortment of spices in the meat and have coarser textures which is something I thought was good.
German pizza (Flammkuchen) with smoked pork loin, garlic sauerkraut
tomato based sauce like most pizzas, this is topped with cream cheese instead (woohoo!). This particular one comes with a very noticeable garlic flavor (woohoo again!) and it's probably the one that holds the most appeal for meat lovers with the bits of fragrant smoked pork loin that is slightly charred and fairly chewy. The pizza actually looks like a sort of giant naan and the crust isn't as thin as some of those from Italian places. With sauerkraut, the whole pizza leans towards a saltish and sourish (appetisingly so) flavor which really gets thumbs up from me because there's cream cheese. That means that, subjected to people who don't like it and detest garlic, it would probably stink a great deal to them. Not me here.
A mixed platter of supposedly pork specialties (Gemischte Schlachtplatte) , but I detected chicken and beefThis is the meat lover's dream. A huge plated fileld with thick cut meats, various sausages, a small pork knuckle and dumplings (german dumplings which look like spam or meatloaves, not the regular tortellini or wantons things). One of the sausages from this mixed platter is boiled instead of grilled or fried, giving it a softer and squishier feel in the bite. The heap of meat sits with more potato salad, sauerkraut, mashed green peas (which are not bad actually) and cabbages braised in red wine. This dish is definitely heavy and it's serving is meant for 3. What was noted about this specifically is that the pork knuckle is rather small in size which is similar to what I had at Paulaners. What happened to all the large hunks of grilled trotters?!
And hands with forks and knives get busy in the process...
Magma has a selection of desserts which appear to be quite different from other restaurants. Maybe it's because I haven't eaten at too many German places, but hey, there isn't any molten/lava choc cake here. What you do find is an assortment of cheese based sweets which we unfortunately didn't get to sample tonight. We did manage a toasted cheese dessert in cranberry sauce, chocolate mousses and a Gebackene Apfelscheiben mit Zimthonig (a tongue twister for baked apple slices in puff pastry with honey and powdered cinnamon).
Gebackene Apfelscheiben mit Zimthonig
A quaint cheese dessert with gooseberries and doesn't really taste of cheese at all
An interesting and not so regular chocolate mousse
The chocolate mousse is interesting because the white one is actually made with jalapeno chilli giving it a prickly spiciness as you swallow which does not happen in other chocolates. It's akin to chilli or wasabi ice cream. I'm not a fan of mousse so I haven't any particular points of note for the dessert. It does come with a good almond flavored marzipan sauce. I said it's good because I liked it and I generally, hate marzipan.
From first impressions, Magma is pretty good. The food portions are decent and lean towards being saltish, but I really don't mind since it's not overdone. On the top of that, you do get very polite and prompt service from the staff that actually know about what they're serving you. There's not much to dislike about this place. I think I'll be back another time.
Gebackene Apfelscheiben mit Zimthonig
A quaint cheese dessert with gooseberries and doesn't really taste of cheese at all
An interesting and not so regular chocolate mousse
The chocolate mousse is interesting because the white one is actually made with jalapeno chilli giving it a prickly spiciness as you swallow which does not happen in other chocolates. It's akin to chilli or wasabi ice cream. I'm not a fan of mousse so I haven't any particular points of note for the dessert. It does come with a good almond flavored marzipan sauce. I said it's good because I liked it and I generally, hate marzipan.From first impressions, Magma is pretty good. The food portions are decent and lean towards being saltish, but I really don't mind since it's not overdone. On the top of that, you do get very polite and prompt service from the staff that actually know about what they're serving you. There's not much to dislike about this place. I think I'll be back another time.
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