Everyone loves weekends and so do we! Apart from shopping and pigging out the entire day, we can also afford to drink and hang out till late without having to worry about not being able to wake up early the next day. When we were walking around Orchard and thinking of where to have dinner, I caught Hubby Chewy by surprise when I asked, “Wanna go drinking?” The expression on his face was priceless. Yup and then we went on to make a list of all the watering holes in town before I exclaimed “Ahh! I know where got cheap beer!” It’s none other than Blu Jaz Cafe at Bali Lane, near Bugis MRT station! Actually, prior to this review, I have not been to Blu Jaz Cafe because I heard that the lighting is extremely bad. And this place is only worth checking out at night if you wanna drink, unwind and listen to live band performances.

Most of the cafes along Arab Street, Haji Lane, Bali Lane, etc are promoting shisha, which is also known as hookah. We had to reject a few guys while making our way to Blu Jaz. I think these cafes make more money from shisha than their food! We reached at around 7pm and were promptly shown to a table right outside the entrance. It doesn’t matter if you’re seated indoors or outdoors because it’s equally dark! Ordered a jug of Tiger beer which costs $22. Pretty reasonable to us! 😛

Even the mains are cheap! Most are priced at around $10 to $15. There are sandwiches, pastas, local delights, middle eastern cuisine, etc. You can find out more here.

Grilled Chicken Chop ($9.90)

The grilled chicken chop was served in black pepper sauce. On the overall, the tender and juicy cuts were quite decent but we would have preferred it less salty. Came with a lovely side of potato wedges and greens such as red capsicum and french beans.

Grilled Seafood Combo ($15.90)

Ok to be honest, we couldn’t really make out what exactly was in the grilled seafood combo because it was seriously too dark to see what we were shoving into our mouths. But we were sure that the butter rice was very fragrant and appetizing; so good that we could eat it on its own. Although the grilled prawns were slightly burnt, they were savory nonetheless. The slices of fish and scallop were chunky and meaty too!

Fish and Chips ($8.90)

That awkward moment when you still have room for some finger food to go with your unfinished beer but you realize that the finger food costs just about the same as the rest of the mains. *Gasp* How can this be possible?! Now tell me, calamari at $9.50 and fish and chips at $8.90, which would you go for? French fries at $6.50? What the heck, I could get all the fries I wanted by ordering the fish and chips! And so we did. The fish and chips turned out to be much more outstanding than the previous two mains! So glad that we ordered this. I don’t usually fancy the breaded kind of fish and chips but the breaded crumb crust was done really well such that the fish was crisp but not oily, while retaining the fish’s own moisture.

If only desserts go well with beer, we really would have ordered some. It was a pity that we gobbled up all our food and drinks before the live band performance at 9pm! If you’re a football fan, request to be seated indoors so that you can watch matches on the big screen. Grab all your friends along, and order plenty of food and beer to go around! To sum things up, Blu Jaz Cafe is a highly recommended chill-out place given its reasonable prices and relaxing ambience.

Blu Jaz Cafe
No. 11 Bali Lane,
Historic Kampong Glam,
Singapore 189848
Tel: 6292 3800

Opening Hours:
Mon to Thu
12pm – 12midnight
Fri
12pm – 2am
Sat
4p – 2am
(Closed on Sun)