Perched on the 12th floor of Realty Centre, the week-old Charcoal Pit specializes in grilled meats over charcoal and hardwood fire.

The biblical quote on the wall is rather ironic when the steaks here are served medium-rare.

Realty Centre is a cool, old, dingy building, with flickering florescent lamps, dark corners, lift buttons that don’t light up, and mosaic tiles—stuff of nightmares and ghost movies. The lift only goes to 11th floor, so you have to climb a staircase up to Charcoal Pit, a stairwell of right angles; you’ll never know what you’ll bump into at the next turn. SO FREAKING AWESOME.

But by the end of the meal, I lamented, “It’s such a pity to have a bbq restaurant here. The space would make a really cool hipster bar.” Part of the reason why I said it is because of the disappointment over the food.

The taste of the burger ($15 + $1 cheese + $2 bacon + $1 caramelized onions) was not bad with a smoky aroma, but for $3 more, I could get an amazing burger at Meatliquor.

Furthermore, what diminished the taste was the experience. We ate half of the fries, which came with the burger. Then we started to eat the burger, and discovered the inside was as raw as beef tartare. They agreed to make us a new one, but when the new burger came, it came without fries. And the bacon in the second burger was so little. Sigh.

I should have gone for the grass-fed flank steak, but I was greedy for cheap wagyu rump ($34). The server told me it was 300g, but it might be a misinformation; from the look of the steak, I estimated it to be 150g-200g. Good quality wagyu should have fats laced into the meat, like zebra stripes, but this one had fats concentrated at one end. Fresh beef should be a nice pinkish red in medium-rare but this came as a dark brown.

The baby back ribs ($22 half/ $34) made Huccalyly angry. “Damn it,” she cursed, “I thought meat should fall off the bones. I need to use my hands; this rib is forcing me not to be lady-like. These ribs don’t taste like they are well-marinated, and tasted like they just slab the bbq sauce to mask the lousy marination. Cartel Café’s ribs are better. I don’t want to be mean, and we should give them a chance because they are new… Can you give them 4.9?”

I replied, “Over 10?”

Mr Fitness chimed in, “No lah, over 100.”

We spent $78 for three persons.

Charcoal Pit

15 Enggor St, Realty Centre #12-00 Singapore 079716
T: +65 8822 5591
M-Sat 11am-10pm
facebook

Value: 6/10
Décor/Ambience: 5.75/10 (Patrons’ chattering echoed!)
Food: 4.9/10
Service: 6/10
Rating: 2.831/5

Written by A. Nathanael Ho.