The problem with Café Capistrano has mostly been one of location - no one knows where it is and those who do, speed past at 70 km/h without realizing that there's a café there. Few people have any reason to venture out to the Old Airport Road, other than to use the highway on the way elsewhere. However, it might be worth your while to take a trek out there, as the varied and eclectic menu will surely be the talking point of your meal.
The name was actually inspired by the town of San Juan Capistrano, just outside Los Angeles, although, other than a few references to Mexican/Spanish-inspired items on the menu, it's hard to see any link. This is not meant to be an American/Mexican restaurant; rather, it's, as its prefix implies, a café, with a selection of coffee concoctions and a variety of one-dish meals on its menu, all served rather comfortably in a palm-plant filled, terracotta-based interior.
There, the resemblance ends, however, for the items, at least on the menu, bear little resemblance to any of the items served at your regular, everyday café. Mexican Pie Tee, Salmon Laksa and Char Fettucine share menu space with Salad Niçoise and Portuguese Fried Rice.
In delivery, however, you may find that these apparently "fusion" dishes are really not as odd as some fusion combinations are wont to be; many, despite their apparently outlandish combinations, work quite well and retain more of an Asian than Western identity. Mervin Theseira, the manager-chef, has been bold in his selection of ingredients, though essentially, it's mostly a case of substituting an Asian ingredient for a Western one in a Western dish or vice versa, or adding an unusual twist to a well-known dish while retaining the basic characteristics of the original.
For example, the Mexican Pie Tee's melted cheese topping is the only "Mexican" contribution (actually, more Tex-Mex, than Mexican) to the appetizer, but it's a combination that works well, with the bland cheese tempering the rich sweetness of the shredded yam bean or "bankwang" filling.
Meanwhile, the Salmon Laksa, one of the most popular items on the menu and a mainstay that has remained through several menu revamps, is the Rolls Royce of laksas and it's easy to see why. I've always believed that the strong flavour of salmon works very well with spices and the Salmon Laksa proves this. The curry or rempah base is a wonderfully harmonious amalgam of chilli, lemon grass, shallots and a myriad of other herbs and spices; instead of coconut milk, cream is used, for an unbelievably luxurious dish, one that's almost too rich. This is a matter of personal taste but for those who enjoy lavish, creamy pasta sauces, the Salmon Laksa is right up their street.
My personal favourite is the Portuguese Fried Rice, an innocuous-looking plate of white-fried rice studded with bits of squid, prawns, chicken and egg and some pale green bits of what appear to be spring onions. Be very wary, for these are actually bits of stinging cili padi whose sting and bite take the very common nasi goring to another level altogether. But it's not so much the cili padi that leaves such a lasting impression as the accompanying condiments - a mound of crisp shredded lettuce and carrots drenched in a house-made tart lime dressing and the incredible salt-fish pickle. I loved this pickle, I kept returning to it with every bite, I ended up having more pickle than rice with each mouthful.
They have other dishes as well - various grills, steaks and roasts which they do very well. A Cajun chicken that was moist and well-seasoned and whose mashed potato side dish, painstakingly mashed by hand with turkey stock and mince, had us scraping the plate. A crunchy chicken chop drenched in a piquant, fruity pineapple sauce that had us dunking the wonderful, ¾ inch thick steak fries into. Desserts include a house-made cake that changes from day to day but is invariably homemade such as a pineapple upside-down cake (so you know they didn't get their cakes from Celicakes or one of those other providers of desserts to cafés!)
But there are a couple of misses as well, for pasta does not always to chilli bite. While fettucine works with the Salmon laksa, it doesn't do so well as the base for Char Fettucine, the Italian version of Char Kway Teow or the Mee Mamak because pasta doesn't have the same oil absorbency as our local yellow noodles or kway teow.
In the end, it's the little accompaniments, the little home-made touches that Theseira adds to his dishes, that left the biggest impression - the eleven ingredients he concocted into the sweet, spicy chilli sauce that is used as a condiment, the appetizer of deep-fried chicken wings that he meticulously bones and stuffs, but mostly, that wonderful, salty, powerful, uncomprising salt-fish pickle, something you'd be hard-pressed to find in even the most authentic Portuguese restaurant. For that alone, I'd return to Café Capistrano.
