"Chilled lime and beer, seafood wantons and the most charming eatery of tomorrow is now here at Tanjong Rhu bay."

At last, an ultimate location for seafront dining. You sit one, two, three or four floors above the calm bay waters and down a mug of chilled beer and face the warm setting sun. And all around you is a beautiful cultured view of our skyline, the ECP and fine residential estates, with light breeze softly blowing into your face. And added to this joy, you sit on comfortable classic side-walk café furniture set against cool steel, glass and concrete finishing.

I am talking about the eatery at the end of the fancy footbridge over the Tanjong Rhu bay behind the Indoor Stadium. I have always peered at this futuristic structure as I drove down Nicoll Highway and wondered how charming it would be to have meal there. I now know.

This modern pagoda like structure is a four-storey contraption rising out of the waters at the end of a little concrete jetty. It looks as if someone had plunged the KL Petronas Towers into our waters and left the top four floors above sea level. It is basically a huge steel spiral staircase leading up to three floors of viewing gallery converted to eatery space. And on every level, there is an in-house phone that allows you to ring the counter for service.

The café that operates here essentially serves some liquor, beer, hot and cold drinks and finger food. But, because the name and the food served is pretty unmemorable, it slips me. Frankly, the fried sotong (squid) balls and the seafood wanton did not taste half as bad. I suspect the charming atmosphere must have possessed me to say so. Or was it that tall glass of chilled lime and the hypnotic buzz of silence on a quiet afternoon? The service staff does not hang around every floor constantly to breathe down your privacy. You buzz them when you need them and the poor lass will walk up to three floors to attend to your eating whims. Otherwise you sit to drink, eat, see and be seen or shoot some pool.

I hope in my stomach and heart that someone will convert this place yet again (it was once a pathetic hawker centre) into a laid back wine, grill and salad bar. Now that would make this lovely place next to perfect.

Meanwhile, chicken wings anyone?

Photos and text by kfseetoh.