Empire State

201 Victoria Street 
Iluma 
#04-03 SG 188067


We will just come straight to the point: This mini giant tucked away in obscure Iluma is underrated, and its not difficult to understand why. Sorry for the oxymoron though. Iluma is a splendidly designed shopping centre, with almost every shop within view had one stood in the middle, looked up and turned one round. Much better than other malls with difficult-to-manuever levels and tricky corners for those without a sense of direction. 


Empire State is on the fourth floor, easily accessible by the longest escalator in the building that connects the first floor to the fourth. The signboard is huge, a cartoon monkey embraces the iconic NY building, and the decor looks vibrant, with splashes of cheeky colours and plush couches that seems to be the answer for tired legs. The menu on the outside looks inviting, with the HUGE burger capturing attention (and tummies), and overzealous staff standing at the door showing menus eagerly to passerbys. Prices are affordable at the $10-$30 range. The whole concept is fairly similar to New York New York. Promising, yet the place is only dismally quarter-full for lunch.


This is our second time to Empire State and we are back to try the dishes that had us salivating over when we first went there. Too many choices, so we went for BBQ whole chicken and empire state mushroom pizza the first round. Monstrous serving, atypical of US dinners. We were so taken aback by the size, but we just wolfed all down. Hungry teachers right???

This time round, we had two dishes: the "must-try" Grilled Chicken Fettucini with Sundried Tomatoes & Garlic Cream Sauce and Squid Ink Pasta. We sat at a private corner and had the whole "cabin" to ourselves. Service was a little slow even though there weren't much of a crowd, we had to ask for our glasses refilled. Maybe we hadn't ordered any drinks (which were on 30% discount) so the cooler treatment? 

Joy says:

There are only two kinds of spaghetti I order when we eat out, either the Aglio Olio, or the Squid Ink. The first because I relish its simplicity and layers in the flavors. The second because I love the smell of fresh squid, the relatively unappetizing look of the dish that will fool uninformed diners, and the pockets of surprises that catch you unaware as you tuck into the black mess.

This dish at Empire State didn’t disappoint. When my plate came, the fresh squid smell tickled my nose and whet my appetite at that very instant. Sure enough, that black mess looks like some haphazardly assembled spaghetti. But looking closer, there were several differences between this and the one we had at Pepperoni Pizeria and Oriole.

For one, the base was squid-ink infused, which is different from the tomato cream sauce at Oriole. This means a more unglamorous lunch (blacker than black), but it doesn’t matter, just feed your lunch partner with one mouthful of this. *evil grin. The base was the same as the one at Pepperoni’s, but the latter’s was very slightly spicy with chili tossed in, an unexpected twang not present in Empire State’s.

Secondly, there were much lesser and simpler ingredients, with only spaghetti, garlic, prawns and squid. The one at Oriole had a lot more, like lobster and asparagus. But no issue here, since the price is about $10 cheaper. Personally, I felt its $14.90 price tag justifiable for its portion, taste and ingredients though I might fork out extra to go to the one at Oriole for its exoticism.

In all, there wasn’t much surprise in this dish, but even though the taste was rather expected, the presence of fresh ingredients did make up for it.  The spaghetti was done al dente, and the squid ink sauce coated it rather uniformly, without much grey patches that spoil its presentation. Moreover, it appealed to me since it wasn’t as dry as the one I had at Saizeriya, as this one was suitably creamy.

I might go back another day since the menu is varied enough for repeat visits, but I am still open to trying other restaurants for the best squid-ink pasta.

Paul says:

Simply put, this dish left me reminiscent of my favourite creamy chicken spaghetti that I had at Pastamania years ago. While the latter has since waned, the creaminess and richness of the sauce left me gushing. The dual coloured(green and white) fettucini( for those of you wondering, it's like your typical Mee Pok) added a sense of fun to the dish and there was indeed a generous serving of chicken bits around the dish. For a price of $14.90 and for those you are huge cream pasta fans, this is for you. Two thumbs up.

I had a little bit of Joy's squid ink and though it wasn't as good as peperoni pizzeria's one, it was decent. Counting the no. of squid rings( count=13) and prawns provided, i would say that this is pretty affordable at $14.90 too. However, I must warn those you wanna feast on this blacky mess. First, if you're thinking of eating squid ink for your first date, drop the idea. You will look like swamp man. Second, don't freak out if your toilet paper is tar-black the next day. Well, at least I did the first time I saw it. So yeaps. As Joy said, this place is big on portion and low on price. Definitely under-rated and we will be back to try more dishes! 

Total bill was $19.50 (incl. GST. No Scv Charge)]

In conclusion,

Food: B+

Service: B-

Ambience: B+

Value-for-$: B+

Overall grade: B+

Apples given: