How many times have you walked into a supposedly awesome and delicious place recommended by food bloggers when in fact the best thing there is the atmosphere and the inedible trinkets?

Here are 5 zero-frills places in Orchard that actually serve hearty fare and where the camera-totting Internet scribes shy away from:

1. Ohsho

#01-10, Cuppage Plaza, 5 Koek Road

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There are no pictures you'd ever want to take of this place because it looks like it hasn't been renovated in 10 years.

Incidentally, it hasn't.

This place is also known as the other Cuppage ramen place that is also famous for their gyoza.

This is where you eat at the end of the month in town when your pay check hasn't come in yet, especially if you can't get a place at Santouka that is directly opposite.

Best part? They open past midnight.

2. Jane Thai Food

#04-30, Orchard Towers, 400 Orchard Road

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Located right at the top of the Four Floors of Whores, the sleaze surrounding this place acts as a deterrent to those who cannot stomach a bit of edginess.

Thai food here is so authentic, it is transsexual-approved.

3. Muddy Murphy's

111 Somerset Road, #01-02 TripleOne Somerset, Singapore, 238164

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Two words: Lamb. Chop.

Used to be located at the basement of Orchard Hotel Shopping Arcade opposite of Orchard Towers, it was filled with white men with pot bellies and their nubile Southeast Asian girlfriends.

Now they have moved to a more family-friendly, yuppie-pulling TripleOne Somerset location.

However, this place still serves hearty pub grub. A lot of meat and potatoes. Use your hands and eat like a Neanderthal.

4. Wasabi Tei

#05-70, Far East Plaza, 14 Scotts Road

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From the outside, this place looks like a hole in the wall.

When you're seated inside cheek by jowl in a U-shaped bar top table, it will dawn on you that it REALLY is a hole in the wall.

But this is a good sign: People come here to eat and not to socialise and make small talk. You get hustled in, eat and hustled out.

5. Kim Dae Mun Korean Cuisine

Level 1, Concorde Foodcourt, 100 Orchard Road

Le Meridien Shopping Centre

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Located in a basement food court, there is absolutely nothing glamorous about this place.

But speaks volumes as it has been operating at that same spot for a decade selling standard Korean fare.

Top photo from here

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