Tuesday, September 05, 2006

Happenstance and Lim Seng Lee Duck Rice


Happenstance can be a strange thing. It can bring you to places that you never expect. Through twists of equally unexpected events. Happenstance brought the rain as I stepped out of my block to make my way to RT. Happenstance made me check my mobile for the time to discover a missed SMS from Chris. I called and we decided to meet for dinner (goodbye RT). The original intention was to check out Colbar after reading about it from a respectable site, however after winding our way into the end of Portsdown, we found that it was closed. Happenstance.

We drove out of Portsmouth and were deciding whether to make a left or right. Happenstance chemistry of the brain decided left and we ended up driving through Science Park till we were greeted by the sight below.

Ok, so that's where this begins. Chris said this place is rather reknown for their duck rice. Both of us were hungry and there wasn't really much else to contemplate but how to park the car in the limited space available in front of the coffeeshop.

Lim Seng Kee Duck Rice Eating House is located at South Buona Vista Road. The stall is situated along a row of shop houses close to Pasir Panjang. This place apparently has been around for such a long time with regulars that have patronised with such regularity that the server came and mumbled some arcane acknowledgement of order in Hokkien expecting me to say yes while I was totally lost, courtesy of his more than nimble tongue. Here I am, baffled by the language of my ancestral dialect group.

The fare provided by this place is primarily duck rice. What you have seen above is basically about all there is that is served here. After the confirmation of our orders, the server arrived in short moments and brought us our lime juice. Well, this is lime juice, there's nothing really different from other lime juices so I don't really have anything to say about the drink. The plate of kang kong that arrived shortly spoke much better of itself than the juice. The vegetables came up rather fresh looking with firm crunchy stems and flavourful of the shredded hay bee(dried shrimps) shreds that are topped over the dish. The kang kong here does not have belachan which is the more commonly seen version in most eateries that serve it. Despite that, the lack of spicy zest did not diminish much of the overall taste of the stir fried dish.

The subsequent arrivals which was in short order were their signature duck, white rice with gravy and stir fried tofu. The duck available here was of the braised variety. You can see that this place also serves them garnished with the vile coriander leaves. The meat was tender but had enough bite and was drenched with the same brown gravy on the rice. I noticed that the amount of fat under the skin of this dish of duck was significantly less than what I'm used to seeing. Apart from this, it was simple braised duck, albeit tasty. Bear in mind that this is the word of a hungry man. There is nothing much I can really say about the dish of tofu except that it comes with tau hu and tau pok. The gravy that comes with the dish is more starchy than I expected and some parts of it were so viscous that it was more solid than liquid. I suppose it's just because the flour in it wasn't stirred up as well as it should. It taste like how it looks. Still, being hungry and all, we dug in rather ravenously and even ordered a second helping of rice.

The aftermath left us with a bill of $19.60. That wasn't too bad. We promptly departed after paying and adjourned elsewhere, sipping ginger tea.

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