Union Farm Eating House

I had recently seen this place (435A Clementi Road) on a local food television program and it got me all curious about them. In spite of various heads up from friends telling me that the place was way overrated and not worth the time, curiosity prevailed. The last time I had eaten here could have been two decades back and I certainly didn't have very much memories of the food here. Union Farm had once, decades ago, been an actual chicken farm that ventured into the business of selling their chicken cooked. Throughout the years, it had converted into an actual food establishment selling kampong styled food.

Here was an order of their 15 piece paper wrapped chicken. The seasoning on the meat was sweetish with a hint of ginger. If I had to put some figures into this, about a good 60% of the plate were skin, bones and paper. Chicken pieces were stuck to the paper wrappings. The above mentioned food program said that one way of eating these paper wrapped chicken was to open them over a plate of their noodle so that the juices from the meat trapped within the paper wrappings could just dribble in added flavour. 

The chicken was pretty dry apart from some grease. Nothing dripped. There was very little meat in there and for what it cost, wasn't cheap at all. We certainly didn't adopt the looks of bliss like they portrayed on tv.

Our obligatory greens came in the from of kailan with oyster sauce. The serving was literally a plate of boiled kailan with a dollop of oyster sauce on the side. It didn't taste bad, but it just wasn't how I had expected it.

Previously, I had been griping over $34 noodles. This time round, my gripes are over $3 noodles. Boiled, unseasoned and garnished with a few stalks of vegetables, it certainly didn't look to me like it should cost that much. The portions weren't even close to being substantial.

I cannot in good conscience recommend this place to anyone.