This was a bit of an unusual spot (Block 27 Sin Ming Road, #01-174 Sin Ming Industrial Estate Sector A, tel : +65 6466 9558) for a weekend lunch. For one, I hadn't known of its existence until quite recently even though I have had ba kut teh just around the corner. The location in the middle of an industrial park amidst vehicle workshops wouldn't quite advertise its presence as well.
Erdinger is served here.
We ordered up a tofu with golden mushroom which tasted pretty much like how it looked except for the gravy which didn't taste as bland as what one would expect the usual renditions of this dish.
What was pretty impressive was their deep fried fish eggs with chinchalok and sambal petai sauce. There was a tamarind base to the flavour of the viscous sauce. Tasted just a little sweet and with a burst of a sour that was very appetizing. That sour helped cut through the richness from the fried fish eggs with a richness of its own.
The unusual, but apparently pretty popular dish to order here was their beef, a platter of grilled and sliced USDA Choice ribeye. The preparation of the dish was rather impressive as the cooking achieved a very close medium rare with the meat suffering from little adulteration apart from salt and pepper. The wedges on the side was made in house of plain cut potatoes and there was also an excellent pile of sweet caramelised onions to go with. Not the best steak by any stretch, but a surprisingly good one coming from a seafood cze char place.
The order of the beef comes with a second component of a the dish, which was dubbed by the establishment as the heart attack fried rice. Essentially stir fried with dark soy sauce and fat trimmed off from the ribeye that are fried to a crisp. This was pretty tasty, but it tasted a lot more like claypot rice rather than any fried rice that I know of.
The next cholesterol bomb was battered and deep fried oysters in salted egg yolk. The flavors of the salted yolk were robust and the oysters were actually pretty fresh tasting. Would make excellent pairing with white rice if I may say so.
This would be the first component of their shovel nose ray which was stir fried meat from the ray with sliced bitter gourd in a sweet and garlicky dark sauce. The sauce was concentrated in flavors and would have been great with white rice. Which I'm glad we hadn't ordered any. The quality of this dish approaches the standards of some of the claypot items I've tried at Imperial Treasure, so I guess it says something about the guy sweating in the kitchen in this establishment.
We ordered a plate of nai bai to help alleviate the guilt from all the rich food that we had. The crunchy vegetables were light and clean tasting.
The last item that was served arrived after we were done with the other dishes. We had been informed earlier at the start that it would take a while. This, was the second part to the shovel nose ray which contains collagen rich gelatinous parts surrounding a proboscis like soft bone structure. Both the outside and the interior were filled with the light gelatinous matter which tasted very much like eating hashima or bone marrow in chicken essence. The last part came from the rich broth that the ray was steamed in which could have been what is normally passed as superior sauce in Chinese restaurants.
I think this place would be for keeps.
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