North South Cuisine (南北名厨), Beach Road

Here's another shop (321 Beach Road, tel : +65 6299 3197) which I've possibly passed by on numerous occasions without noticing until today. Affordable frills free food here. One of the cool thing about them was that they're open daily till past midnight so it works for supper as well. The food was mostly North Eastern Chinese with a smattering of localized flavours that caters to the local crowd which swarms them during lunchtime in the weekdays. One can even detect Thai influences in some dishes.

From the cold dish list, these was thinly sliced pork belly with soy sauce and minced raw garlic. The sharp pungent garlic gives you dragon's breath.

Following were some thinly sliced beef in soy sauce. I'm not sure where it's cut from but the textures were rather interesting and undulating.

We were debating over tan tan mian or zha jiang mian. The zha jiang mian won and it was a pretty rustic and straightforward rendition. I meant that in a positive way.

We ordered a basket of juice laden xiao long bao which bursted in the mouth when you bit into them. These were pretty decent. The bursting of the hot porky juices in the dumplings was satisfying.

And pan fried guo tie stuffed with minced pork and vegetables which had a savoury crispy base. A little greasy here.