I don't recall if I've ever eaten at Chin Huat (#01-30, 105 Clementi St. 12, tel : +65 6775 7348) but these guys are an institution for zi char and seafood. Been around for years. Beside the common variety, the choice of clawed crustaceans they have on menu included Alaskan King and dungeness crabs. What the restaurant is known for are also some dishes done from giant grouper parts - some of which require pre-ordering.
Very nicely poached prawns with Hua Diao jiu (花雕酒). The freshness of those prawns were apparent from the ease of de-shelling and sweetness of their meat.
Sweet and sour pork was passable.
There was an unexpectedly tasty dish of home made bean curd. Couldn't really figure out what made that special sweet/savoury sauce that they used but it was pretty good. Good with both those bean curd and the vegetables. Gotta remember this the next time.
Our dungeness crab was steamed with Hua Diao jiu and egg. That Chinese wine imparted its flavour into the crab and that layer of wobbly steamed egg which made it the best tasting chawanmushi ever. Dungeness crab had a thinner shell what was easier to work with and meatier legs; but the meat from the body was crumbly and not as easy to remove cleanly like the Sri Lankan ones.
The Sri Lankan crabs which we all were familiar with had firmer meat and was equally sweet. What we had was done with their golden sauce which was made with pumpkin and curry leaves amongst other things. That sauce was sweet, luxuriant and pretty rich tasting. Pretty addictive with those fried man tou.
I mentioned Chin Huat offering giant grouper parts earlier. This skin was one of those parts. This was giant grouper skin stir fried in black bean sauce. Those slivers of skin were chewy, wobbly and umami - spiked with heat from chilli and saltiness from the fermented beans.
That's the three egg fried rice - tasted a lot better than the look suggested. The last time I had these was the one from New Station Snack Bar at Far East Plaza which was oozing grease. I had been burping flavour from that fried rice for the rest of the day afterward. This one here was competently done without excessive grease. While I would have preferred more of those trio of eggs in the rice, I did enjoy this.
Tried their coconut pudding which was more of a coconut milk jelly. Not bad but I prefer the clearer variety made with just the juice like the one at Ping's.
The boiled hashima dessert definitely needed more hashima. Like loads more.
They have orh nee with pumpkin sauce too. Not bad
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