Sum Kee Food, Telok Blangah

I don't remember if I've even been to Sum Kee Food (Yeo's Building, 2 Telok Blangah Street 31, tel  : +65 737 3233) before even though I used to stay relatively close to this area for years a long time back. This place I gather is an institution of their own. They're old school. The place looked old school. 

A friend had once recommended me to give them a go to try their Ultraman chicken. *snigger*

Sum Kee is pretty well known for their curry fish head. I could understand this. Creamy and flavourful with enough heat. What I particularly enjoyed about it was the pronounced flavour of hae bi (dried shrimps) in the curry. I was drenching my rice with it.

Pleasantly surprised by the simple and innocuous looking bitter gourd omelette. Well fried with no excessively grease trapped in the egg. The texture was firm yet light with a nice light bitterness from those bitter gourd slices that worked with the savoury egg.

We ordered their X.O. sum lou hor fun because X.O. sauce. Never had these two together before. But first the hor fun. Not bad. Had wok hei and firm slices of fish paired with enough savoury in the gravy. A little oily but was otherwise pretty competent. I felt that the X.O. sauce worked with it. The umami spiciness added something to the rice noodles. I just wished they gave more of it. 

I normally avoid these gloopy gravy dishes because in general. The people who cook them these days never learnt how to make them properly. The majority would taste like an unidentifiable flavour with msg, salt and starch. 

That being said, this crab meat tofu wasn't too bad. Maybe the result of being steeped in old-school-ism also meant that the chefs had to make dishes the old way.

That's stir fried green dragon vegetable (a variety of chives) with bean sprouts (青龙银芽). Not bad. Would have be awesome if there were salted fish.

If you've actually been reading (not just swiping/scrolling through pictures) and have had your feathers ruffled by the mention of the Ultraman chicken, this was it. They're bite sized battered and fried chicken coated in a sweetened salted egg sauce. It was kind of addictive. I suppose I like them. Not doing my heart any favours though.

I've only learnt in recent years the reason why they're called Ultraman chicken. Ultraman is also known as 咸蛋超人. One could consider that as a....term of endearment rather than direct translation of meaning or the words. 咸蛋 is salted eggs and dude's got eyes like the yolks of salted eggs.

Their sambal prawns were the weakest link in this dinner. Prawns weren't very fresh with meat that kinda stuck to the shells. The sambal had absolutely no character. It was mildly spicy and mostly oily. For some reasons, I had been imagining the sambal to be like those with the crayfish at Liang Kee. Guess this was not like that.