Mrs Pho House, why Takashimaya?

The addresses for Mrs Pho House all over point to Takashimaya. How is that? Isn't this spot (#B2-36A, 391 Orchard Road, tel : +65 9666 1357) part of Ngee Ann City instead? Anyways this new outfit by Mrs Pho unlike their other shops, serves also hotpot.

Pomelo salad looked small compared to the pictures in the menu. Yes it's pictures, not just one picture. But it's refreshingly lime-y with sweet citrus flavour from the fruit. There was some mint and a herb that tasted like laksa leaf.

Their grill section featured something known as mountain styled chicken skewers - boneless pieces of chicken dry rubbed with something and grilled. The "mountain style" in the name brought to mind earth moving doton styled jutsu; but that's just me and too much Naruto. 

Couldn't identify the spices but I'm getting something that reminded me a bit of cumin. Don't think it's cumin but I'm not sure. These skewers were moist and delicious.

The same couldn't be said for the five spice butter quail. There was five spice for sure, couldn't taste any butter and while the meat was pretty tender, the quails were too skinny.

Second time ordering tonkin jasmine flowers in a Vietnamese restaurant. The last was Red Sparrow - not to be confused with anything to do with Jennifer Lawrence. Am pretty sure at this point that these are the same as cowslip creeper flowers.

We went with the crab bisque soup base. A breath of fresh air from all the other templated broths out there. We were offered a taste before any cooking started. I recommend the tasting because it's the most unadulterated flavour of the broth one would get before the essences of the other ingredients muddled it and before the heat separated the milk. Think crab bisque minus the creaminess. Awesome soup.

The green dip on the top left is green chilli. The texture was oddly starchy. Sweet and spicy. Bottom right was spicy fermented bean curd - basically chilli oil on fermented bean curd. The latter packed a very respectable heat and flavour from the bean curd but doesn't work with hotpot ingredients which are delicate in flavour. Like the lamb shoulder which we wanted to taste and probably fish.

Speaking of fish, we had fish. No dip required.

Pig's stomach. Something that was good with the spicy fermented beancurd dip.

We had vegetables and sliced lamb shoulder. Frozen meat.

Porcini. Also frozen. The texture can be inconsistent even in a single piece. Added these into the crab bisque soup close to the end because the flavour does get into the soup and we wanted minimal additional flavours.