Abundance, Lengkok Bahru

Abundance (#01-378, 63A Lengkok Bahru, tel : +65 8032 1880) opened some months ago in a corner of Redhill that isn't exactly known for cafes or restaurants. A relatively quiet spot nestled between public residences and car showrooms....and a small temple. With that said, they're also walking distance from Redhill MRT station. 

What they do is interpretations of Taiwanese styled street food on their terms. Taiwanese food has for some reasons very low take up rate for restaurants for a country that isn't far away. The ones that do exist are at budding stages of presence where they're not capable of selling anything but "stereotyped" representatives of Taiwanese food. But let's not digress.

Fizzy lemon tea which was light with the fizz and lavender Earl Grey ale from the local Sunbird Brewing Company. The light tangy ale did capture notes of Earl Grey with a lavender-y aftertaste. Served insufficiently chilled though. Might be a good idea for Abundance to think about bringing their array of craft beers to the table abundantly chilled. Couldn't resist.

We had an order of gua bao - a Taiwanese bao stuffed with stewed pork belly, pickled vegetables and crushed peanuts. And cilantro which I asked them to omit for obvious reasons. I liked it. 

Savoury and very tender spiced pork belly on the verge of disintegrating, cut through with the sour soft crunch of the pickled vegetable (mustard greens?). Those and the aroma and light sweetness from the crushed peanuts - imagine the textures of that. I've never had one in Taiwan before so I don't know if they're comparable but this was pretty good tasting.  

That's the Niu Yolk. Beef fat wok fried rice with slow cooked slices of beef ribs and onsen egg. Onsen egg was hidden under the tobiko which was an add on. Eat this for the beef fat fried rice. There aren't many around here and the standards of this one was kinda Ding Tai Fung-esque. Am on the fence about having the tobiko - while I liked what it added, the roe also masked the flavour from the beef fat in the rice.

Those slices of beef ribs were tender and flavourful but they were also thin and small and not particularly captivating for me. Overall a nice, albeit pricey, fried rice.

These were pretty much their 红油抄手. Known as Red Hot Chilli Dumplings on the menu. Dumplings were packed. They had thin smooth skin and were stuffed abundantly with shrimp and pork. Sorry couldn't resist. 

Nicely done with the salty spicy Sichuan sauce and chilli oil. A splash of vinegar and it would have been more awesome.