The House Chungdam, Duxton Road

Noticed The House Chungdam (#01-01, 72 Duxton Road, tel : +65 8336 2068) only recently. Place looks pretty and the menu offers premium looking cuts of meat for barbeque along with jeons and jjigaes. This was lunch.

There's a lager on tap going at an attractive $10 at happy hour. Taste reminded me of Tiger which meant more tang, rougher with the fizz and less character compared to the likes of Suntory or Asahi. A lesson was learnt here and won't be getting this again. 😬

Appetizer came with lunch. From the left, cheese kimchi jeon, a skewer of sweet stewed mushroom & quails egg and some japchae. Kimchi jeon's pretty good...will a la carte it the next time.

Quite impressed with their kimchi jjigae bansang. Why? The jjigae had a nice balanced flavour of fermentation rather than just coming on with a strong sour. Said flavour got more apparent once the stew has cooled a little. Rice was moist and tender...the ultimate pairing one could have with the jjigae. What the picture doesn't show, were the strips of "disintegrate in your mouth" pork belly in the stew. 😏

Banchan on the side were mostly tangy and competent. Notable were the kimchi which packed some heat and the ojingeojeot (pickled squid); both of which would either enhance the intensity of the jjigae or just good eating as topping on that delicious rice.

There was a yukke bibimbap. Not the typical looking bibimbap I'd admit. This one appeared to be more refined. Was served with the same banchans as the kimchi jjigae.

Flavour's also not typical. Not in your face here with the sesame oil and also no gochujang. There's a sweetness to it which I couldn't put a finger to but it was on the whole delicious.

We were curious about the cheese potato jeon which quietly incorporated bits of bacon for salt and smokiness. The menu mentioned that they used fluffy textured potatoes from the mountains of Gangwon - the location being the birthplace of potato jeon. Cool trivia which I hadn't any means to verify and the jeon wasn't exactly fluffy. This was Korean rosti and there's no way one could construe it otherwise. And hell yeah it was delicious.