Choon Hoy Parlor (
#01-84A Arcade @ The Capitol Kempinski, 15 Stamford Road) is by Dylan Ong of
The Masses - the latter has incidentally relocated from their old premise at Beach Road to just next door to Choon Hoy Parlor. Story I read was that the restaurant was opened by Dylan in honour of his mother and that it bears her name.
The menu in broad strokes includes classic styles and updated takes on what's commonly regarded as heritage/traditional Teochew dishes. Have been curious since I first read about them.
But first, a Pandan Coconut Highball. Which is alchemised from pandan essence, 海之蓝, coconut water and soda. Took a few sips to get used to it and after that, I kinda enjoyed it. Not sure how to describe this.
Started off with some pork trotter aspic with a dip they aptly named garlic chilli zhup. Aspic wasn't one of the more memorable ones I recall having but it also wasn't bad at all. The garlic chilli zhup was nice - aside from the two named ingredients, there's probably vinegar?
That's the roti bakar - coffee butter and salted egg kaya with lumpfish caviar on toasted bread. Those lumpfish caviar lent a bit of seafoody flavour, so they weren't just salty. Nice.
Mocha prime pork ribs. A lot more delicious than the description on the menu, which mentioned Vietnam inspired egg yolk espuma, conveyed. Sauce was a creamy caramel smokiness that could have passed off as a velouté of pork floss (肉松) or bak kwa (肉干); if you could imagine that. Meat from the ribs were chunky, pretty tender and fell off the bone easily. That and those crushed pistachios.
Found their assam stingray moreish. Good quality ray, great savoury tanginess from the tamarind broth accented by ginger flower and pineapples!
Morel Silkie chicken consommé's pretty good. Flavoured also with cordyceps and sweetened by red dates.
These was called Taiwan dou miao & taugay. Haven't had dou miao that looked like these before. There's salted egg yolk and anchovy powder to intensify the savoury garlicky flavours. Great stuff with rice. 👍🏼
Speaking of rice, there's one with lard and soya sauce called A Lil Lard, A Lil Soy, A Lil Love Rice. It's been znged with fried lard, fried garlic bits and light soya sauce. So delicious with the garlic chilli zhup from the pork aspic. Super with the assam broth from the stingray. Also awesome with the dou miao & taugay.
We finished with their Trio of Orh Ni. A bit of a misnomer since the main blobs were the paste of purple sweet potato, pumpkin and yam. That's coconut ice cream on the side.
