Golden Peony
3/F Conrad Centennial
2 Temasek Boulevard
Tel: +65 64327482
It is coming to almost ten months since I moved back to Singapore, and by all accounts I have well and truly settled back in to the land of my birth. I have, I think, regained some measure of familiarity with the local dining scene – sussed out enough old favourites and sampled enough new ones. But the one thing I still cannot get enough of is fine Cantonese cuisine.
If it falls to me to suggest a place to eat, my initial thoughts are always of Cantonese restaurants, be they humble tze char outlets or high-end restaurants. Luckily, there is no shortage of these places in Singapore, and there are some very, very fine ones on the list. I recently had the chance to sample Golden Peony at the Conrad Hotel, and left very, very impressed.
More so than in the Western world, the best restaurants in Asia are often located in hotels. The thinking here is that for any hotel worth its salt, it is almost imperative, as a point of reputation – to have a stellar in-house restaurant. It helps to build the hotel’s brand, and has become a prerequisite for the top hotels, which often spare no expense in recruiting star chefs. For the top chefs, it is a win-win situation: they have the backing of a larger organisation to handle all the HR, procurement and other support functions – so they can concentrate on the cooking.
Given how I talked about setting in my previous post, the one thing I have always found regrettable is how cookie-cutter the approach to setting is at fine Cantonese restaurants. After a while they all begin to look alike: light, muted colours like cream and ivory, starched white tablecloths, stiff-backed chairs and cutlery laced with gold. There are a few places that have unique settings (Summer Pavilion springs to mind) but by and large you could be in any one of these fine restaurants and not know the difference. The central challenge for the designers of these places is to keep the space classy without creating a caricature.
But if you have grown up going to these types of restaurants, then you don’t really mind, and sometimes it even provides the comfort of familiarity. (This is quite evident when you travel abroad to non-Asian cities, where a large part of the draw of Chinese restaurants is the ubiquitous setting. Speaking as a former Chinese diaspora, I can attest to how these places always made me feel at home despite the inevitably disappointing food. It is like a Frenchman stuck in a random Chinese city and frequenting what passes for a bistro because of the lacquered wood bartop.)
So despite its less than remarkable interior, it is the food at Golden Peony that is the main draw. The pickled vegetables set out as an amuse-bouche were excellent and very addictive – just the right blend of spice and tang to open your palate. Regrettably, we did not have the time (nor was anyone comfortable enough with everyone else) to deliberate and order a la carte, so we went with one of the set menus.
One of the key reasons I love going to Cantonese restaurants is the soups. The Cantonese love their soups, and despite how easy it is to make soup, it is one of those things that you definitely get what you pay for. It may be psychological, but I feel that for soups, cost is definitely correlated with quality. The more expensive the restaurant, the better the soup. And I would gladly pay top dollar for an individual serving of double-boiled goodness. At Golden Peony we had the good fortune of trying their shark cartilage soup. This is one of those standard soups you find in most good Cantonese restaurants, and is deceptively difficult to do well. Shark meat has high concentrations of urea, which turns into ammonia after the shark has died. So you pay a premium for the speed at which shark cartilage has to be processed, and you pay top dollar for fresh shark cartilage. Otherwise this ammonia taste has to be treated some way or another, and many places try but fail at pulling it off. Golden Peony’s version was just milky enough, had a clean, clear taste and the right consistency: not too thin and not too starchy.
The other dishes passed in a blur – partly because we were having a serious conversation, partly because they were so good that I gulped down whatever they put in front of me in double-quick time. I am quite a quick eater, and even more so when the food is good – but when I looked around, everyone else was wolfing down their plates at the same speed as me. They must have really enjoyed it because their faces had that look of muted wonderment, as if they were on the verge of breaking out into wide smiles because they were surprised at how good the food was. Golden Peony is technically very impressive – flavours are refined to razor-sharpness, ensembles are carefully thought through. At the same time the heartiness of the dishes was not compromised, creating that rare class of food that both stimulates the palate and satisfies the stomach.
Right before the dessert course we were served a shotglass of kalamansi juice as a palate-cleanser. This was a nice touch, for you do not often see this in Chinese restaurants. Their thoughtfulness in no way prepared us for the dessert, which I thought was absolutely stellar – an aloe vera mint jelly that did everything you would expect of dessert. It satisfied your sweet tooth, cleansed and rounded off your taste-buds, and filled whatever space you still had in your stomach after the meal.
Let me just say, before you get any ideas, that you pay a pretty penny for the quality of Golden Peony. It may not be in the price point of Hai Tien Lo and My Humble House, but it is still expensive enough that it – for me, at least – falls exclusively within the realm of special occasions. There are other Cantonese stars of the Singaporean scene that you wouldn’t mind going to on any random Friday or Saturday night, as a little treat for the week’s labours: Wah Lok, Hua Ting to mention just a couple. This is not one of those places.
For a special occasion, though, this is quite a delightful place. The service is thoughtful and attentive. The food is exquisite. By all means, count me in just as long as somebody else is paying.
Sunday, August 02, 2009
Saturday, August 01, 2009
More than just four walls and a door
The Lighthouse @ The Fullerton Hotel
1 Fullerton Square
Tel: +65 68778933
I don’t deny that when it comes down to it, the quality of the food is what distinguishes one restaurant from another in my mind. But I am increasingly convinced that the setting, or the space, is a key factor in distinguishing one dining experience from another. This is why, long after having forgotten what I ate there, I still remember the wonderful midday light shining through the spotless glass windows at the Blue Duck Tavern, or the soaring ceilings and grandeur of Eleven Madison Park. Singapore has its fair share of good restaurants that offer special dining experiences, if you know to find them.
I have always wondered how the market for fine dining in Singapore not only maintains its size, but keeps increasing from year to year. More glitzy new restaurants get added to a dining scene that has already a sizeable number of familiar favourites and old mainstays. Bear in mind that financial success is tremendously difficult for any restaurateur: since there is so much good and cheap hawker food around, there is no way the fine dining restaurant can compete on price. So setting, then, is a key differentiator.
The Lighthouse at the Fullerton Hotel opened in May of this year, replacing what used to be San Marco. The cuisine, though, remained the same – contemporary Italian. I was there recently for a business lunch, and as in telling people about my experience it was curious how much more recognition I got for saying ‘the old San Marco’. I had never been to San Marco, so I wondered how long it would take for The Lighthouse to step out of its shadow.
The Lighthouse is located at the top of the Fullerton Hotel, in what did indeed use to be a lighthouse. To me, the Fullerton Hotel is gorgeous: pre-war neoclassical that oozes grandeur, with Doric colonnades of stately grey granite – the kind of building that are a dime a dozen in London or Paris. But Singapore does not have the history of a London or Paris, so a building like that is hard to find.
There is a private elevator that takes you up to the Lighthouse – a nice touch, but the elevator is tiny and claustrophobic. Once you step out of it, though, you are greeted by a sprawling view of Marina Bay – which would be quite impressive except for the fact that most of it is currently taken up by construction of the new integrated resort.
My dining companions had arrived before me, so I did not have time to take in the space, but as I sat there through the meal it found me instead. The Lighthouse is a small space, but filled with lots of natural light, which lends it a certain charm and puts the diner at ease. The view, of course, is impressive. And for such a small space, the management at least had the good sense to spread out the tables enough so as not to give a cramped feeling.
I think one of the reasons I love bread so much is that I am too lazy to make it for myself. So when it is made for me, I appreciate it all that much more. The rosemary rolls at The Lighthouse were great texture-wise, but taste-wise they were overly salty, and the herb butter was worse. Perhaps I should caveat this, though: I don’t know if my palate has changed – since Singaporean food as a general rule is very sweet.
I had a starter of Wagyu beef carpaccio, which was pounded so thin to the point of disintegrating. I couldn’t, and still can’t, decide whether it would have been better tinged with a little mustard. On the one hand you don’t want to do too much to good beef, and on the other I think mustard does wonders in certain situations, this being one of them. The jury’s still out on this one. The butternut squash cannelloni came in a thick, rich sauce and topped with bits of pancetta. I thought the pasta needed more egg, but the squash was nice and light and not too sweet.
Overall the food at The Lighthouse is pretty decent. It is a long way from amazing, but then again we are not in Italy. There is a certain je ne sais quoi with good Italian food, I think, because the best of the best has a certain lightness to it, which stems partly from not doing too much to the ingredients. But the best Italian food also has strong, pronounced, flavours, which stems from using top quality and fresh ingredients. How do you balance the two? The role of the Italian chef then becomes taking these top ingredients and making sure that whatever little he or she does to them, it is with the sole aim of accentuating their best qualities.
We did not have any wine at lunch, which was a pity, but I took the opportunity to check out their winelist, which did not impress me all that much. I think one of the advantages of dining out is access to great wines. I’m talking about the high-end, fantastically expensive bottles, which the normal consumer typically finds difficult to procure. Unfortunately I don’t get the opportunity to drink these very often, but it’s nice to know that I could if I wanted to.
But for a new restaurant, the Lighthouse does everything else quite well. The service is excellent – efficient and yet still personable. The human element of the setting, I think, cannot be ignored. Part of the vibe you get in a restaurant comes from the people that inhabit that space. If the waiters and the managers are not happy to be there, it shows most markedly. And if they are not happy to be there, chances are that you will not be either.
All said, you could definitely do worse than the Lighthouse. I hadn’t had Italian in a while so this was an enjoyable experience. As we took the elevator down I got that feeling that you get when you have left a room but haven’t said all you that you wanted to say. Perhaps some day I will return to say it.
1 Fullerton Square
Tel: +65 68778933
I don’t deny that when it comes down to it, the quality of the food is what distinguishes one restaurant from another in my mind. But I am increasingly convinced that the setting, or the space, is a key factor in distinguishing one dining experience from another. This is why, long after having forgotten what I ate there, I still remember the wonderful midday light shining through the spotless glass windows at the Blue Duck Tavern, or the soaring ceilings and grandeur of Eleven Madison Park. Singapore has its fair share of good restaurants that offer special dining experiences, if you know to find them.
I have always wondered how the market for fine dining in Singapore not only maintains its size, but keeps increasing from year to year. More glitzy new restaurants get added to a dining scene that has already a sizeable number of familiar favourites and old mainstays. Bear in mind that financial success is tremendously difficult for any restaurateur: since there is so much good and cheap hawker food around, there is no way the fine dining restaurant can compete on price. So setting, then, is a key differentiator.
The Lighthouse at the Fullerton Hotel opened in May of this year, replacing what used to be San Marco. The cuisine, though, remained the same – contemporary Italian. I was there recently for a business lunch, and as in telling people about my experience it was curious how much more recognition I got for saying ‘the old San Marco’. I had never been to San Marco, so I wondered how long it would take for The Lighthouse to step out of its shadow.
The Lighthouse is located at the top of the Fullerton Hotel, in what did indeed use to be a lighthouse. To me, the Fullerton Hotel is gorgeous: pre-war neoclassical that oozes grandeur, with Doric colonnades of stately grey granite – the kind of building that are a dime a dozen in London or Paris. But Singapore does not have the history of a London or Paris, so a building like that is hard to find.
There is a private elevator that takes you up to the Lighthouse – a nice touch, but the elevator is tiny and claustrophobic. Once you step out of it, though, you are greeted by a sprawling view of Marina Bay – which would be quite impressive except for the fact that most of it is currently taken up by construction of the new integrated resort.
My dining companions had arrived before me, so I did not have time to take in the space, but as I sat there through the meal it found me instead. The Lighthouse is a small space, but filled with lots of natural light, which lends it a certain charm and puts the diner at ease. The view, of course, is impressive. And for such a small space, the management at least had the good sense to spread out the tables enough so as not to give a cramped feeling.
I think one of the reasons I love bread so much is that I am too lazy to make it for myself. So when it is made for me, I appreciate it all that much more. The rosemary rolls at The Lighthouse were great texture-wise, but taste-wise they were overly salty, and the herb butter was worse. Perhaps I should caveat this, though: I don’t know if my palate has changed – since Singaporean food as a general rule is very sweet.
I had a starter of Wagyu beef carpaccio, which was pounded so thin to the point of disintegrating. I couldn’t, and still can’t, decide whether it would have been better tinged with a little mustard. On the one hand you don’t want to do too much to good beef, and on the other I think mustard does wonders in certain situations, this being one of them. The jury’s still out on this one. The butternut squash cannelloni came in a thick, rich sauce and topped with bits of pancetta. I thought the pasta needed more egg, but the squash was nice and light and not too sweet.
Overall the food at The Lighthouse is pretty decent. It is a long way from amazing, but then again we are not in Italy. There is a certain je ne sais quoi with good Italian food, I think, because the best of the best has a certain lightness to it, which stems partly from not doing too much to the ingredients. But the best Italian food also has strong, pronounced, flavours, which stems from using top quality and fresh ingredients. How do you balance the two? The role of the Italian chef then becomes taking these top ingredients and making sure that whatever little he or she does to them, it is with the sole aim of accentuating their best qualities.
We did not have any wine at lunch, which was a pity, but I took the opportunity to check out their winelist, which did not impress me all that much. I think one of the advantages of dining out is access to great wines. I’m talking about the high-end, fantastically expensive bottles, which the normal consumer typically finds difficult to procure. Unfortunately I don’t get the opportunity to drink these very often, but it’s nice to know that I could if I wanted to.
But for a new restaurant, the Lighthouse does everything else quite well. The service is excellent – efficient and yet still personable. The human element of the setting, I think, cannot be ignored. Part of the vibe you get in a restaurant comes from the people that inhabit that space. If the waiters and the managers are not happy to be there, it shows most markedly. And if they are not happy to be there, chances are that you will not be either.
All said, you could definitely do worse than the Lighthouse. I hadn’t had Italian in a while so this was an enjoyable experience. As we took the elevator down I got that feeling that you get when you have left a room but haven’t said all you that you wanted to say. Perhaps some day I will return to say it.
Sunday, July 12, 2009
What's in a name?
Por Kee Eating House (波记海鲜)
69 Seng Poh Lane
Tel: +65 6221 0582
I have been on a real tze char kick lately – I honestly believe it is the true test of the chef’s ability – so when it fell to me to suggest the venue for the latest get-together amongst some old family friends, I came up with the amusingly named Por Kee. I had heard many good things about this place, which is a stone’s throw from another famous tze char house – Sin Hoi San. Most of all I had heard that the har cheong kai (prawn paste chicken) here was excellent; and not having tasted any good versions lately, I was dying to try this one.
Por Kee is located on a small street opposite Tiong Bahru market – itself a haven for foodies – and on the same street as an old school bak kut teh place which is pretty damn good. In short, it is situated in a hotbed of culinary destinations, and so had great expectations to live up to. At first glance it looks rather run-down – and this impression did not change. But the best food is often in this sort of ramshackle surroundings, and so we sat down filled with a sense of anticipation.
Typically, you know a tze char place is good when lots of old people frequent it. At the risk of generalising, the older generations, by sheer dint of eating more meals than their younger counterparts, often have a better sense of what is good and what is not. There were lots of old people at Por Kee, and this gave me great hope.
After all these years of ordering food family-style, I still never know how much is enough. So I have always been amazed at how the captains and waiters at these places can always estimate, with uncanny precision, just how many dishes to order, and in what quantities. We left the major decisions up to the nice lady who assisted us, while making sure to try some of our favourites and the dishes that had been recommended to us.
The big draw at Por Kee is apparently their champagne pork ribs (贵妃骨). We ordered this as part of their appetiser platter, which also included spring rolls that were decidedly mediocre, and a jellyfish dish that was downright terrible. The pork ribs themselves were bite sized and just good enough not to disappoint, but upon reflection (and of course, with the benefit of a second piece), were a tad too sweet. Perhaps we might have been better off ordering the full ribs instead of the riblets. We saw a platter of those go by us and they looked charred and glistened in the evening light.
What is absolutely a must-try, though is the house-made tofu. The skin had just enough texture to offer a wonderful contrast against the silky smooth tofu, and it had a sweetness I could not place. Paired with mushrooms and a base of oyster sauce, it was quite delicious. The har cheong kai also lived up to its billing, with a crisp, deep-fried exterior giving way to moist, tender white meat. Our family used to frequent a stall in the Amoy St market that made fabulous har cheong kai, and this was good enough to rival that version, which has long since deteriorated.
But the other dishes at Por Kee were tremendous disappointments. The two vegetable dishes we ordered were forgettable – one less so than the other only because it was too sweet. We ordered a dish of fish slices in ginger and spring onion, which tasted as though the ingredients had been cooked separately and only thrown together on the plate. Missing was the sense of harmony of ingredients that wok cooking over high heat is supposed to create. We also ordered a classic Cantonese tze char dish (and one of my personal favourites) – deep-fried yam ring with assorted seafood (佛钵飘香). The yam was done rather well, but the filling of seafood was cooked unevenly. In wok cooking, you are supposed to bring ingredients together to create a dish that is more than the sum of its parts, but this was sadly not the case for most of the dishes at Por Kee.
It was pretty telling when someone at the table remarked offhandedly that the beer was probably the best thing to pass his lips that night. That may have been an exaggeration, but for all its hype, Por Kee was quite poor. Perhaps the big ticket seafood items like lobster and crab were its specialties, but at this rate I will never find out. It seems cruel to condemn a place after one unsatisfactory experience there, but the Singapore scene is unforgiving, and there are so many other places to try. Why would one go back to a place that’s mediocre?
69 Seng Poh Lane
Tel: +65 6221 0582
I have been on a real tze char kick lately – I honestly believe it is the true test of the chef’s ability – so when it fell to me to suggest the venue for the latest get-together amongst some old family friends, I came up with the amusingly named Por Kee. I had heard many good things about this place, which is a stone’s throw from another famous tze char house – Sin Hoi San. Most of all I had heard that the har cheong kai (prawn paste chicken) here was excellent; and not having tasted any good versions lately, I was dying to try this one.
Por Kee is located on a small street opposite Tiong Bahru market – itself a haven for foodies – and on the same street as an old school bak kut teh place which is pretty damn good. In short, it is situated in a hotbed of culinary destinations, and so had great expectations to live up to. At first glance it looks rather run-down – and this impression did not change. But the best food is often in this sort of ramshackle surroundings, and so we sat down filled with a sense of anticipation.
Typically, you know a tze char place is good when lots of old people frequent it. At the risk of generalising, the older generations, by sheer dint of eating more meals than their younger counterparts, often have a better sense of what is good and what is not. There were lots of old people at Por Kee, and this gave me great hope.
After all these years of ordering food family-style, I still never know how much is enough. So I have always been amazed at how the captains and waiters at these places can always estimate, with uncanny precision, just how many dishes to order, and in what quantities. We left the major decisions up to the nice lady who assisted us, while making sure to try some of our favourites and the dishes that had been recommended to us.
The big draw at Por Kee is apparently their champagne pork ribs (贵妃骨). We ordered this as part of their appetiser platter, which also included spring rolls that were decidedly mediocre, and a jellyfish dish that was downright terrible. The pork ribs themselves were bite sized and just good enough not to disappoint, but upon reflection (and of course, with the benefit of a second piece), were a tad too sweet. Perhaps we might have been better off ordering the full ribs instead of the riblets. We saw a platter of those go by us and they looked charred and glistened in the evening light.
What is absolutely a must-try, though is the house-made tofu. The skin had just enough texture to offer a wonderful contrast against the silky smooth tofu, and it had a sweetness I could not place. Paired with mushrooms and a base of oyster sauce, it was quite delicious. The har cheong kai also lived up to its billing, with a crisp, deep-fried exterior giving way to moist, tender white meat. Our family used to frequent a stall in the Amoy St market that made fabulous har cheong kai, and this was good enough to rival that version, which has long since deteriorated.
But the other dishes at Por Kee were tremendous disappointments. The two vegetable dishes we ordered were forgettable – one less so than the other only because it was too sweet. We ordered a dish of fish slices in ginger and spring onion, which tasted as though the ingredients had been cooked separately and only thrown together on the plate. Missing was the sense of harmony of ingredients that wok cooking over high heat is supposed to create. We also ordered a classic Cantonese tze char dish (and one of my personal favourites) – deep-fried yam ring with assorted seafood (佛钵飘香). The yam was done rather well, but the filling of seafood was cooked unevenly. In wok cooking, you are supposed to bring ingredients together to create a dish that is more than the sum of its parts, but this was sadly not the case for most of the dishes at Por Kee.
It was pretty telling when someone at the table remarked offhandedly that the beer was probably the best thing to pass his lips that night. That may have been an exaggeration, but for all its hype, Por Kee was quite poor. Perhaps the big ticket seafood items like lobster and crab were its specialties, but at this rate I will never find out. It seems cruel to condemn a place after one unsatisfactory experience there, but the Singapore scene is unforgiving, and there are so many other places to try. Why would one go back to a place that’s mediocre?
Too big to fail?
Big Eater Seafood (大食家海鲜)
34 Jalan Pari Budong
Picardy Gardens
Tel: +65 6245 7268
One of the most difficult things in eating, for me at least, is knowing when to stop – and I think the same applies to restaurants. I think the older generation of restaurateur mostly still subscribes to the growth-at-all-costs model, and often pursue expansion at the expense of retaining their authenticity. Growing is a process not to be rushed, and only so few that I have seen do it well.
I was at Big Eater Seafood the other day for a simple dinner with my mother, and it struck me immediately how quickly this place had grown. From a corner shophouse before I left Singapore all those years ago, to taking on one additional shop space, to its current three shop spaces – and that was just the one outlet. I believe they have since opened three other outlets as well. They are doing well, no doubt, but at what cost?
We were there for their famous KL-style hokkien mee, different from the Singapore kind in that the dish is typically made with thick, udon-style noodles, coated in a sweet black sauce and topped with all manner of seafood. It takes some imagination, but Big Eater is actually quite a nice place to eat seafood. It is not by the sea, but in fact situated right beside a large canal which - thankfully - does not smell. There aren’t that many high-rises around, so you actually get good wind, and dining al fresco there is not an unbearable as it is in other parts of Singapore.
The food at Big Eater was good – the KL hokkien mee had dropped in standard but was still better than anything you could find in Singapore, and better even than one version that we had had in KL itself. The tofu skin rolls with minced shrimp were excellent. The vegetables (we had kang kong) were cooked well and had good wok hei. Vegetables are always the best gauge of a tze char chef’s ability. You need to cook them such that they absorb the flavour of their accompaniments, yet not too much that they lose their texture. And because the cooking time is usually short, it is rather difficult to taste and correct for your seasonings. The cooks at Big Eater were no amateurs, that much is certain.
But the wait to find that out was unbearable. We waited an entire 45 minutes for our food, as did the table next to us who had been seated at the same time. As we proceeded with the meal it was evident that this was happening to almost everybody in the restaurant. The sad part was that it wasn’t even close to full, only about 70% packed, so I cannot imagine what would have happened had they been at capacity. The man at the table next to us was positively livid, and called his waiter over many times, only to hear the same helpless answer each time. Not even the best food tastes any good when you are angry, and it was only this thought (and the fact that I had had a mid-afternoon snack not long before dinner) that prevented me from similarly losing my cool.
I didn’t have a peek into the kitchen, but it seemed that they had neglected to expand that even though they had expanded the shop space by three times. To their credit, they had made full use of technology to reduce human error – the waiters each carried a handheld device with which they took orders, in turn wirelessly transmitted to the kitchen. Yet cooking anything takes time, and once a kitchen gets backed up it is hell to get back on an even keel. 45 minutes is too long to wait for a meal – there is only so much conversation you can make before your stomach reminds you of what you were there for in the first place.
At a less busy time on a less busy day, I am sure Big Eater would have been a pleasant experience. It was decorated with a sense of humour, and the staff that attended to us were friendly and efficient. The food, too, was good – or perhaps we were just hungry from the long wait. Yet it seems to have grown too fast and too big to be able to ensure the same quality of experience for its customers – finding parking, too, is absolute torture. As it is I have marked this place down as one to avoid on Friday and Saturday evenings.
34 Jalan Pari Budong
Picardy Gardens
Tel: +65 6245 7268
One of the most difficult things in eating, for me at least, is knowing when to stop – and I think the same applies to restaurants. I think the older generation of restaurateur mostly still subscribes to the growth-at-all-costs model, and often pursue expansion at the expense of retaining their authenticity. Growing is a process not to be rushed, and only so few that I have seen do it well.
I was at Big Eater Seafood the other day for a simple dinner with my mother, and it struck me immediately how quickly this place had grown. From a corner shophouse before I left Singapore all those years ago, to taking on one additional shop space, to its current three shop spaces – and that was just the one outlet. I believe they have since opened three other outlets as well. They are doing well, no doubt, but at what cost?
We were there for their famous KL-style hokkien mee, different from the Singapore kind in that the dish is typically made with thick, udon-style noodles, coated in a sweet black sauce and topped with all manner of seafood. It takes some imagination, but Big Eater is actually quite a nice place to eat seafood. It is not by the sea, but in fact situated right beside a large canal which - thankfully - does not smell. There aren’t that many high-rises around, so you actually get good wind, and dining al fresco there is not an unbearable as it is in other parts of Singapore.
The food at Big Eater was good – the KL hokkien mee had dropped in standard but was still better than anything you could find in Singapore, and better even than one version that we had had in KL itself. The tofu skin rolls with minced shrimp were excellent. The vegetables (we had kang kong) were cooked well and had good wok hei. Vegetables are always the best gauge of a tze char chef’s ability. You need to cook them such that they absorb the flavour of their accompaniments, yet not too much that they lose their texture. And because the cooking time is usually short, it is rather difficult to taste and correct for your seasonings. The cooks at Big Eater were no amateurs, that much is certain.
But the wait to find that out was unbearable. We waited an entire 45 minutes for our food, as did the table next to us who had been seated at the same time. As we proceeded with the meal it was evident that this was happening to almost everybody in the restaurant. The sad part was that it wasn’t even close to full, only about 70% packed, so I cannot imagine what would have happened had they been at capacity. The man at the table next to us was positively livid, and called his waiter over many times, only to hear the same helpless answer each time. Not even the best food tastes any good when you are angry, and it was only this thought (and the fact that I had had a mid-afternoon snack not long before dinner) that prevented me from similarly losing my cool.
I didn’t have a peek into the kitchen, but it seemed that they had neglected to expand that even though they had expanded the shop space by three times. To their credit, they had made full use of technology to reduce human error – the waiters each carried a handheld device with which they took orders, in turn wirelessly transmitted to the kitchen. Yet cooking anything takes time, and once a kitchen gets backed up it is hell to get back on an even keel. 45 minutes is too long to wait for a meal – there is only so much conversation you can make before your stomach reminds you of what you were there for in the first place.
At a less busy time on a less busy day, I am sure Big Eater would have been a pleasant experience. It was decorated with a sense of humour, and the staff that attended to us were friendly and efficient. The food, too, was good – or perhaps we were just hungry from the long wait. Yet it seems to have grown too fast and too big to be able to ensure the same quality of experience for its customers – finding parking, too, is absolute torture. As it is I have marked this place down as one to avoid on Friday and Saturday evenings.
Sunday, July 05, 2009
Travel log: Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia)
I recently came back from a weekend trip to Kuala Lumpur (KL), which must have shaved a few years off my life. Nothing screams living in the moment more than binge drinking and indiscriminate consumption of unhealthy but delicious foods. Unfortunately for me that sounds like an apt description of much of my life.
KL is a popular destination for Singapore foodies, especially those in search of richer, more authentic hawker food. We set off for the trip armed with recommendations of what to eat, and over the three days and two nights it felt as though I was continually ingesting either food or drink. By the end I felt like I had aged considerably – such was our excess – but it was worth it, and then some.
Yet after all that it would be hard for me to say that KL food is better than Singapore’s; the stand-outs were, of course, memorable, but there was the odd mediocre dish. I didn’t eat enough to compare the average standards, so there is nothing left to do but make a second trip! And third, and fourth trips, of course.
Overseas Restoran (海外天)
Located near the fringes of the busy Bukit Bintang area, this sleepy little Chinese restaurant was the first stop we made, and filled us with nothing but excitement and anticipation for the rest of the trip. We arrived just a little bit before they opened for dinner, and walked in to see the waiters and cooks having their staff meal in a corner of the restaurant. They welcomed us with gracious smiles, apologised for not being ready to serve anyone yet, and asked if we were willing to sit down and drink some tea while waiting for the kitchen to start up again. Their inviting manner won us over, and we settled down for what became a leisurely wait for our food.
The roast meats are the specialty at Overseas Restoran – whose name became all the more appropriate when the waiter told us that the bulk of their business came not from locals but from out-of-towners coming in from Singapore and Hong Kong for a taste of their famous char siew. We had to get an order of that, and also picked the roast duck, but not before we opened our palates with a helping of herbal soup.
This was the char siew. Unbelievably fatty, and coated with a syrupy glaze of barbeque sauce. Clearly the concept of carcinogens had not entered the consciousness of the kitchen, for the exterior was covered in delicious black char. I got the same feeling as I did when I was dining at 2941 in DC and eating Mishima beef. Back then, I remember thinking that I was swallowing butter instead of chewing into muscle fibre – such was the tenderness of the beef – and also concluding that comparing it to normal beef was just inappropriate. This was in a whole different category. The same thing applied to the char siew at Overseas Restoran – it did not fit the preconceptions of char siew that I had, and as such comparison was unfair. It was very, very good though.
But the true star was the roast duck. I could not explain why and how this was so good. The exterior wasn’t crispy like how I usually like it; the meat was not tough, but yet not overly marbled with fat. But it was exquisitely seasoned, and everything was just done perfectly to create amazing bite-sized bursts of flavour and texture. I racked my brain to figure out what it was that was so special about the roast duck and still could not come up with an answer. I think sometimes you don’t have to have perfect technique, or execute everything with such precision; sometimes a dish cooked with care, and with the selfless conviction of providing pleasure to the diner can result in a very tasty meal indeed.
Wong Ah Wah
Our next stop for Part 2 of dinner that night was Jalan Alor, formerly the red light district but now a street of outdoor food stalls and restaurants. The “mamak stalls” never cease to amaze me – the entire workstation, including the stove top, is usually no wider than the armspan of an average person. And yet, standing in front of the stall and in all probability not moving his feet for the entire duration of the night, the average hawker can whip up a variety of meats, noodle dishes, vegetables. Jalan Alor is alive in the sense that you can feel the hunger in the air – the hunger of the people there who are in search of good food, on the cheap, in bustling, ramshackle environments. They just want to eat, and eat well.
(Just as an aside, why is it that all the good food always sprouts up around the red light districts, especially in Asian cities at least?)
These are the BBQ chicken wings at Wong Ah Wah at the end of Jalan Alor. The perfect marinate of honey and soy sauce, cooked over a charcoal fire. I thought they were delicious, but then again I think all wings are delicious. Buffalo wings, teriyaki wings, barbeque wings, they’re all good.
In the middle is spicy la-la, and in the foreground is kang kong. There is absolutely no combination like spicy food and cold beer. It is one of life’s greatest pleasures. I feel for people who do not eat spicy food, because they will never get to experience the immense satisfaction in numbing your taste buds with searing heat, before cooling them down with an ice cold beer. You don’t even need good beer, in fact the beer should in fact preferably be cheap and light. Just thinking about that combination makes me hungry.
Sek Yuen
For dinner the next night we went to Sek Yuen, another recommendation for good Cantonese tze char cuisine. Now this place is something else. It is legitimately stuck in a decade from long ago. And when I say long ago, I mean it. The restaurant takes up two shophouses, and one is clearly a later addition – it looks cleaner and is actually air-conditioned. But it is the other that I recommend eating at, for an experience tinged with history.
The feeling you get at Sek Yuen, apart from that of stepping into a time warp, is one of going to someone’s house for dinner. The staff all have that motherly/fatherly/grandmotherly/grandfatherly look, and are constantly scurrying around trying to anticipate your needs, as if you were a visitor from afar who had dropped in unannounced in hopes of a good meal. There is no menu, so you order what you want to eat, and if they can accommodate you they will. It is an interesting concept, and one that I wanted to take advantage of. But I figured that since it was our first (and only) time at the place, we should defer decision-making responsibility to the kitchen, and order what they felt to be their own specialties.
This place really should be a National Heritage Site of some sort.
You know the food is good when it is all gone and you realise that you have forgotten to take pictures. This is the only one I managed to snap, of the deep-fried garoupa in sweet and sour sauce - after we had devoured it, of course.
The standouts here include the fish dish that we had, and also a Cantonese staple of braised pork with yam slices. My mother loves this dish because when she first moved in with my dad and his family, this was one of the first dishes she ate that she had never tried before. My dad’s family’s maidservant at the time made this dish particularly well, and to this day it brings back fond memories for my mom, of her newly-wed days and the initial pages of what was a new chapter in her life. For my part I just like to eat it, so I am happy when anybody makes it for me. It is deceptively difficult to do well, just like all Chinese food, so when I find a good version I make a mental note of it.
We had a lot of other stops along the way too, but these I felt were the standouts. Perhaps I shall continue this in time to come, with a write-up of the other places we visited in KL. For now, I would recommend these places as must-tries for any visitor to KL.
KL is a popular destination for Singapore foodies, especially those in search of richer, more authentic hawker food. We set off for the trip armed with recommendations of what to eat, and over the three days and two nights it felt as though I was continually ingesting either food or drink. By the end I felt like I had aged considerably – such was our excess – but it was worth it, and then some.
Yet after all that it would be hard for me to say that KL food is better than Singapore’s; the stand-outs were, of course, memorable, but there was the odd mediocre dish. I didn’t eat enough to compare the average standards, so there is nothing left to do but make a second trip! And third, and fourth trips, of course.
Overseas Restoran (海外天)
Located near the fringes of the busy Bukit Bintang area, this sleepy little Chinese restaurant was the first stop we made, and filled us with nothing but excitement and anticipation for the rest of the trip. We arrived just a little bit before they opened for dinner, and walked in to see the waiters and cooks having their staff meal in a corner of the restaurant. They welcomed us with gracious smiles, apologised for not being ready to serve anyone yet, and asked if we were willing to sit down and drink some tea while waiting for the kitchen to start up again. Their inviting manner won us over, and we settled down for what became a leisurely wait for our food.
The roast meats are the specialty at Overseas Restoran – whose name became all the more appropriate when the waiter told us that the bulk of their business came not from locals but from out-of-towners coming in from Singapore and Hong Kong for a taste of their famous char siew. We had to get an order of that, and also picked the roast duck, but not before we opened our palates with a helping of herbal soup.
This was the char siew. Unbelievably fatty, and coated with a syrupy glaze of barbeque sauce. Clearly the concept of carcinogens had not entered the consciousness of the kitchen, for the exterior was covered in delicious black char. I got the same feeling as I did when I was dining at 2941 in DC and eating Mishima beef. Back then, I remember thinking that I was swallowing butter instead of chewing into muscle fibre – such was the tenderness of the beef – and also concluding that comparing it to normal beef was just inappropriate. This was in a whole different category. The same thing applied to the char siew at Overseas Restoran – it did not fit the preconceptions of char siew that I had, and as such comparison was unfair. It was very, very good though.
But the true star was the roast duck. I could not explain why and how this was so good. The exterior wasn’t crispy like how I usually like it; the meat was not tough, but yet not overly marbled with fat. But it was exquisitely seasoned, and everything was just done perfectly to create amazing bite-sized bursts of flavour and texture. I racked my brain to figure out what it was that was so special about the roast duck and still could not come up with an answer. I think sometimes you don’t have to have perfect technique, or execute everything with such precision; sometimes a dish cooked with care, and with the selfless conviction of providing pleasure to the diner can result in a very tasty meal indeed.
Wong Ah Wah
Our next stop for Part 2 of dinner that night was Jalan Alor, formerly the red light district but now a street of outdoor food stalls and restaurants. The “mamak stalls” never cease to amaze me – the entire workstation, including the stove top, is usually no wider than the armspan of an average person. And yet, standing in front of the stall and in all probability not moving his feet for the entire duration of the night, the average hawker can whip up a variety of meats, noodle dishes, vegetables. Jalan Alor is alive in the sense that you can feel the hunger in the air – the hunger of the people there who are in search of good food, on the cheap, in bustling, ramshackle environments. They just want to eat, and eat well.
(Just as an aside, why is it that all the good food always sprouts up around the red light districts, especially in Asian cities at least?)
These are the BBQ chicken wings at Wong Ah Wah at the end of Jalan Alor. The perfect marinate of honey and soy sauce, cooked over a charcoal fire. I thought they were delicious, but then again I think all wings are delicious. Buffalo wings, teriyaki wings, barbeque wings, they’re all good.
In the middle is spicy la-la, and in the foreground is kang kong. There is absolutely no combination like spicy food and cold beer. It is one of life’s greatest pleasures. I feel for people who do not eat spicy food, because they will never get to experience the immense satisfaction in numbing your taste buds with searing heat, before cooling them down with an ice cold beer. You don’t even need good beer, in fact the beer should in fact preferably be cheap and light. Just thinking about that combination makes me hungry.
Sek Yuen
For dinner the next night we went to Sek Yuen, another recommendation for good Cantonese tze char cuisine. Now this place is something else. It is legitimately stuck in a decade from long ago. And when I say long ago, I mean it. The restaurant takes up two shophouses, and one is clearly a later addition – it looks cleaner and is actually air-conditioned. But it is the other that I recommend eating at, for an experience tinged with history.
The feeling you get at Sek Yuen, apart from that of stepping into a time warp, is one of going to someone’s house for dinner. The staff all have that motherly/fatherly/grandmotherly/grandfatherly look, and are constantly scurrying around trying to anticipate your needs, as if you were a visitor from afar who had dropped in unannounced in hopes of a good meal. There is no menu, so you order what you want to eat, and if they can accommodate you they will. It is an interesting concept, and one that I wanted to take advantage of. But I figured that since it was our first (and only) time at the place, we should defer decision-making responsibility to the kitchen, and order what they felt to be their own specialties.
This place really should be a National Heritage Site of some sort.
You know the food is good when it is all gone and you realise that you have forgotten to take pictures. This is the only one I managed to snap, of the deep-fried garoupa in sweet and sour sauce - after we had devoured it, of course.
The standouts here include the fish dish that we had, and also a Cantonese staple of braised pork with yam slices. My mother loves this dish because when she first moved in with my dad and his family, this was one of the first dishes she ate that she had never tried before. My dad’s family’s maidservant at the time made this dish particularly well, and to this day it brings back fond memories for my mom, of her newly-wed days and the initial pages of what was a new chapter in her life. For my part I just like to eat it, so I am happy when anybody makes it for me. It is deceptively difficult to do well, just like all Chinese food, so when I find a good version I make a mental note of it.
We had a lot of other stops along the way too, but these I felt were the standouts. Perhaps I shall continue this in time to come, with a write-up of the other places we visited in KL. For now, I would recommend these places as must-tries for any visitor to KL.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
"Crispy sells."
"Crispy sells." - John Gibson
This is a maxim that I couldn't agree with more. John, my former chef, used to say this from time to time and he was certainly correct, what's more, whichever menu item received this descriptor always sold like hot-cakes. There's something about a crunchy crust giving way to a moist and succulent interior that gets my palate going, whether it's veal milanese, chicken wings, croquetas, fried sweetbreads, fish-cakes (particularly bolinhos de bacalhau), or my childhood favorite deep fried shrimp.
Surely deep frying is the easiest method of creating this crispy exterior. However, I often find that the traditional trifecta of flour, egg, and breadcrumbs, while delicious, becomes oil soaked and heavy. Happily I've found a couple of techniques for creating this crispy business in ways that are lighter and new (at least to me that is):
1) If you have the luxury of deep frying I particularly recommend a buttermilk batter. This is very easy to prepare, dip item to be fried in some buttermilk and then into flour. I've been doing it with 1/2 AP flour and 1/2 semolina flour and also with all AP Flour and I've found the semolina mix to be a bit lighter, though both are delicious. It's very important to have extremely hot oil for this frying process or else the item will be overcooked before the batter is as crunchy as one would like. I've tried it with bacalhau, shrimp, hake, zucchini flowers and sweetbreads, all to great satisfaction.
2) Dijon mustard is one of my favorite ingredients: I love its heat and its tang. It is a great accompaniment to meats of all sorts and has endless uses as an emulsifier for sauces. Recently I marinated some de-boned chicken legs with lots grainy Dijon, lemons, capers, garlic, thyme, chili flakes. I heated my cast iron pan to smoking hot and slipped them in, skin side down. At high heats the mustard caramelizes and the resulting crust and rendered skin creates a great textural contrast. I recommend placing a weight of some sort on top of the item to make sure that all of the surface is touching the pan and thus quickly making a more even crust.
3) I don't have much experience with tahini, but I do now know that it creates a beautiful crust on a variety of foods. At work lately we've been marinating quail with tahini, olive oil, lemons and smashed garlic cloves, salt and black pepper. Put into a hot pan the tahini will turn a golden brown and have a charming toasted nutty flavor and aroma. I think this could work very nicely with chicken as well, or maybe some sort of chopped chickpea cake. On a lark we threw a couple of the quail into the deep fryer and ate them as a snack with hot sauce to make a gourmet chicken wing. Very delicious.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Prune, NYC
Had at Prune:
Marinated white anchovies, celery hearts, marcona almonds
Capon in Aspic, chive mayo, red leaf lettuce
Lamb shoulder chop, rice beans with an egg/citrus dressing, green garlic
Vanilla trifle, whipped cream, sour cherries, lady fingers
A very good meal.
Sunday, June 14, 2009
The Peace Hotel
Wo Peng Eatery (和平饭店)
476 MacPherson Road
Tel: +65 6747 9892
The one thing a good foodie cannot do without is a network of reliable fellow foodies. In a city of any size, new gems open up with incredible frequency, and old favourites lose their lustre from time to time. Without a cadre of scouts it is nigh-on impossible to keep track of the goings-on in Singapore’s culinary scene. However, maintaining such a network is not without its difficulties. First and foremost, not all foodies are created equal. It is tough to find one, let alone a few, to match your own exacting standards and ideas of quality. At the same time, you also want to maintain some diversity within your network. For example, I don’t often go out of my way to try Japanese and Korean food, so I need someone who does so regularly to keep me updated on the good places to go. One needs a network to cover all cuisines, in all locations and neighbourhoods, across all price points.
Victor sent me a message the other day that was uncharacteristically full of exclamation points – claiming that he had discovered a gem in MacPherson. I was initially sceptical, for MacPherson is a sleepy industrial estate that was once littered with manufacturing plants – most of which have since exited the area in search of cheaper rents. But the idea of finding good food in such a forlorn place was a romantic one, and I fell even further in love with the idea once he told me it was Cantonese cuisine cooked by a master chef from Hong Kong. I made a reservation immediately, and spent a good hour scouring the Internet for reviews.
Most of the press on Wo Peng Eatery is very good. The basics are simple and can be found in any blog or press clipping: Julian Tam, who used to cook at the Furama Palace before leaving to open a restaurant chain in Guangzhou, made a triumphant return to Singapore last year when he heard about an open shop space. The resulting eatery pushes out hotel restaurant-worthy cuisine masqueraded as tze char and served in an undistinguished setting.
At first, I wasn’t sure whether or not to place a reservation but did so anyway. It turned out to be irrelevant, in a bad way. We arrived about ten minutes late – (a warning: it is difficult to find parking) – and the person who greeted us had no clue of any reservations made. Upon checking their (handwritten) logbook and finding our reservation, she informed us that there were no available tables. To her credit, she was pretty apologetic about the whole situation, but it still was pretty annoying. What is the whole point of making a reservation, then, if the front of the house is not going to make sure there is a table for you at the time you stipulated? To compound matters, there is no space or seating for you to wait, either in or out of the eatery.
Fortunately for us, business had began to slow – it was approaching 9 o’clock – and it was only another ten minutes before a table opened up. You cannot say that Wo Peng has a spartan décor, but yet you cannot say that it is thoughtfully decorated either. The entire place takes up two shophouse units, has blockish beige walls adorned with lucky Chinese couplets and photos of the chef with many celebrities (a very Asian thing). It is only when they set the table that I realise that this humble eatery has restaurant pretensions – for all its faults Wo Peng does have some good cutlery.
The menu is simple and limited, and from the selection it is again evident that this is no simple tze char place. For one: the soups. These came highly recommended both by Victor and the blogosphere, and we ordered two to try – first the shark cartilage soup with hua jiao, and then a herbal soup with ming mu yu. The shark cartilage soup was excellent, with just a slight taste of ammonia from the shark cartilage but otherwise masked and countered perfectly with the hua jiao. The other soup was also hearty and delicious. My only complaint was that while the former arrived at the start of our meal, the latter only arrived towards the tail end, and only after our prodding of the waitstaff. I like to drink soup before the main course, so this was another on the list of grievances.
The deep-fried fish skin pieces were also excellent – wafer-thin and fried to a crisp. They came with a bowl of superior stock topped with chives, which made for an excellent complement. The simple kai lan (kale) with lean pork slices was fiery and had good wok hei. This was a simple dish that showcased the skill of the kitchen – the kai lan had been blanched to remove its bitterness, but not for so long that it lost its texture. And the masterful use of chilli pepper was impressive given that the chef was not local. For a foreign chef to appreciate the exact nature of the local palate’s inclination towards spice can only imply a curious mind behind the hands at the wok – for, clearly, Singaporean spice is different from Szechuan spice, and much different from the spice in Yue cooking. We also had a dish of braised garoupa head with eggplant and tofu, which was very well executed, save for the unfortunate fact that the eggplant had been cooked to the point where it had lost its texture and flavour.
The big disappointment for the night was the lobster ee mee., which had, again, come highly recommended. The waitstaff that brought the dish out forgot to present the dish at the table and hurried straight to the serving table by the side to begin dividing it up into individual portions. A terrible faux pas that would not be condoned at any good restaurant, but since we were in much humbler surroundings we did not kick up a fuss. Yet when the noodles arrived they were almost unedible, for they had been tossed in too much butter. I never thought I would write those three words together, but now I have. We made our feelings known to the waitress, and were informed that you can request for less butter, or no butter at all. Good information for next time, but a lesson that came at a cost: at $15 a head, the lobster ee mee is not a cheap dish.
The saving grace of the lobster ee mee was a side note that came as a great surprise – for I ate the dish with some of the house-pickled green chillies, which were excellent. Wo Peng also provides house-made sambal that is a little heavy on the dried shrimp, but nonetheless has good flavour and spice. At least these details were well taken care of.
To me, Wo Peng operates at a very strange price point. It is not cheap, by any means, which implies that they are not competing with the cheaper tze char places. And yes, it may not ordinarily be as expensive as the top restaurants, but if you order the big-ticket items you can actually come close. The question then is – wouldn’t most people who are already paying that much for a meal then throw on a little more cash and head to a nice hotel restaurant with a similar if not better quality of food, but much better service and surroundings? The things that Wo Peng has in its favour would then be its neighbourhood feel, and portion size (you do get slightly bigger portions here than at top restaurants). Yet still it is a dangerous space to work in - when people are either thinking of a weekday dining out option because they are lazy to cook, or racking their brains for a destination on a special occasion: it is hard to see Wo Peng at the forefront of anyone's mind.
There is no question that you will have a good meal at Wo Peng, the chef is too skilled for that not to happen. Yet its restaurant pretensions are cruelly exposed. It is the various processes essential to a restaurant’s operations that separate the men from the boys: the big houses have these nailed down, where the pretenders often struggle. If the front of house operations can live up to the food that comes out of the kitchen, this place has a chance to become a Singapore staple despite its less-than-favourable location.
476 MacPherson Road
Tel: +65 6747 9892
The one thing a good foodie cannot do without is a network of reliable fellow foodies. In a city of any size, new gems open up with incredible frequency, and old favourites lose their lustre from time to time. Without a cadre of scouts it is nigh-on impossible to keep track of the goings-on in Singapore’s culinary scene. However, maintaining such a network is not without its difficulties. First and foremost, not all foodies are created equal. It is tough to find one, let alone a few, to match your own exacting standards and ideas of quality. At the same time, you also want to maintain some diversity within your network. For example, I don’t often go out of my way to try Japanese and Korean food, so I need someone who does so regularly to keep me updated on the good places to go. One needs a network to cover all cuisines, in all locations and neighbourhoods, across all price points.
Victor sent me a message the other day that was uncharacteristically full of exclamation points – claiming that he had discovered a gem in MacPherson. I was initially sceptical, for MacPherson is a sleepy industrial estate that was once littered with manufacturing plants – most of which have since exited the area in search of cheaper rents. But the idea of finding good food in such a forlorn place was a romantic one, and I fell even further in love with the idea once he told me it was Cantonese cuisine cooked by a master chef from Hong Kong. I made a reservation immediately, and spent a good hour scouring the Internet for reviews.
Most of the press on Wo Peng Eatery is very good. The basics are simple and can be found in any blog or press clipping: Julian Tam, who used to cook at the Furama Palace before leaving to open a restaurant chain in Guangzhou, made a triumphant return to Singapore last year when he heard about an open shop space. The resulting eatery pushes out hotel restaurant-worthy cuisine masqueraded as tze char and served in an undistinguished setting.
At first, I wasn’t sure whether or not to place a reservation but did so anyway. It turned out to be irrelevant, in a bad way. We arrived about ten minutes late – (a warning: it is difficult to find parking) – and the person who greeted us had no clue of any reservations made. Upon checking their (handwritten) logbook and finding our reservation, she informed us that there were no available tables. To her credit, she was pretty apologetic about the whole situation, but it still was pretty annoying. What is the whole point of making a reservation, then, if the front of the house is not going to make sure there is a table for you at the time you stipulated? To compound matters, there is no space or seating for you to wait, either in or out of the eatery.
Fortunately for us, business had began to slow – it was approaching 9 o’clock – and it was only another ten minutes before a table opened up. You cannot say that Wo Peng has a spartan décor, but yet you cannot say that it is thoughtfully decorated either. The entire place takes up two shophouse units, has blockish beige walls adorned with lucky Chinese couplets and photos of the chef with many celebrities (a very Asian thing). It is only when they set the table that I realise that this humble eatery has restaurant pretensions – for all its faults Wo Peng does have some good cutlery.
The menu is simple and limited, and from the selection it is again evident that this is no simple tze char place. For one: the soups. These came highly recommended both by Victor and the blogosphere, and we ordered two to try – first the shark cartilage soup with hua jiao, and then a herbal soup with ming mu yu. The shark cartilage soup was excellent, with just a slight taste of ammonia from the shark cartilage but otherwise masked and countered perfectly with the hua jiao. The other soup was also hearty and delicious. My only complaint was that while the former arrived at the start of our meal, the latter only arrived towards the tail end, and only after our prodding of the waitstaff. I like to drink soup before the main course, so this was another on the list of grievances.
The deep-fried fish skin pieces were also excellent – wafer-thin and fried to a crisp. They came with a bowl of superior stock topped with chives, which made for an excellent complement. The simple kai lan (kale) with lean pork slices was fiery and had good wok hei. This was a simple dish that showcased the skill of the kitchen – the kai lan had been blanched to remove its bitterness, but not for so long that it lost its texture. And the masterful use of chilli pepper was impressive given that the chef was not local. For a foreign chef to appreciate the exact nature of the local palate’s inclination towards spice can only imply a curious mind behind the hands at the wok – for, clearly, Singaporean spice is different from Szechuan spice, and much different from the spice in Yue cooking. We also had a dish of braised garoupa head with eggplant and tofu, which was very well executed, save for the unfortunate fact that the eggplant had been cooked to the point where it had lost its texture and flavour.
The big disappointment for the night was the lobster ee mee., which had, again, come highly recommended. The waitstaff that brought the dish out forgot to present the dish at the table and hurried straight to the serving table by the side to begin dividing it up into individual portions. A terrible faux pas that would not be condoned at any good restaurant, but since we were in much humbler surroundings we did not kick up a fuss. Yet when the noodles arrived they were almost unedible, for they had been tossed in too much butter. I never thought I would write those three words together, but now I have. We made our feelings known to the waitress, and were informed that you can request for less butter, or no butter at all. Good information for next time, but a lesson that came at a cost: at $15 a head, the lobster ee mee is not a cheap dish.
The saving grace of the lobster ee mee was a side note that came as a great surprise – for I ate the dish with some of the house-pickled green chillies, which were excellent. Wo Peng also provides house-made sambal that is a little heavy on the dried shrimp, but nonetheless has good flavour and spice. At least these details were well taken care of.
To me, Wo Peng operates at a very strange price point. It is not cheap, by any means, which implies that they are not competing with the cheaper tze char places. And yes, it may not ordinarily be as expensive as the top restaurants, but if you order the big-ticket items you can actually come close. The question then is – wouldn’t most people who are already paying that much for a meal then throw on a little more cash and head to a nice hotel restaurant with a similar if not better quality of food, but much better service and surroundings? The things that Wo Peng has in its favour would then be its neighbourhood feel, and portion size (you do get slightly bigger portions here than at top restaurants). Yet still it is a dangerous space to work in - when people are either thinking of a weekday dining out option because they are lazy to cook, or racking their brains for a destination on a special occasion: it is hard to see Wo Peng at the forefront of anyone's mind.
There is no question that you will have a good meal at Wo Peng, the chef is too skilled for that not to happen. Yet its restaurant pretensions are cruelly exposed. It is the various processes essential to a restaurant’s operations that separate the men from the boys: the big houses have these nailed down, where the pretenders often struggle. If the front of house operations can live up to the food that comes out of the kitchen, this place has a chance to become a Singapore staple despite its less-than-favourable location.
Sunday, June 07, 2009
"Forget it Jake. It's Chinatown."
For New Yorkers, going to Chinatown must feel like a surreal experience. Block upon block of signage in a foreign hand, streets teeming with Asians and their quick-fire bursts in a foreign language – it must feel somewhat like setting foot in another country. Strangely enough, in Singapore – which is predominantly Chinese – going to Chinatown has a somewhat similar effect.
Chinatown in Singapore refers to the Telok Ayer / Kreta Ayer district, just off the Central Business district (CBD), and in some loose definitions stretches up to the Bukit Pasoh and Duxton areas nearer Cantonment and Tanjong Pagar. Architecturally there is a lot of history here, since it was one of the first few urban areas to be built up in Singapore. There are traces of Singapore’s pre-war colonialism still reflected in the baroque, almost Italianate, shophouses, but the use of slit windows and the preference for pastels may be uniquely local.
But it is the thronging masses of people here that make Chinatown unique. The demographic tends to skew largely older, and many senior citizens over 60 keep making their regular pilgrimage to their favourite restaurant or market stall week-in, week-out. Conversations are conducted largely in dialects, with Cantonese being predominant, giving the younger, cosmopolitan Singaporean the same feeling that the New Yorker gets in his Chinatown – one of foreign-ness. It also doesn’t help that streets are narrow and there are typically large crowds of people willing to fight through other people to get where they are going.
Yet there is a lot of good food in Chinatown, and most of it is cheap. (Just like how the people there are stuck in the 60s or 70s, so are the prices.) Many household names like Ka-Soh originated in this area before moving away, and others like Da Dong are still going strong. These are the restaurants with tradition in Singapore, serving Cantonese cuisine the way it should be done and the way they have been doing it for decades now. I was in Chinatown for brunch one day and hit up some of not all of my favourites.
Smith St Market / Food Centre
My mother gets her fresh fish here, and we usually stop by the cooked food centre, which has several hidden gems. One of the things we always get is XO 鱼片米粉 (yupianmifen – Vermicelli with Fish Slices), which they do a very good job of here. I have no idea what the name of the stall is, but I could find my way there from the elevator blindfolded. They add a lot of ginger, and use XO in the cooking process in addition to just topping the finished product off with it, so you get a very hearty, savoury soup.
One of the Cantonese classics that I have a particularly soft spot for is soya sauce chicken, and there is a stall here called Ming Kee that is worth the long lines for. Tender, roasted chicken parts marinated in a house-secret soy sauce, served over noodles or rice – Ming Kee does the basics and does them well enough to attract a constant line of folks desperate for their fix. It is a shade inferior to the soya sauce chicken at 126 Beer Garden in Joo Chiat, but the noodles are particularly good, and the chef cooks them to perfect al dente doneness (or in Hong Kong lingo: QQ). They also make soup from scratch, with lots of red dates and black wood fungus, and both the skin and the filling of their handmade dumplings are top-notch.
Liang Chen Mei Dian
One of the areas in which Singapore is miles behind Hong Kong is the standard of their baked goods and pastries. Hong Kong has their custard buns and their egg tarts and bo luo baos, and nothing we have here even come close. Even our imitations of the Hong Kong classics come nowhere near either. But there is a shop in Chinatown, on Sago St, which has absolutely fantastic egg tarts; and the rest of the pastries they have aren’t too shabby either. It is hard to talk up an egg tart because the finished product is so simple, but the good ones have a sweet but not overly cloying taste, a smooth, rich and creamy textured filling, and flaky butter-filled pastry. The kind of butter you use also is critically important in making egg tarts (and really, in all pastry) – you need one with a high butterfat content.
Words are not enough, so here are a couple of pictures.
Lim Chee Guan
I remember craving bak gua during my first year abroad at college, and my mother – in her infinite graciousness – sent me a care package with some bak gua vacuum-packed and hidden under a scarf. I did not know how to describe this to my friends at school, so I told them it was a pork jerky. Simon in particular went crazy over it, and with good reason. Bak gua is so sinfully delicious that it needs no description, and Lim Chee Guan is – in my opinion – the best version around in Singapore. No trip to Chinatown would be complete without a trip here.
I felt a little out of place in Chinatown the first time I went there after moving back, but I am glad to say that that is slowly fading. The bustle, the noise, elbows in your face, and the terrible service at restaurants – these are now more likely to put a smile on my face than irritate me. If only it weren’t so hard to find parking.
Chinatown in Singapore refers to the Telok Ayer / Kreta Ayer district, just off the Central Business district (CBD), and in some loose definitions stretches up to the Bukit Pasoh and Duxton areas nearer Cantonment and Tanjong Pagar. Architecturally there is a lot of history here, since it was one of the first few urban areas to be built up in Singapore. There are traces of Singapore’s pre-war colonialism still reflected in the baroque, almost Italianate, shophouses, but the use of slit windows and the preference for pastels may be uniquely local.
But it is the thronging masses of people here that make Chinatown unique. The demographic tends to skew largely older, and many senior citizens over 60 keep making their regular pilgrimage to their favourite restaurant or market stall week-in, week-out. Conversations are conducted largely in dialects, with Cantonese being predominant, giving the younger, cosmopolitan Singaporean the same feeling that the New Yorker gets in his Chinatown – one of foreign-ness. It also doesn’t help that streets are narrow and there are typically large crowds of people willing to fight through other people to get where they are going.
Yet there is a lot of good food in Chinatown, and most of it is cheap. (Just like how the people there are stuck in the 60s or 70s, so are the prices.) Many household names like Ka-Soh originated in this area before moving away, and others like Da Dong are still going strong. These are the restaurants with tradition in Singapore, serving Cantonese cuisine the way it should be done and the way they have been doing it for decades now. I was in Chinatown for brunch one day and hit up some of not all of my favourites.
Smith St Market / Food Centre
My mother gets her fresh fish here, and we usually stop by the cooked food centre, which has several hidden gems. One of the things we always get is XO 鱼片米粉 (yupianmifen – Vermicelli with Fish Slices), which they do a very good job of here. I have no idea what the name of the stall is, but I could find my way there from the elevator blindfolded. They add a lot of ginger, and use XO in the cooking process in addition to just topping the finished product off with it, so you get a very hearty, savoury soup.
One of the Cantonese classics that I have a particularly soft spot for is soya sauce chicken, and there is a stall here called Ming Kee that is worth the long lines for. Tender, roasted chicken parts marinated in a house-secret soy sauce, served over noodles or rice – Ming Kee does the basics and does them well enough to attract a constant line of folks desperate for their fix. It is a shade inferior to the soya sauce chicken at 126 Beer Garden in Joo Chiat, but the noodles are particularly good, and the chef cooks them to perfect al dente doneness (or in Hong Kong lingo: QQ). They also make soup from scratch, with lots of red dates and black wood fungus, and both the skin and the filling of their handmade dumplings are top-notch.
Liang Chen Mei Dian
One of the areas in which Singapore is miles behind Hong Kong is the standard of their baked goods and pastries. Hong Kong has their custard buns and their egg tarts and bo luo baos, and nothing we have here even come close. Even our imitations of the Hong Kong classics come nowhere near either. But there is a shop in Chinatown, on Sago St, which has absolutely fantastic egg tarts; and the rest of the pastries they have aren’t too shabby either. It is hard to talk up an egg tart because the finished product is so simple, but the good ones have a sweet but not overly cloying taste, a smooth, rich and creamy textured filling, and flaky butter-filled pastry. The kind of butter you use also is critically important in making egg tarts (and really, in all pastry) – you need one with a high butterfat content.
Words are not enough, so here are a couple of pictures.
Lim Chee Guan
I remember craving bak gua during my first year abroad at college, and my mother – in her infinite graciousness – sent me a care package with some bak gua vacuum-packed and hidden under a scarf. I did not know how to describe this to my friends at school, so I told them it was a pork jerky. Simon in particular went crazy over it, and with good reason. Bak gua is so sinfully delicious that it needs no description, and Lim Chee Guan is – in my opinion – the best version around in Singapore. No trip to Chinatown would be complete without a trip here.
I felt a little out of place in Chinatown the first time I went there after moving back, but I am glad to say that that is slowly fading. The bustle, the noise, elbows in your face, and the terrible service at restaurants – these are now more likely to put a smile on my face than irritate me. If only it weren’t so hard to find parking.
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