Platypus Test Kitchen at Clifford Centre is a very interesting place. They have an unique name, and it is kind of difficult to define the place.

What exactly is a test kitchen? Is it like a lab where the chefs experiment with different ingredients to come up with the best pasta in Singapore? Or is it just a name to catch the attention of customers? Knowing absolutely nothing about the place, my friend brought me to the restaurant at Raffles Place to try out their food.

The owners describe Platypus Test Kitchen as a casual Mediterranean bistro, specializing in hand-made pastas and seasonal Mediterranean fare.

For a small bistro, Platypus Test Kitchen has quite a few items on its menu. The appetisers section consists mainly of salad (Wild Rocket Salad, Caramelised Baby Carrots, Sauteed Brussels Sprouts with Bacon) and soup (Leek & Crab Bisque, Wild Mushroom Soup, Vine-Ripened Tomato Soup). The pasta menu is divided into two corners: fresh handmade pastas (Summer Truffle Egg Tagliatelle, Four Cheese Tortellini) and their signature pastas (Carbonara, Aglio Olio, Prawn Pomodoro).

Prices range from $5 to $9 for the soup and appetisers, while most of the pastas are around $12 to $15. It is also worth noting that they have a few selections that are suitable for vegetarians.

With so many pastas on Platypus Test Kitchen’s menu, it took us a while before we finally chose the Squid Ink Seafood Marinara ($15.50) and Carbonara with Double-Smoked Bacon ($12.50).

Both the squid ink tagliatelle and the spagehetti with egg yolk based cream were a little too dry for my liking. While the squid ink pasta was generous with the ingredients, I definitely had better ones elsewhere. On the other hand, the Carbonara was decent but not fantastic.

It is clear that Platypus Test Kitchen caters to the office crowd in Raffles Place for lunch. They operate from 10.30am to 5pm on weekdays, while dinner is available only on Friday night from 5pm to 9pm, and they are closed during weekends.

Maybe we ordered the wrong pastas. But I can see myself coming back again to try the other items. The pastas are reasonably priced, and they have some interesting creations on the menu. If you are working in the Raffles Place area, gather your colleagues and head to Clifford Centre to try the pastas during lunch time.

Singapore Food Blog Review
Platypus Test Kitchen
24 Raffles Place
#02-02 Clifford Centre Singapore
Tel: +65 6533 7402

One of the reasons why I hardly blog about Japanese food is because I always have difficulty in remembering all the mind-boggling names. I heard of Standing Sushi Bar a while back when it just opened, and the first question on my mind: “are there seats inside?”

The catchy name certainly helps to pique the curiosity of most people, and I found out that the theory of stand, order sushi and eat only applies to lunch where there are no seats. For dinner you can sit down comfortably (although it’s kind of cramp) and enjoy your sushi.

There was six pieces of the California roll ($6) each; since the others were saving up their stomach for the other courses to come, I had the lion’s share of it. There’s just something about California roll that attracts me; this is the kind of thing I could keep eating and still never get enough. Okay fine, that’s just an excuse – I’m a glutton.

SSB’s owner Howard made the selections, and he chose a platter of five nigiri sushi for us; Maguro ($2), Sake Toro ($2), Hamachi ($4), Aburi Hotate ($4), Shime Saba ($3). I particularly enjoyed the scallop which had a tangy sauce to further enhance the sweetness of it.

And how can we do without Sashimi? The Chef’s special ($25) will definitely delight all the sashimi fans out there; I bet you are already salivating at the prospect of putting the thickly sliced, fresh sashimi with a pinch of wasabi into your mouth.

I was particularly intrigued by the Anago nigiri ($6) when it arrived on our table. The long and slimy salt-water sea eel looks so tantalizing with a coat of sauce, and there was the challenge of gobbling it up with one bite.

I have mentioned it before, but girls seem to love their Salmon a lot. And the Salmon Yuzu Yama-mayo yaki ($15) will be the perfect choice; the fish crumbled at the lightest touch and it was tasty with the appetizing sauce, but I would prefer it to be slightly more charred on the surface.

Besides all the raw nigiri sushi and sashimi, there was also some cooked food available and we had the Mix Kinoko Foil Yaki ($10) which by all accounts, wasn’t cheap for just mushrooms, but I have to say it was delicious. There was the special-sauce-which-the-chef-absolutely-refused-to-divulge that is supposedly the success behind the three mushrooms.

And we also had the Tori Karaage ($6) which was quintessentially fried chicken wrapped with seaweed. After having so much raw food, it was nice to have some sinful, deep-fried food for a change.

Standing Sushi Bar has a pretty value for money set lunch, so if you are working in the area, check them out, but you have been warned – there’s no seats during lunch.

* * *

This is the first part of a series that I will be doing with Standard Chartered, I will like to thank Claudia from 24seven Communications, and Standard Chartered Bank for the invitation.

Just a quick note about their new credit card campaign, I’m sure most of you will have seen their latest Barry and Fin advertisement; first you get 15% off total food bill (click here for the list of restaurant), and at the end of the month if you have charged more than the minimum amount of $500 (which can be anything, not just dining), you are entitled to an additional 15% cashback which applies to all restaurant in Singapore.

Standing Sushi Bar
1 Raffles Place
#B1-02B OUB Centre
Tel: 6533 7078

60. The number could refer to almost anything; age, weight, people, money, time – Si Chuan Dou Hua restaurant on the sixty level of UOB plaza. 100 – a century figure of dishes at weekend lunch, offering dim sum, tea and Szechuan cuisine. 38.8 – the unbeatable price of under forty dollars. Numbers are magic: they tell a thousand things too.

Salted Duck Gizzard

The kidney, I have to say, was lovely: chewy and pinkish-coloured, swelled-looking, with the clever use of spices covered the porky smell which made so many people avoided the delicious pig kidney.

The question of authenticity popped up during the tasting session, and Linda the director of SCDH was quick to point out although there were some minor tweaks of the dishes to suit local palates, the Chilled chicken in spicy bean paste was done exactly like the Szechuan favourite. The spicy bean paste caused a storm; hot, fiery, and simply so Szechuan!

SCDH served us many cold dishes for starters, and the Sliced beef and tripe in chilli sauce was one of them.

Chilled preserved cucumber with garlic and peppercorn

Century egg and mushroom in ginger sauce

Asparagus with sea moss

Abalone mushroom in sesame oil

At first glance, it was not difficult to mistaken the Sliced duck in Teow chew style for the more commonly seen drunken chicken. Thinly sliced, I could never resist duck meat!

This one caught me by surprise – the crispy chicken puff. I wasn’t expecting something so, small and tiny, to be so good. The crispy fried skin had chicken within: it was a reminiscent of cream puff, except the pastry was fried instead of baked, and the fillings were chicken instead of cream.

Perfect. One of the best carrot cake I’ve had; every bite was flavourful with radish. The only correct thing to make a good carrot cake is to just add more radish, it’s so simple, yet many fail to get the gist of it.

The purist would protest at the sight of the Steamed siew mai with quill egg. The additional of quill egg was an innovation, and credits had to be given to the chefs for experimenting with different ingredients.

Glutinous rice roll with pork floss wrapped in banana leaf

No, it definitely wasn’t St Valentine’s the last time I checked. Nonetheless, the heart shape was pretty enough to gorge at -  Pan-fried shredded yam pancake with waxed meat.

I ain’t a big fan of mince meat balls, but the Steamed beef balls with seasonal vegetables won me over with the chewy and bouncy texture.

I eyed the golden dumpling, not knowing what to do. Should I, or should I not? I took up my pair of chopsticks, and dove right in, secretly praying in my heart: Sharky, rest in peace, you’d not die in vain. Steamed shark’s fin and chicken dumpling.

Steamed onion roll with butter

Si Chuan chilled noodles: hot & spicy

Despite the scary-looking-thick-oily-layer of chilli, the Dumpling with chilli oil was surprisingly, not that spicy. I had called the fire brigade to be prepared to put out any fire, and after one tiny nibble of the dumpling, it was safe. And I ate some more, of the thick and generous filling, which almost busted out of the dumpling skin.

This one was interesting. The Pan-fried fish pancake with parsley, the crispy firm pastry-like texture was evident, but I couldn’t quite make out what actually constituted in the fish pancake.

For the best creative award, I presented to you the, Pan-fried sweet corn pancake. The inclusion of sweet corn in a dim sum was a first for me: needless to say, it worked. The sweet corn, like its name, enhanced the sweetness of the pancake.

Steamed mushroom and vegetable bun

Pan-fried minced prawns roll with seaweed

The Steamed prawn dumpling, or Har gau, had fresh succulent prawns, but I found the skin slightly too thick from what I had in mind.

Instead of the streetfood in Szechuan, SCDH decided to upmarket the Fried pumpkin cake by scoring on presentation and refining it. The delicate-lovely-looking miniature pumpkin; it was too pretty to eat.

Sour and spicy Beancurd

If there was one memorable dish I had to choose from SCDH, it had to be the Steamed lotus paste bun with egg yolk.  The egg yolk within the lotus bun, oh my. It was indescribable. The combination of lotus paste and egg yolk, was akin to mooncake, with a bun skin.

Braised beef noodle soup

There was the omnipresent fish roe on the Siew mai, the dim sum staple.

Fish balls porridge

Balancing my chopsticks, I took a glance at the noodles. This should be easy, I thought. I grabbed some noodles using my less-than-perfect chopstick skills, and slurped the tan tan noodle. The world seemed to froze in time; I took another mouthful of noodles, putting in as much as my mouth would fit. The noodles, how should I put it: bouncy, springy, smooth, well it seems my vocabulary would be exhausted soon. It was good!

Homemade beancurd with wolfberries

We had the following desserts: herbal jelly, mango & pamelo cream, glutinous rice with coconut milk, almond cream with fungus, chilled strawberry jelly, chilled coconut & jackfruit cream, red bean paste with lotus seed, and yam paste with ginko nuts.

The special pairing of different tea and exquisite dim sum has long been a forte of Si Chuan Dou Hua.

Si Chuan Dou Hua has certainly opened up my narrow view of Szechuan cuisine; the impression of only hot and spicy food is wrong, there are many more variety available. Linda, the director of SCDH, who hosted us for the tasting session. And I have to conclude that Linda was the best host among the 4 restaurants which we had went to; her passion for food, and her warm & friendly smile, made our meal more enjoyable.

The 40 items which we tried for the tasting session were part of their weekend lunch which had a mind-blowing 100 items, priced at another unbelievable figure $38.8. My appreciation to Linda for hosting us, and Cuisine & Wine Asia for the invitation.

Read my fellow food blogger review:
Catherine @ Camemberu here
Leslie @ ieatishootipost here
Julia @ Aromacookery here

Si Chuan Dou Hua restaurant
80 Raffles place
#60-01 UOB Plaza
Tel: 65356006

ps: I think this is one of my longest post ever, can anyone tell me which other post is longer than this?

Right, sometimes there are so many stalls within a food centre that you don’t know which to order from. So being Singaporeans what do we do? We look at the Q, if that particular stall has long queue, we follow. The herd, or “kiasu” mentality. On my previous visit to Lau Pa Sat, it was during a weekday lunch crowd period, so the queue was ‘super’ long. I didn’t order it back then, since i wasn’t really craving for char kway teow that time.

Thus, when i went back on my second visit on a Satarday afternoon, there was not a soul in sight, and despite wolfing down two burgers, and two fries, my friend and i couldn’t resist trying since there wasn’t any queue, and if you don’t try, you will find it a pity right?

Char Kuay Teow ($3)

The serving of the char kuay teow was generous, in fact too much given its only $3.  Not that i’m complaining anyway. The fried noodles were quite oily, the char kuay teow scent was definitely there. But somehow i felt it lack that particular “wow” factor. Well, there’s another reason to explain why i didn’t feel anything for it, perhaps the burgers and fries were blindfolding me!

Lamburghini ($8)

Meet lamburghini. She’s the new kid on the block. Replaced the ‘O’ with a ‘U’, this is one immense Aries babe. With her 2/3 pound framework, grilling her up on the hot-engine, the lamb patty was good to go! Gel with creamy mint sauce, lettuce, and onions, on a soft warm bun. The mint sauce was a fine addition, and not to mention the patty was ginormous, creating a “shiok” sensation that the ordinary didn’t possess. For the driven few!

Crispy Burger melt ($5)

Another worthy competitor to lamburghini. The crispy burger melt has been around since the start, and indisputably one of the stars. Despite the new challenge in the vie for number one, he had hold his ground with the help of his reliable team, mushroom and bacon bits. They supported him in heating up the taste (race), and with his skills practised till prefect, the patty was grilled till char, with some hints of black.

Nachos ($6.50)

The new addition to the family. He is the nachos wannabe, but in reality, French fries hiding in nachos skin. Isn’t nachos tortilla chips? But our new friend here tasted more like fries actually. His melted cheese companion was good, together with his loyal sidekick the beef and tomato bits. Think French fries, and he’s quite the deal. However, impersonating as nachos wannabe isn’t really the way to go. He does reminds me of another friend, the evergreen KFC cheesefries.

Twister fries ($3)

She’s the pretty woman, walking down the street. With her sexy, cury hair flowing against the wind. There isn’t much like her, the twister fries left, ever since our A&W left us. Go for her while she’s still there. Definitely better than that straight hair lady whom i met during my precious encounter, she’s with a twist!

To spice up the weekends, a virtual ghost-town on Saturdays and Sundays, you can get your free sidings with every two luxury cars purchase. Ignore the straight hair lady, go for the one with the twisty curly hair instead. Or if you are feeling adventurous, there’s always Miss potato wedges to test out.

After my first try of the hotshots flame grill burger, the hotshots management invited me back for a food tasting session their new Lamburghini. And i accepted, I’m after all, the driven few.

19 Raffles Quay
Stall 76 Lau Pa Sat festival market
Disclaimer: This was an invited review

With more and more of our heritage hawkers getting in their ages, it is difficult for them to continue whip out the delicious food that they have been doing everyday for so many years. And being a hawker isn’t a glamorous job, compared to being a banker, lawyer, teacher or other professionals. Therefore, most of the heritage hawkers don’t any successor, and we risk losing out all the good food, which our future younger generations will not live to eat.

Hock Lam Beef is the golden testimonial to beef kuay teow. Having been around since 1911, it is a wonder to see it continue serving out bowls of beef kuay teow everyday rain or shine up till today, for 97 years already! We have Tina, the 4th generation owner, who gave up her professional job and rather slug it out in the kitchen, so as to ensure our beef kuay teow will still be there.

To commemorate their 97th anniversary, Hock Lam decided to donate all their sales proceed on 1st Oct to to Operation Smile which is a worldwide movement to fix cleft palates in kids.

As proceeds for that day was all going to charity, Tina came up with a special menu, instead of their usual $4 a bowl beef kuay teow. There was three different selections, the beginner at $15 which had sliced beef plate. The original at $20, a mixed beef plate which included sliced beef, tendoin, tripe, shin and beef balls. And the “give me the whole cow” premium gourmet set at $30 which had the same stuff as the $20 set, with the exception of the sliced beef, and instead there was marbled shabu shabu beef.

Give me the whole cow gourmet set ($30)

The Gau lau mian (traditional dry noodles) was nice, with their sauce used. Besides having fresh beef, the other thing that makes or break a good beef kuay teow will definitely be the soup base. And Hock Lam’s one certainly was excellent. Personally i did not really like to eat beef kuay teow or noodles because from far i could detect the very strong beefy smell of the beef soup.

Hock Lam soup did not have a very strong beefy smell, but that did not mean that their soup wasn’t good, rather, the soup was very intense with beef flavours, which was evident of the many hours put in to cook the soup.

For the older generation and the traditional beef kuay teow purist, they might resist the idea of shabu shabu in a traditional shop like Hock Lam. But times are changing, and having gourmet beef at one of the best store serving Beef kuay teow, will be an interesting concept, which i believe appeals to the younger generations who will pay more for quality.

Tina and her father, for without them, there will not be any Hock Lam Beef kuay teow.

Happy 97th birthday Hock Lam Beef and many more years to come! And i will like to thank the folks at Olive consulting who invited me for the occasion, and Tina for her hospitality.

Hock Lam Beef
22 China Square #01-01
Far East Square
Tel: 62209290
Disclaimer: This was an invited review

Life’s simple pleasures. I liked Mr bean’s tagline, it’s easy enough, and i thought it conveyed the message quite well. I never really noticed it before since i didn’t try them. Have you felt the beauty of a smile, the warmth of a touch or the bliss of simply watching the world go by, the goodness of Mr bean soya milk’s a life simple pleasure.

The branch at Raffles Place MRT is always packed with the office crowd, a light breakfast before starting a new day at work, some beverage for after-lunch, or also a quick bite before going home. My partner thinks that Mr Bean’s definitely better than Jollibean, well it won’t be fair to comment on that since i haven’t try both Mr bean and jolli bean soya milk.

Bandung soya milk

My partner’s a fan of their bandung soya milk. I had a sip of it, and although i didn’t really like bandung, the taste was quite all right, not as sweet as i thought it’ll be. In fact it’s quite light, and there’s a subtle hint of soya milk combined with the bandung, certainly a healthier drink compared to having bandung alone.

Taking a quick glance at Mr bean’s menu, they have a wider variety of soya milk, 14 if you included the icy versions, and i am quite intrigued by their honeydew soya milk. Given the wide-spread locations of Mr bean islandwide, it won’t be a problem picking up one of them next time!

Mr bean
5 Raffles place #B1-42
Raffles Place MRT station

Another store which stood out at Lau Pa Sat for its unique name, was Souper! Like the name implied, the food couldn’t be far off from soup, and it did slightly remind me of our Chinese steamed soup with rice. Well except for Souper they had baguette instead of rice to go along with the soup.

There’s four choices, the mushroom, clam chowder, garden salad, and maryland crab soup, which all came in two sizes, the 12oz, and 15oz.

Souper! Value Meal ($6.50)

There’s a souper value meal which consisted of a choice soup, baguette, meatballs and bashed potatoes. It’s more worthwhile to get this rather than just the soup and baguette alone. The meatballs were not too bad, and they strike a cord with Ikea’s Swedish meatballs, which also had strawberry jams to accompany the meatballs.

My friend tried the maryland crab soup for the value meal. But somehow we didn’t particularly enjoy the soup, like i always mentioned, i’m not a soup person (other than my mom’s soup of course).

Total cost was $6.50 for the Souper! value meal, which i felt was quite worth the money since there’s a soup, baguette, meatballs, and also bashed potatoes. Nothing fantastic, but it’ll do for a simple lunch. Even though i don’t really like the soup that we had, Souper! does deserved a praise for being the outstanding one in the midst of the many stalls in Lau Pa Sat, for coming out with something different from the norm.

Lau Pa Sat or Telok Ayer Market, holds a very special meaning for most Singaporeans. The distinctive clock tower on top, the unique, octagonal and intricate roof structure of the building. Not to mention the many mouth-watering food which showcase a wide variety of our Singapore culture.

Having said all that, i’m didn’t frequent Lau Pa Sat often, why you asked, since i praised the place to the sky. Well, i felt that it’s more like a tourist attraction kind of place rather than a food centre to me. And because of the tourist crowd and the over-hype in the place, prices are obviously much higher than other places. Therefore even i was working in the vicinity last time, but i rather go to other places for lunch.

Nonetheless, having heard some good reviews about a particular burger stall from Philippines setting up shop in the midst of Lau Pa Sat, and I was meeting a friend who was working in the CDB area, so we decided to go to Lau Pa Sat for lunch!

Hotshots does have a rather impressive menu of burgers considering that their’s a small store in Lau Pa Sat. I was in a dilemma over which burger to get, so i just randomly picked the Cheeseburger deluxe.

They took quite some time in preparing the burger on the spot, around 5-10 minutes or so.

French Fries ($3)

I also ordered french fries for side since Hotshots didn’t have any set meals and just came with a lone burger. For fries that cost 3 bucks, I definitely expected better. Their fries was average, there’s no “wow” factor, which failed to justify the high price for a small miserable packet of fries.

Cheeseburger Deluxe ($5.50)

On first sight, the Cheeseburger deluxe was kind of smaller than what i imagined, since the word deluxe implied another meaning. The sesame seed bun was kind of too soft, i’ll preferred those that are slightly toasted which gave a firmer characteristic to the burger. Presentation-wise also didn’t quite make the cut, the ingredients were hasty organised, and everything dropped out easily. A Messy affair!

The beef patty was not bad, rather juicy although it might look a tad dry on the outside. But still, i lamanted the fact their patty’s kind of too thin, which didn’t provide the “kick”when you took a bite in the burger. Nonetheless, you can’t compare this with Relish’s gourmet burger, given the disparity in prices.But i think it edged out Seah Street Deli’s rendition.

Total Bill was $8.50 for a burger and fries. I think i made the wrong choice in burger, maybe i’ll go back again to try their Real Bleu cheeseburger, or the crispy burgermelt. But for now, i still favoured the one that i had at Epicurious.

What determine whether a dish is good? There are several factors, the freshness of the ingredients itself, the skill of the chef, and of course the sauces that are used in cooking the food. Sauces are vital to the overall taste of the dish, in simple terms, they helped to “colour up” and enhanced the food.

What will you say if chili crabs are served without the thick and spicy gravy sauce, or how about your burger without any mayo sauce? These are some simple examples, but i’m sure you got the idea. Village Wok Restaurant is a showroom for The Village Wok sauce room. Their core business is actually being a sauce distributor, and the restaurant itself is the place for their customers to sample the sauces.

Village Wok restaurant is located at Far East Square, Telok Ayer Street. I had the chance for a food tasting session there organised by Yebber, courtesy of Village Wok’s owner Miss Dawn. A table of 10, consisting of long-time yebbers and some new faces join us for this meal. The Central Business District (CBD) is virtually a ghost town on weekends, and when we went for lunch during a Sunday, there wasn’t anybody around, and we had the whole restaurant to ourselves.

Although the restaurant isn’t their main business, that doesn’t mean that the food there isn’t good, in fact it has to be good so that their customers get to taste their excellent sauce with the good food. The food at Village Wok has a large part to do with their sauces, so i thought it will be appropriate to introduce some of the sauces that we had.

I sweared by their sweet and spicy chili dip (top picture), like the name implies, the sauce is spicy with a hint of semi-sweet, excellent to go along with finger food like chicken wings and fries. There’s also the chili dip (right) which can be use for all kinds of dishes, but go especially well with chicken rice.

Popiah DIY $20++/set

We started off our meal having some hands-on experience with the popiah DIY set. Now there isn’t much places which actually allow their customers to do-it-yourself (DIY) with popiah, and i have to admit the process’s very much fun and all of us enjoyed “playing” with the popiah. From what i understand, each popiah set can serve 6 people, personally i felt that the price was rather steep but for the experience of doing our own popiah, its rather worth it.

The restaurant prepared the ingredients like shrimp, lettuces, cucumbers, and the turnips (bangkuang), the popiah skin, and the sauces needed for the popiah.

Everything was done in an orderly manner, you’ll just need to put all the sauces, and ingredients onto the popiah skin.

Our fellow Yebber busy wrapping her popiah.

And there we have it, our very own DIY popiah. Please don’t be deceived by the ugly appearance of the popiah, i guess our popiah-making skills aren’t up to the mark yet, some of us managed to do the popiah quite decently, while some were out of shape and doesn’t resemble  a popiah at all. Nevertheless, the popiah fillings were fresh, and the sauces used greatly enhanced the flavor of the popiah, not to mention that it’s made from our very own hands.

Chilled crab with special vinegrette sauce ($30++ per crab)

The chilled crab on its own was fresh, but eaten with Village Wok’s special vinegrette sauce it did really compliment the meat very well. Their vinegrette sauce was made from top grade vinegrette with their special recipe of course, and it taste slightly sweeter than your normal sourish vinegrette. Having said that, i’m neither a fan of crab nor vinegrette.

Fried Brinjal with crispy squid in BXO sauce ($15)

Unfortunately, the next dish wasn’t my favorite neither, i also didn’t like bringal. But for food tasting sake, i gave the fried bringal a try and to my surprise it doesn’t taste as bad as i had expected bringal to be. The purple vegetable was fried with crispy squid using their special BXO sauce, and it wasn’t as brinjal-ish as i thought. The crispy squid added some extra crunch to the dish, but overall it wasn’t to my personal liking.

The Phoenix soars ($21++)

Very nice name indeed, the phoenix soar is quintessentially roast and white boneless chicken. Both chicken tasted as nice, so we were having a debate as to which one was nicer. Some preferred the roasted chicken, while some found the white chicken tastier.

The yin-yang chicken came with lettuces wrap, together with some cucumbers, tomatoes provided it with some healthy touch. And of course chilli and garlic sauce, this made an excellent dish which we couldn’t get enough of, the chicken was gone in a flash.

Black pepper ham leg ($23++)

The black pepper ham leg or pig trotters was really one dish that lingered in my mind even after the meal. Usually I didn’t really fancy eating pig trotters because of the thick layer of fatty meat, but this one was exceptionally good. Under the skin was a layer of fats, the meat below was lean to eat. And it came with Village Wok’s black pepper sauce.

For those health conscious eaters, simply remove the layer of fats below the skin. We lamented the fact that we took too long taking photos of this, which resulted in the crispy skin being a tad soft when we started eating.

Village Wok Celebration Parade ($22++)

A combination of Village Wok mustard roast pork and BBQ pork char siew. Again we couldn’t agree on whether the roast pork or the char siew was better. The char siew was tender, juicy and fulsome with the BBQ sauce. Another thing to note, Village Wok didn’t use any colouring, so the char siew here wasn’t red in colour which was evident in the usual ones.

But I always favoured roast pork over the char siew counterpart, the mustard roast pork did not disappoint, crispy layer with really tender meat. The portion of fats to meat was well balanced, not too fatty and not too lean.The roast pork, or sio bak, was really one to die for.

Steamed Pating fish with preserved vegetables ($44++)

I always had the belief that fresh water reared fish won’t be as nice and fresh as seawater fish, but the pating fish here proved that there’s always an exception to everything. According to Miss Dawn, Village Wok actually had their own fish farm to rear the fishes, so freshness was definitely guaranteed.

They used preserved vegetables, or chye poh to steam the fish. It wasn’t came out to be as salty as i had expected because they had specially soaked the chye poh in water to reduce the saltiness of the preserved vegetables. Nevertheless, i preferred my fish to steam with either salted soy bean, salted vegetables, or light sauce.

Smiling fortune noodle ($8++)

The smiling fortune noodle was Village Wok’s rendition of prawn noodles. Tangy noodles harmonised with delectable fresh prawn essence, topped with big fresh prawns. The stock base was no doubt tasty, but too salty for our liking. There was a rush for water after finishing the noodle.

Home-made Nonya Kaya with bread

We had a plesant surprise when they served bread with nonya kaya for our first dessert. The Nonya kaya was home-made from Miss Dawn’s grandmother recipe.The kaya was made without any flour, and was very eggy in taste. I liked it, but i did find the kaya flavor a tad strong, nonetheless we generously spread our thin slice of bread with super thick layer of kaya!

Black glutinous rice with coconut ice cream ($4.50)

I did not find the glutinous rice with coconut ice cream that special since i didn’t really like black glutinous rice. But the rest unanimously agreed that this was the must-have dessert.

Lemongrass ice cream

The lemongrass ice cream was another mystery to me as i couldn’t figure out the flavor of the ice cream initially until somebody pointed out it was lemongrass. I guess its due to the fact that Thai cuisine isn’t really on my radar often, but like what the others mentioned, the lemongrass flavor was very evident, and if you like the scent of lemongrass, this will do it for you.

All in all, Village Wok Restaurant did a great job matching the food with their speciality sauce, there was a different sauce for every dish, and it complimented each other very well. Prices are generally slightly higher, but given the comparison with other Chinese restaurants, they are still considered within range.

I heard that they are very crowded during weekday lunch as the office working crowd like to frequent the place, so do make reservations in advance before going. Once again, i’ll like to thank Yebber, and Miss Dawn for the food tasting session.

Village Wok Restaurant
80 Telok Ayer Street
#01-01 Far East Square
Tel: 6743 9743
Disclaimer: This was an invited review