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2016-04-26
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Original Review on http://www.nahmj.com/2016/04/29/hua-yu-wee-seafood-restaurant-singaporeHua Yu Wee Seafood Restaurant 华友园海鲜 is located within a colonial bungalow along Upper East Coast Road. It is standing strong at its original location since it started. And it is not an unfamilar icon to those who stay in the area. But for me who is far away from Hua Yu Wee, I was surprised to find out about this zi char place. In case, you do not understand "Zi Char", in means a place that dishes out Chines
Hua Yu Wee Seafood Restaurant 华友园海鲜 is located within a colonial bungalow along Upper East Coast Road. It is standing strong at its original location since it started. And it is not an unfamilar icon to those who stay in the area. But for me who is far away from Hua Yu Wee, I was surprised to find out about this zi char place. In case, you do not understand "Zi Char", in means a place that dishes out Chinese food at a casual, relax environment.
It has this old school looks and ambience. Don't expect anything classy or hipster, but the look of the 70s. It seems nothing has changed since they started at the location.Since it is a Zi Char Place, one could expect all sort of Chinese cooked dishes; ranging from tofu and vegetables to seafood and meat to noodles. As I didn't order the food and I did not have the chance to lend my hands on the menu, as such, I don't know the price and the exact name of the dishes.
We started with Spinach Tofu with Mushrooms. The tofu was almost drowned in the mushroom. I was amazed at how smooth and silky was the tofu.
Next on the table was the Lala. The Lala was swimming in a spicy and strong ginger seafood flavoured broth. I was glad the Lala were fresh and there weren't sand in them.
Hardly would anyone order 2 vegetable dishes. It is kind of strange though. We have a Broccoli and Huang Di Miao. Both were stir-fried with garlic. There isn't much to describe about greens. Maybe green and crunchy as they should.
The Squid Paste You Tiao is popular dish at Zi Char places. We ordered a plate that night too. Squid paste was chewy. A pity the You Tiao wasn't as crispy as it should be but certainly not soggy though.
The Feng Sha Chicken is a dish highly recommended by one of the diners who visited the restaurant. By the side were dishes of chopped garlic and ginger as dips for the chicken. I took a piece of breast meat (by accident), surprisingly, it wasn't dry and the meat was tender with a very crispy skin. But a little salty.
Cereal Prawns were de-shelled before deep frying. This made it very convenient to consume and the best part, in my opinion is that the cereal were still on the surface of prawns. This dish was decent though one of the diner whose fave is cereal prawn felt the cereal wasn't tasty enough. Perhaps it was lacking of the herb such as the curry leaves that are usually fried with the cereal.
We ordered both the Chilli Crab and the Black Pepper. None prefer the latter. The wok hei (the char fragrance) was far too strong and almost like the black pepper were burnt. All the 7 diners prefer the Chilli Crab. With the chilli crab, deep fried buns are always necessary to dip the crowd-pleaser sauce. Even though the Chilli Crab is a popular, highly raved dish at Hua Yu Wee, I felt there is room for improvement. Personally, I felt the tomato sauce flavour was a little too overwhelming.
Before having our last dish, the dessert, we have the Seafood Hor Fun. It may not look appetising especially after all the sumptuous food earlier but the Rice Noodle beneath the sauce was excellent. The Wok Hei was strong. I wouldn't mind having only the rice noodle with no other ingredients.
Yam Paste was the last dish to end the night, which I find it mediocre. The yam paste wasn't as flavourful as it should be. I think they did not use Lard to cook the dish. And the ginko nut wasn't soft but hard and chewy and it wasn't sweet. It wasn't cooked using the traditional Teochew method.Beyond the old fashion look of Hua Yu Wee Seafood Restaurant, there were quite some delish food worth looking forward to. And I heard they have quite some off the menu dishes. If keen pop over to ask for them.
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