Ban Heng

Last sat the family attended the Chinese New Year dinner organized by Sembawang Community Centre. The 8 course Chinese style sit down dinner was catered by Ban Heng.Good Luck & Prosperity Yu Sheng 鸿运鱼生Mock abalone slices was used here which was a good choice especially these days everyone was avoiding raw fish.Shark's Fin Soup with Crab meats 金银展翅There was lots of chunks of crab meat in the soup. The soup was rich and flavourful.Steamed Live Sea Bass in Hong Kong Style 年年有余Quite a huge piece of fish. Quite meaty and fresh.Braised Chicken with Chinese Herbs 彩风迎春My favourite dish tonight as the chicken was fork tender and the soup was very flavourful.Mixed Vegetables in Lo Han Style 罗汉烩上素The cabbage was well braised and very soft in texture.Braised 'LingZhi' Mushroom with Spinach 灵芝菇扒波菜Another well cooked vegetable dish. The huge mushroom slice was very tender.Boiled Live Prawns 龙马精神The prawns were fat and juicy.Lotus Leaf Rice 长年益寿It looked like fried rice with the dried sausage and dried shrimps, wrapped in lotus leaf. A bit too salty in certain parts. Not balance in taste.Chilled Longans & Pineapples 龙凤呈祥Looked like something straight out from the cans.Overall the food was not bad especially when it was catered for 1280 people. Drinks was refilled often.…Read More

I had Chinese New Year dinner hosted by my friend. The food was prepared by Ban Heng Restaurant. The first dish was the Yu Sheng. The Yu Sheng was served with abalone. The Yu Sheng was chilling and the sauce was sweet and the carrot and raddish could absorb the sauce. The abalone was cut to the right cut as it was not too big or small. The soup was the fried fish belly. It was starchy and boiled with egg and shredded carrot to add the colouring. The third dish was the You Tiao. The You Tiao was crispy. It tasted more like eating Rojak. The fourth dish was the stewed chicken. The strong heat must have softened the chicken and the sauce had absorbed into the meat which meat the taste great. The fifth dish was the steamed Pomfret. The fish was not well done as it was overdone. There was little ginger added to remove the smell. The sixth dish was the mushroom with abalone. I wondered if real abalone was served. It did not taste and bite like abalone. I suspected that this dish was more on vegetarian so mocked abalone would have used to serve. The seventh dish was the dessert. Longan Jelly was served to refresh and clear the mouth. The Jelly was neither too sweet nor soft. The waitress was prompt is response to service. I enjoyed the meal. …Read More

Besides the having the usual Chinese dishes in the restaurant, there is also vegetarian dishes available. As one of us is a vegetarian, the staff suggests that we order a vegetarian set meal which costs $40+ for one person. It starts with a cold dish plate which consists of deep fried spring rolls and mock meat in mango sauce.The soup served is full of assorted mushrooms. Tasty but a bit gluey.Next braised mock fish is served. Mock meat is not one of my favourite food, so do not like this much.The vegetarian prawn with cereal is just mock prawns with cereal. As I do not like mock prawn which is made beancurd skin, so do not like this dish much.The stir fried assorted vegetables tastes quite crunchy.The fried Ee-fu noodles is look more braised than the non vegetarian version. But still tastes quite oily.Lastly for dessert, there is a choice of longan and sea coconut, honey dew sago, mashed yam and red bean soup. Selected longan and sea coconut, which just cold and refreshing.Overall the dishes are average. But a bit too oily and a bit too much of mock meat. I would prefer just vegetables to the mock meats.…Read More

As it is Grandma's birthday, the family has decided to have a birthday dinner at Ban Heng. I have no idea where it is or what the dishes are. Just follow the crowd. It turns out the restaurant is under a HDB block, just next to Boon Keng MRT station. The restaurant is full house tonight, with most tables reserved based on the floor plan sticks on the wall next to the main door. The restaurant seems to be still living in the past, with its old decoration.For our table, we have ordered the Whole Suckling Pig and Shark's Fin Set Menu, which cost $368+ for 10 persons. There is no service charge, but there is GST. Please not this set menu need advanced order as suckling pig needs quite sometime to roast.The menu is as follows :Crispy Roasted Whole Suckling PigBraised Shark's Fin with Shredded Dried Scallops and Crab MeatsCrispy Fried "Soon Hock" with Superior Soya SauceFried Prawn with Cereal Braised "LingZhi" Mushroom with SpinachChilli Live CrabStewed Ee-Fu Noodles with Chives and MushroomSweet Mashed Taro with Gingko Nuts and Coconut MilkThe order of the food served is not according to the menu. The first dish served is the Fried prawn with cereal. I like it that they have served the prawns peeled.The shark fin in the soup tastes quite fake as it has quite a chewy texture. The soup is also quite gluey.The roasted pig is very big in size. The skin is quite crispy, but tastes a bit char burnt. It is served with sweet sauce, wrap skins and cucumber.The Soon Hock is deep fried until very crispy and dry. Feel that the fish is too dry and bony. Have a hard time removing the bones while eating.The leftover of the roasted pig is used to cook in salt and pepper style. Most of the parts are quite fatty and quite tough to chew.The braised mushroom with spinach has quite tender mushroom and crunchy spinach.The chilli crab is served in quite a big plate. But the crab is quite small, mostly just the sauce. The deep fried buns are served sometimes later, and quite tasty on its own.The Ee-fu noodles is quite tasteless. Some of us add the chilli crab sauce onto the noodles to add flavour to it.Lastly we end the meal with mashed taro which is served just plain mashed taro with very soft ginko nuts but no coconut milk on top. Maybe the milk is blended in. Feel that the yam paste is too smooth that it feels a bit like eating glue.Overall the food is average. The place is quite noisy. But the older crowd may like the place due to the type of food served and there is the environment which is like back to the past. Service here also not bad, as the staff helps us to cut up the birthday cake (which we have earlier bought across the street) and served in individual plates.…Read More

I had my birthday celebration here because friends knew that I would like to try the Orni (Yam Paste dessert) which I heard is nice. We went to the 1st shop at Boon Keng Station which my friend said it suppose to be the nicest among the branches. It was crowded during the Saturday dinner so I advise if you have a big group, do always make reservation to avoid disappointment.We had 11 people and just nice to go for the set menu which has 8 dishes include the yam dessert. Overall the food is average.Most of my friends cannot taste what is the sauce taste but some of us still can taste it having banana flavour.For more photo and details, please visit http://rainfooddiary.blogspot.sg/2013/07/ban-heng.html…Read More

This seem a high class restaurant where all the item are real good that you only can eat at wedding. However, this restaurant provide all. At a $20 plus, you can eat all you want!! From the menu that you see, you can see there are many choices!!The cereal prawn was really nice, it was nicely fried. The mabo tofu was perfect, the sauce was so matching with the tofu. For others, the meat was really nice to bite on!! It was really enjoyable dinner!!Even the tissue is nicely packed!!…Read More

If you have ever tried out Ban Heng's buffet selection, you might probably agree that it's skewed pretty much to the quantity and not so much the quality aspect of things. However we decided to give Ban Heng's ala carte menu a chance, to see how it would stack up against the likes of Liang Kee and Guan Hin, both reputable Teochew restaurants which were mere minutes walk away. And failing to make prior reservations, we were "relegated" to the corridor seats to dine amongst the fumes of vehicles attempting to snare a parking lot right in front of the restaurant.Broccoli with Dried Scallops - Nice crunchy texture from the broccoli meant that it wasn't overcooked. Coupled with a not so generous serving of dried scallop, this dish was decent. Well at least it wasn't bland and the lightly salty/starchy gravy went well with rice.Braised Goose - Ban Heng's rendition of this classic Teochew dish was simple yet appetising (portions were miserable though). Tender meat with a nice roughness that was complemented by the flavourful gravy. Very good! And for once I can actually say that the accompanying beancurd was good. Soft and silky unlike the dry and much firmer species that usually plonk themselves alongside this dish.Braised Beancurd with Seafood - I was actually quite surprised to find scallops, pacific clams, sea cucumber, fish slices and the likes in this dish. In most places (high end restaurants are the exception) you honestly wouldn't expect to see anything close to sea cucumber or scallops served up with beancurd. The word "seafood" usually just entails fish slices, a couple of mushrooms, a tiny prawn or two and that's it. Technicalities aside, everything in the pot was well simmered in the rich gravy, resulting in a wonderful seafood feast.Orh Nee - Another hallmark of Teochew cuisine, the simple yet notoriously tedious to make, yam paste aka Orh Nee. Blanketed under a layer of coconut milk, the paste was a little moist and very smooth without being overly sweet. Personally I still prefer the drier variants but this one was undoubtedly good.Apart from the long waiting time for our food, we had no real complains. Food quality was above average but price (almost $66 for 3 pax) was a wee bit on the high side. Service was decent but only from a couple of wait staff. If they can improve on their kitchen turn around time, I'll sign on as a regular customer.ps: Remember not to try their buffet unless quantity, not quality, is what you are looking for.See all my pictures at http://www.timelessfacade.com/2010/04/ban-heng.html…Read More

It was time for dinner and we decided to drop by this teochew restaurant as we were too lazy to travel elsewhere. We were the first customer's of that stall!VeggieThe veggie was a little to salty for my liking.Braised DuckThe braised duck came with tofu, it was very average, and i did not find it particularly delicious.Oyster Omelet The oysters here are much larger than other places, however, the overall dish was not really tastyWu XiangThe wu xiang was the only dish that i found was not bad! I liked how the filling was stuffed with prawns and fried nicely.…Read More