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2013-12-21
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In any normal circumstance, you will hardly decide to make this venue the place for dinner. Not surprising since the interior looked so dimly lit that it seemed that there's nothing else selling at the coffee shop apart from the drinks stall. But there's where the appearance belies the potential to be another place of recognition for steamboat.Stumbled upon this place today when we were desperately looking for a steamboat venue to meet my wife's cravings. Having checked and turned away by many o
Stumbled upon this place today when we were desperately looking for a steamboat venue to meet my wife's cravings. Having checked and turned away by many other steamboat restaurants (especially on a Saturday night), this place was discovered using HGW mobile app. Beggars cannot be choosers, we went there for our dinner. The initial appearance of course made us think twice on whether we should proceed (especially when there were only 1-2 tables occupied). Hunger and sense of adventure took over.
For a start, don't expect the menu to have a wide variety of offering. in fact, you get a steamboat set at $38 plus any other additional dishes you would like (i.e. two kinds of appetizers, pork, chicken, bacon and pork liver.) Yes that's it. Naturally we went with the set (that came with the whole accompaniment of meat, egg, vegetable, prawns and sotong, pork liver, tang hoon etc) and ordered additional bacon and pork.
The steamboat is in the form of a special kind of thai-style (?) steamboat combining BBQ and soup functions, heated by charcoal. The aroma of charcoal combined with seemingly MSG-free chicken soup surprised us, giving a hint of standards beyond mediocrity. When the set came, I spotted (and couldn't believed it), small slabs of lard. Yes, LARD. The proprietor explained that the lard is there to oil the hot plate. And by any natural rule of thumb in the world of culinary, lard makes anything, ANYTHING, tastes better. Boy, was I right.
The ingredients used were all fresh and tasty. Pork and chicken meat were tender, prawns and sotong fresh without the dirt or fishy smell. I believe if they had offered fish, it would have been heavenly too just that fresh fish is so difficult to manage on BBQ. Oh, and the pork, chicken and liver were all coated with sesame seeds, adding that extra oomph when BBQing them. The surprise was how great pork liver can taste when BBQed as you get to cook the outer sesame layer without overcooking the liver interior. The result is great, strongly recommended! It was a regret that there was no more pork liver when we wanted more.
We have also ordered the thai-style abalone appetiser (because the prawn appetiser is out-of-stock) and that tasted good too. Only regret that the appetiser came after the steamboat was started, kind-of defeat the purpose of an appetiser.
I'll definitely visit this place again if I did not want to venture too far. In general it is a unique way to have a steamboat meal (see photo) and it doesn't stink up your clothes like many venues do. Advice: book a table in advance.
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