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2013-05-13
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For those of you who stay in Sembawang you may have probably heard of Wong Chiew, the originator of bucket chicken. It's an eatery that serves up dim sum, wanton mee/chicken rice 24 hours, and their tze char operates from 4pm to 3am. Pretty impressive if you ask me. The variety of food here is staggeringly mind-blowing and my family thought we'd give it a try.Wong Chiew has a coffeshop style seating as well as an air-conditioned seating area. The seating area can accomodate large families (proba
Wong Chiew has a coffeshop style seating as well as an air-conditioned seating area. The seating area can accomodate large families (probably 2-3 tables of 10 people) but they recommend booking/reservations. The setting is very HK tea house style, and the service here is warm and friendly too.We ordered a variety of dishes to try and share:
The kailan ($10) was cooked in a lovely stock that wasn't too starchy. You can taste the distinct sweetness of the wolfberries infused into the gravy. Not sure if they used any chinese wine but there was a hint of it in the aftertaste and the smell of the wine added to its entire aroma. The vegetables weren't overcooked and they were still fresh -really tasty. The stalk of the kailan was also crunchy, (not hard), providing a good crunch to the entire meal. We felt it was a bit pricey at $10 though.
The custard buns were $3, and the steaming fluffy buns were delicious! The bun was slightly sweet, mostly fluffy and warm and the custard was sweet and thick. These are the traditional custard buns (definitely not the same as the 'liu sha pau' that seems to be really popular nowadays!), and the ratio of bun & filling is just nice, in my opinion.
The seafood roll ($3) was slightly more disappointing, the skin of the roll stuck to the base of the plate, and the whole roll was generally mutilated/clumpy from the torn skin wrapping. The filling was however relatively tasty, with shrimp and probably some meat added. Didn't really have any distinct flavours or freshness to the whole dish though.
The chicken congee ($3.50) had an absolutely gorgeous texture!! It was thick and silky, with generous shreds of chicken in it. It looks quite brown in this picture but it was in no way overly salty, which made it perfect to enjoy with the side dishes. I would have rather they used lesser oil and garnished it with more spring onions/coriander. There was a thin film of oil that I could never quite seem to mix in, suggesting that it was a bit too much.
The half bucket chicken ($14) comes with chunky, chopped chicken in a sauce chock full of (from what I could taste): ginger, sesame oil, soy sauce and garlic. The chicken was also surprisingly tender for the an entire steamed chicken. The breast meat wasn't too dry and when eaten with the gingery sauce, it's quite tasty actually. Not really a fan of chunky chopped chicken, but this dish was all right. Pretty reasonable price too for the quality of the taste + portion.
The shrimp chee cheong fun cost $3.50. It's smooth texture made it pleasant to slurp up, the freshness of the shrimp can also be tasted. However, we felt that it was nothing spectacular. Really just like any other chee cheong fun, but definitely of a decent standard. The chee cheong fun could have been a bit smoother though, it was slightly coarse at parts and that gave it a sandy texture which wasn't quite what we expected from an ideal chee cheong fun.I also ordered an ice lemon tea at $1.60. Their homemade ice lemon tea is not too sweet, and you can taste the slight bitterness of the Teh-O. Nevertheless, it was a refreshing drink and I liked it.
In total we spent around $40 on the entire meal (my parents had rice to go with the dishes) and I would say it's a reasonable find. The food isn't super extraordinary, but it's decent. You also get great variety here with loads of dishes so I'd say you should try it. Probably not a great idea if you don't drive and you don't live in the North, though.
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