Great Cze Chars: One Ocean Seafood Restaurant

Another cze char place with a twist...

Last week, I featured Kian Seng, a cze char place which is quite extraordinary for the cooking, but also interesting use of ingredients. Today's feature is on One Ocean...a rather large cze char chain with several outlets throughout the island. The one I went to is in tucked in an industrial building in Toa Payoh, and is rather more like a restaurant than a regular cze char place in a coffee shop. The dining area is air conditioned though they do have tables in the non air conditioned area as well.

The restaurant is also part of many kitchens who use the unique ingredients offered by Unilever Food Solutions.

We started with Double Boiled Sharks Fin with Pumpkin and Pork Ribs Soup (pre-order at least 1 day required), where they use the Knorr Concentrated Scallop Bullion.

The broth was clear, and tasted very nice and savoury. A tad saltish, but very fragrant and nice on the palate. The pork ribs were a bit tough, but still nice enough to eat. There were some strands of sharks fin, but a bit precious, in my opinion. The taste of the soup was very nice, but I felt the ingredients were not quite commensurate with the $28 a bowl asking price.

Next, we had the Golden Mashed Potato Roll

Very interesting dish. Beautiful to look at, even nicer in the mouth.Though the potato outer covering has the texture and taste of a hash brown, it is totally ungreasy, and a wonderful potato flavour. The stuffing complemented very well, as did the pumpkin like sauce.

The Italiana Scallops was next

Another very tasty dish...the scallops were small, but fresh, very sweet and succulent. The french beans and mushrooms were sauteed just right in the Knorr Italiana Herb Paste as a sauce...the beans remainding crunchy, but thoroughly cooked...and the mushrooms were nice and tender. Even the potato crust like fan which I guess is meant as a decoration tasted wonderful with the sauce and the vegetables and scallops.

Next we had a wonderful beancurd dish...Milk Cabbage and Beancurd Skin with Scallop Broth

The beancurd was very good. Fragrant, crispy, light and airy, layered. Topped with dried, deep fried scallops for extra oomph. And a magnificent sauce to mop it all up.

Next up, yet another beautiful dish...in fact, my favourite in this tasting...the Salted Egg Golden Flake Prawns

Salted egg yolk encrusted prawns are not new. And many of them are fabulous. But the twist in One Ocean's offering is the salted egg yolk are mixed with the Knorr Mashed potato flakes which seemed to either fried or lightly toasted. Not greasy at all, but the flakes provided a crunch and mouthfeel which elevated the already magnificent dish to another level. The prawns themselves were fresh, and had crunch and balanced well with the deep, rather heavy flavours of the salted egg yolk. This dish is worth the visit!

Crabs were next...the Italiana Crabs

The crabs were also nice, but after the excellence of the prawns, they did not shine as much. The crabs were nice...sweet, fresh, firm flesh. The Italiana sauce goes very well with the crabs.

Overall, excellent place to dine. The food was cooked magnificently, interesting use of ingredients and flavours to highlite. Recommended.

Thanks to Debbie at Ate Consulting and the fine folks at Unilever and One Ocean for hosting.

One Ocean Seafood Restaurant
1002 Toa Payoh Industrial Park #01-1407
Other outlets
Ocean Seafood Woodlands, Blk 892C Woodlands Drive 50 #01-02
Ocean Seafood Ang Mo Kio, Blk 107 Ang Mo Kio Ave 4
Ocean Seafood Serangoon, Blk 151 Serangoon North Ave 2
Ocean Seafood Hougang, Blk 435A Hougang Ave 8
Ocean Seafood Tanjong Pagar, Blk 7 Tanjong Pagar Plaza