Roast Paradise at Old Airport Road

Charsiew. The stuff of some of our culinary dreams. Most charsiew shops also sell other roast meats, most typically roast pork, roast duck and sometimes roast chicken. But this new little store tucked in Old Airport Road Food Centre is special. It only roasts charsiew. Only charsiew. With rice, with noodles, or on its own. One must really admire the dedication to fully specialize.

The shop is rather new, and the hawkers are young, fresh, and educated. They have a Facebook page with frequent updates and they answer FB comments promptly. They exude passion for their cooking, and the specialization to only offer char siew is admirable. Interestingly the signboard says "since 1970". Possibly inherited the business? I will ask them the next time what's up with that. Surely the chaps who man the shop are too young to be even born in 1970.

The charsiew they offer is the KL style variety...black, sweet, caramalized, crisp burnt edges. The meat is marinaded and roasted in-situ. The stall is supposed to be open from 10:30 to 4pm. But frequently it is sold out by 1pm, most days even earlier. Perhaps they need to do their roast planning better, so as to maximize the availability. I arrived at 11am, a good time. No queue, and the meat still warm from the rest after roasting.

The charsiew is reminiscent of the Oversea one which I waxed lyrical over, but has since disappeared from Singapore. It is fat-ish, but not too fat. Just the right amount of fat for a full flavour. The meat is very tender, and excellent mouth feel.
And it is crisp on the edges, slightly burnt at the ends. Superb. The umami is wonderful. Served with garlic flavoured rice. This was the upsized $4.50 portion. A regular portion is only $3.50. They also offer a premium charsiew which I did not try. I was told it is made from fatter pork, and more flavour.

The charsiew is probably the best I have tasted for a long time. And will be my new reference standard. Highly recommended.

Roast Paradise
01-122 Old Airport Road Food Centre

Yat Lok Roast Meats in Central, Hong Kong

One of the best things to eat when in Hong Kong is roast goose...and none better than Yat Lok.

Indeed...roast meats. Wonderfully prepared, and roasted to perfection. Nowhere in Singapore can we even begin to approach this level of finese in roasting. First, the availability of fresh ingredients like the pork and goose is impossible in Singapore, whereas abundant in Hong Kong. And the traditional recipes and knowhow, handed down generations is also well developed there.

I have eaten at Yung Kee, the famous Michelin Starred roast restaurant in Hong Kong. But since then, I think success has perhaps gone to their heads, and the standards has gone downhill since the Michelin award. Today it is mostly a tourist location, and indeed has a great ambience for visitors and for taking out clients. 

In contrast, Yat Lok is a typicaly Hong Kong restaurant, with the roasts hanging in the window, the cook preparing the dishes visible from the street. Inside, it is cramped, not particularly clean and frequently one is expected to share tables. Lingering over a meal is certainly not encouraged. Service is swift, but not particularly polite, and the waiters expect you to know what you want, and are not in a mood to explain what each dish is about.

Having said that, I let the cat out of the bag by saying this is the best roast goose restaurant I have ever eaten. Bar none.

We started with a platter of roast pork and char siew.

Meats in Hong Kong are usually rather fat...but fat equals flavour, so I guess taste is of utmost importance. Indeed, the flavour is very good. The roast pork is full flavoured, the rind crispy. The char siew very tender and very flavourful too. But this is not what Yat Lok is famous for. The level it is achieved, though very good, is not the best one can find in Hong Kong. 

But the roast goose is another story,

My lunch mate had the roast goose leg in noodle soup. It looked marvellous, but I had tried this once before, and though very nice, the soup softens the crisp skin of the goose, and for me, it kind of loses its main attraction.

For me the right way to serve roast goose is with rice

The skin is superbly crisp, under that a very thin layer of super flavourful fat, and under that the tender, delicious meat. The roast goes superbly, no its heavenly, with the lightly soy sauced rice. Marvellous. Out of this world. Definitely the best roast goose I have ever eaten.

Very highly recommended, and a must eat every time in Hong Kong.

Yat Lok Restaurant

G/F, 34-38 Stanley Street, Central, Hong Kong

Phone:+852 2524 3882

Char Restaurant new kid on the block for roast meats

Regular readers of this blog would recognise my love for roast meats, especially char siew and sio bak.

Here is a tale of a rather new, and interesting roast meat joint...traditionally Chinese in character, but with a distinctly English feel to it...no doubt, as the owner is one UK born Chinese young man....plying his trade of traditional Chinese...rather Cantonese/Hong Kong style roast meats by using perhaps some Western techniques.

All the interesting talk is nought, if not for the taste...so how does it go?

We began with an order of their 3 meats platter...char siew, sio bak and roast duck

They also offer platters of two meats, or each of the signature 4 roasts (sio bak, char siew, roast duck and roast chicken) in individual servings by the 100g, min 300g. I guess this is for the large groups or for real afficionados.

We dismiss the passable first...the duck was not impressive. Rather normal, and similar in quality as one can easily get in the better hawker centres or food courts. But the two other meats were quite interesting...

The char siew was dark, brooding...promising a crisp, burnt finish to a rich, fatty pork. This is the dark, sweet char siew exemplified by the exponents of the art in KL. And indeed, it does not disappoint.

The sweetness seem to come from the dark sweet sauce smothering the outer edges, seeming applied only when the meat is cooked, or close to being cooked. I think the KL stalls not only coat the meat before slicing with the sweet sauce but as it roasts, building up layer upon layer of sweet, slightly bitter (from the charring) of the sauce, leaving a final beautiful glazing and burnt edges.

I would have preferred a bit more crisp and burning on the outer edges, and a bit less fat. But there was precious little to complain about. Quite, quite good...on the fragrant steamed rice...almost perfect. But just short of what is offered by Oversea (now defunct, and the tradition continued by Garoupa King), and the offerings in KL.

But for me the star was the sio bak, or siu yoke...roast pork with crackling..

Very nicely done indeed. The crackling was very crispy, very beautifully light. The meat was fat, but not too greasy on the palate. Nice. Very nice. Perhaps edged out from being my reference by the folks at Keith, but very close.

We also had the sambal kangkong, which was rather nice too...but suffered from being a bit too oily and a touch too peppery.

They serve nice English ales and ciders as well...though not from the tap, but by the bottle.

Overall, excellent place for roast meats. The ambience is more akin to a very clean canteen than a fine dining establishment. Service was ok...above average. We noticed the owner going around talking to the diners, but he did not come to ours.

Highly recommended.

Char Restaurant
393 Guillemard Road
6842 7759
info@char.com.sg
www.facebook.com/charrestaurant

King Garoupa as candidate for the best Char Siew in Singapore

Char Siew is a food of which dreams are made of. There are broadly two versions of this delicacy. One which is the Malaysian, KL style, featuring sweet, caramalised, often slightly burnt flavours. And the Hong Kong style, where the taste is led by saltiness of the soy sauce rather than the sweetness of the other.

I love both, but if put to the test, would give the nod to the Malaysian sweet style. I wrote about my adventures to seek out the best, and found Meng Kee and Oversea in KL which feature what I think is where the state of the art lies. Oversea did open a branch in Singapore, and here is my review. But unfortunately, they closed within a rather short period. And the restaurant space taken by Garoupa King, a seafood restaurant famous for their giant garoupa offerings.

A foodie friend of mine told me that they managed to keep the char siew chef from Oversea, who had been trained in the HQ in Jalan Imbi, KL. And that the char siew was still rather good, perhaps still the best in town.

I went for a couple of tastings, and letting the cat out of the bag, I do confirm this is the best of this style of char siew in town. Other candidates being Alex Eating House, just across the road from the Shaw Towers building housing Garoupa King, the famous, or rather infamous Kay Lee Roast Meat Joint, and Sally Roast Meats.

And boy was it gorgeous! Wonderful, caramel flavours, sweet, sticky, slightly burnt and crisp.

The meat was fat, glistening, and truly melts in your mouth. Very good, and in my opinion, for now, equal to when Oversea was here, and the best in Singapore. One of my friends in my tasting panel was rather less sure, and she thought it was rather not as good, perhaps a bit sweeter than the original Oversea Singapore one.

This dish alone is sufficient to have me back every once in a while. BTW, for some reason, the char siew is not on the menu. But they do have other fabulous dishes too.

The salted egg yolk prawns are fabulous as well

The prawns were rather large, very succulent, very sweet. The richness of the salted egg yolk, smothering the prawns provided a wonderful mouthfeel and aroma. Very nice.

As many regular readers will know, I have a soft spot for tofu...and they do a great tofu dish...with brocolli and pork floss

The tofu is soft, fragrant, and goes very well with the brown sauce and the pork floss. Very nice.

Of course, being in a restaurant famous for their giant garoupa, we had the giant garoupa sliced with hor fun..

Needless to say, superb. The fish, was particularly nice. Very firm flesh, sweet, but in a savoury way...if that makes sense. Very nice, fresh, aromatic. Just magnificent. The horfun is fried with good wok hei.

Definitely well recommended. Excellent, excellent char siew, and the other dishes are very good too.

King Grouper Seafood Restaurant
100 Beach Road
#01-27 Shaw Leisure Gallery

Out of city eats: Sally Roast Meats

Roast meats are a perrenial favourite. Certainly one of mine...nothing like a sio bak, or char siew or roast duck to get the juices going...here is one unusual candidate, tucked in Yio Chu Kang.

One of my cycling buddies, Alex told us about this wonderful duck place...so wonderful, he had to eat there at least once a week to satisfy his cravings. So off we went.

When we arrived about noon, there was already a long queue. It will get longer during the peak lunch time hours of 12-2.

Of course we ordered a selection of everything...

First the unglam...the vegetables

But yum! they were tasty. Nicely done chap chye.

Free soup...kiam chye ark...but wait...is that a whole duck quarter in the free soup?

Indeed there was. Very tasty soup. And we had an entire drumstick and the back meaty part of a duck within. I guess the soup was made from leftover duck from yesterday...typical ingredients for kiam chye ark...one of my late father's favourites after the feasting over Chinese New Year.

Yam rice was nice...with huge chunks of yam embedded

But for the mains...the duck

Beautifully roasted. Glistening. The skin was crisp, but not as super crisp as the best I have had...like those served by Canton-I. But the meat was gorgeous! Very tender, soft, a bit powdery texture as one is likely to get with nicely done duck. Very nice.

But for me the piece de resistance is the roast meat.

The sio bak was absolutely fantastic. It was still warm when we ate it. The requisite sliver of fat hidding behind a super crispy skin, and tender meat within. Very very good. One of the best I have eaten...and at such humble surroundings. The char siew was also very good...KL style, with lots of sticky, sweet sauce, charred by the roasting...and fat, juicy pork.

When I visited, Sally Roast Meats was at Yio Chu Kang Road, by Cactus Road...but from Sept 15 2012, they will move to Northstar, by the junction of Yio Chu Kang Rd and Ang Mo Kio Ave 5.

Sally Roast Meats
Northstar AMK Food Court
7030 Ang Mo Kio Ave 5

Roast Meats at Canton-I

I have eaten at Canton-I, a Malaysian owned Cantonese restaurant at Orchard Ion many times. The first time I blogged about them, I was less than impressed. But revisits had me eating the roast meats. And the char siew is certainly one of the best around.

Oops, let the cat out of the bag right at the start...but in all seriousness, this is a classical Malaysian, KL style char siew...darkly marinaded, roasted crisp, sweet, fat. Glistening.

Truly superb. Ultra fat, but wonderful crisp, burnt crust. Magnificent. Really good char siew.

We also had some roast meat on the side

Very good too. But not my best experience of roasted pork. The skin was super crisp, but I yearn for a little less fat under the crispy skin, and perhaps a bit more flavour on the meat...but this is splitting hairs. This sio bak is superb.

A bowl of succulent wanton in soup...

A full, succulent, fresh, crunchy prawn lurks within each wanton. Very good.

A group of 4 of us shared the above...and each individual had his own noodle dish...I chose the ngau lam mien...beef brisket with noodles.

The sauce is a touch salty, but the tendons are superbly done. Soft, delicate. The noodles are done just right.

I now heartily recommend this restaurant for the traditional roasts, wanton mee, and ngau lam mien. Excellent. A bit pricey, but not unusually or unwarranted for an prime Orchard Road location.

Canton-i Restaurant
2 Orchard Turn
#03-14 ION Orchard
Tel: +65 6509 8368
http://www.canton-i.com.my/
Daily: 11am - 10pm

Eatery hopping in Hong Kong

I have written an article about restaurant hopping in Singapore once...where we did each course of a meal in a different restaurant...drawing from the specialities of each. Recently, I had a try of this in Hong Kong

.


click on the Hong Kong skyline above for a larger photograph.

A good friend/makan buddy and I found ourselves in Hong Kong at the same time for different reasons...and we decided we needed to have at least one meal together. After much deliberation...as foodies are bound to do...we have poor resistance to the lure of good food...we decided on Yixin. This is based primarlily on the recommendations of Jason Bonvivant a foodie bloger in Hong Kong whom I have been following for a while.

But I planned to have a cuppa ristretto first before going for dinner, so on my way out of the Star Ferry at Central, I stopped at an old favourite which I found several years ago while searching for beans in HKG...Zambra.



A double ristretto



A bit long for a ristretto. More like a double espresso...and even that a bit long. But nonetheless tasty, and nice mouth feel. Fixed the coffee needs for the day.

A short walk away is the traditional Yixin restaurant



We zoomed in on the 3 famous dishes...we had a vegetable dish as well...dou miao.

First the duck...



Pipa ya as it was called...featured a nice delicate crisp skin hiding the juicy succulent duck meat within. The serving above was for half a duck.

we also had the char siew that Jason raved about



But I found this to be a disappointing. The meat was very fat...we discussed this with the waitress later, and she confirmed that this was their best cut, and very popular with the Hong Kong people. I guess, our taste buds differ here. There was no crisp, burnt bits. The meat which was there was very fat (yes, I did mention that before), though very tender.

And the interesting dish called Fried Fresh Milk with crab meat.



I am not sure how this is done. But this turned out surprisingly tasty. Light, without the slightest hint of grease. The fried milk tasted very nice. And complemented the crab very well. Nice dish. Reminds me of the egg yolks and scallops I had at Restaurant Ten some time ago. BTW, the wonderful Restaurant Ten at Purvis Street is now sadly closed...the owners decided to ply their trade in China.

Back to Yixin...the servings were very large...too large for 2 grown, hungry men. Perhaps we needed to be a table of 6 to consume what we ordered.

But yet, we needed to look for dessert...and I remembered a dessert store I chanced on when I was in HKG last...somewhere along Pacific Place...to ease the large dinner, we walked...and found Xi Yan's dessert place.



Somewhat nondescript, but almost fully packed. The place served full meals...but we had ours. So I ordered a poached pear with tofu ice cream.



Quite exquisite. The tofu ice cream was quite a nice flavour...unusual, but for me excellent. The pears were nicely poached in syrup. And nice.

Interesting dinner...starting with a coffee at an old favourite which turned out to have lost some of its glitz, to a restaurant picked from a blogger's recommendation, and dessert in a place I have had great experience in the cooking in Singapore. Not bad for a night in Hong Kong.


Cafe Zambra
Shop 1. G/F.
239 Jaffe Road,
Wanchai, Hong Kong

Yixin Restaurant
G/F Shanghai Industrial Investment Building,
48-62 Hennessy Road, Wanchai, Hong Kong

Xi Yan Sweets
Shop 1, G/F, 8 Wing Fung Street, Wan Chai Hong Kong
2833 6299

Oversea Restaurant in Singapore: perfect char siew at last?

Oversea Restaurant in KL is one of the grande dames of roast meats in Malaysia...in particular, the wonderful char siew, and sio bak is amazingly luscious, and seductive.

I wrote about them in 2009 on a food trip with some of my good friends. They were fantastic that day. See the KL Oversea Restaurant review for more info. But suffice to say, one of my top two best experiences with charsiew.

So when I heard they are opening a branch in Singapore...wow! Must try. I did not take any chances, and when we made the reservations, we made sure we had a large serving of char siew and a large serving of sio bak.



We were eight people, and within a minute, the gorgeous char siew was inhaled by us.



But also, the large serving was not particularly large...and at S$50, I think a tad pricey...though, if you served the best in town, you pretty much have the right to charge high prices. As evidenced by the crowded dining hall on a Tuesday lunch.

The char siew, characteristic of the Oversea style came with a layer of thick fat between two layers of succulent meat. Marinated in a sweet, sticky sauce, and barbecued in a charcoal oven to perfection. The meat was just as tender and nice. Though if I had to make a comparison, I felt the KL version was a tad better. For one KL char siew was more charred, most of the char siew's exterior was coated in a crisp char. The Singapore version is slightly less charred in comparison. I also felt the meat in Malaysia is more tasty, perhaps the texture of the meat was more resistant, providing a bit more bite but still very very tender.

I speculate this is due to the fact that the pig, whose meat was char siew for lunch was slaugheterd that morning in KL. While in Singapore, the pork is either imported as chilled meat from Australia and Brasil, or even if freshly slaughtered, AVA requires post-mortem inspection, and as I understand it fresh chilled pork from Singapore abattoirs are at least a day old.

But even comparing amongst Singapore offerings, where the same handicap of the freshness of pork is applicable, Oversea's char siew is certainly the best I have eaten in Singapore. So apparently technique of roasting the meat also plays a large part.

The sio bak is equally good...



The skin is super crispy, very crunchy. The meat very tender. A layer of fat lies below the crispy skin, a bit sinful, but oh, so good.

The waitress recommended the braised beancurd with petola.



Petola is a gourd...also known as loofa...the gourd is soft when ripe and cooked well, as is the case here. The tofu is also quite specatacular. Very fragrant. Deep fried to create a crispy, tough exterior, the tofu is then braised in a very tasty, savoury braising liquid. The crisp skin itself melts into a springy skin, and protects the super soft tofu within. Very tasty.

For greens, we had kailan fried with garlic:



This dish didn't really do it for me. The vegetable was a bit tough and chewy. Though the chef probably just stir fried it very quickly on a hot wok, there was no apparent wok hei. I would also have preferred if the garlic was fried till golden brown before the kailan was added to the wok. In this case, the garlic was still a bit undercooked, and did not reach the stage of perfumed fragrance yet.

We also ordered the stir fried sotong:



This dish also didn't quite make it for me. The squid was sliced up, stir fried, and served in a hot plate lined with aluminium foil. When the dish arrived, it hinted of bad body odour...we thought it was the waitress who had brought this fragrance, but when the dish was set on the table, it was clear it came from the sotong. However, on closer examination and smelling, the stronger fumes coming directly out of the piping hot dish was not more intense in the foul odour, but instead was masked by the fragrance of the shallots and onions. The dish tasted ok. The squid was a little too tough.

The next dish was a winner.



Beef short ribs, cut with some bone, marinated and seared in charcoal before being cooked on the hot cast iron plate. Reminds me of kalbe in Seoul. The marinade was very strong. But meat tender, and sweet. The onions and garlic, left to toast was also marvellous.

And finally, we had the Beggar's Chicken:



Not quite I had in mind when I ordered it...I had imagined chicken, stuffed, and marinated. Wrapped in a cellophane, and covered with clay, and baked. But what arrived was a whole chicken, in a thick sauce in a claypot. The chicken was cooked till it disintegrated at the prodding of the chopsticks. The meat was very soft, and carried the fragrance of the marinade. The thick sauce was wonderful...a bit sticky from the collagen, it was very tasty.

Overall for me, this restaurant delivers the goods for the char siew and sio bak. Both best in class in Singapore. The other dishes, particularly the beef ribs, chicken and tofu were very good. But these were cze char standards. The other dishes we sampled were sub-par. With this combination, and the high prices, I think only justified for the char siew and sio bak. Service was a bit slow when we were there during peak lunch time...12 to 2, with the dishes being served one after another banquet style, but with minutes of pause between courses.


Oversea Restaurant
100 Beach Road, #01-27-37
Shaw Leisure Gallery, Shaw Tower

Canton-i: a gem or not?

with Alan T and friends

I have blogged about the Catonese inspired, Malaysian owned Canton-I restaurant at Ion when it first opened. See this entry for my first views. I have been revisiting the restaurant as a de-facto place to eat with my friend Alan T...who runs two shops in Ion and seldom have time to travel further for lunch...and Canton-I is like his private dining room.



While I found the restaurant to be ok, but not spectacular the last time round, this time, I found it to be quite good.

Especially good was the roast duck and the char siew.



I did find the duck to be rather good the first time round...and in every subsequent visit including this one, Canton-i showed me that they were indeed masters in roasting duck. The skin was glistening, crispy...hiding the smallest sliver of fat to provide the umami punch, and the meat was beautiful...slightly powdery like it should be, and very tender...tasty and flavourful.

I did not find the char siew up to the highest standards the first visit, but this time, they redeemed themselves. The char siew was superb:



Requisite in high fat content, the meat was marinated well...and fully infused with lovely flavours. The roasting was done just right...tender, juicy inside, almost charred though not quite on the outside. The marinate was more Hong Kong style...meaning the taste was led by saltiness rather than the sweet, sticky ones from KL. But nonetheless excellent.

The roast pork was rather good too...though slightly behind the shadow of the other roasts:



The skin was thin, crispy, the fat hiding below the skin was just a sliver...and the meat was wonderful in aroma and done just right, so it is still juicy though had a slight bite.

We tried the Teochew tofu...as we had two Teochew Ahiah in the group:



And it turned out to be a winner. The tofu was very tender, soft...breaking at the slightest prodding with a pair of chopsticks, and had to be scooped up with a spoon. This was a good thing...in the mouth, it was silky smooth, and very nice. Even our famous Dr. Mycroft who doesn't eat vegetables and tofu, gobbled down his share...he still doesn't eat vegetables, but he gave half a thumbs up for the tofu...which is saying a lot! BTW, yes, he is a real medical doctor...

And the finale was wonderful



Fried rice, served in a stone bowl. I suspect the rice was flash fried in a super hot wok...and scooped into this stone bowl for additional smoking and cooking and crusting. The aroma of the wok hei was superb. The rice nicely done. Embellished with bahu, and chicken, it was a great dish. Excellent. Shiok!


Canton-i Restaurant
2 Orchard Turn
#03-14 ION Orchard
Tel: +65 6509 8368
http://www.canton-i.com.my/
Daily: 11am - 10pm