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

Taste Paradise: Fine dining or just fancy restaurant?

The Paradise Group is a home grown wonder...from a small cze char stall to a rather large conglomerate of restaurants, spanning the range from fine dining to traditional favourites.

The post today is on Paradise's top end offering...their Taste Paradise in Ion offers a fine dining environment, where beautiful decor, impeccable service and excellent food using innovative cooking techniques and ultra premium ingredients are the order of the day.

We started with quite standard fare...a roast pork

Well presented. The meat was tender, tasty, and the skin was roasted to a perfect crisp. Very good sio bak.

Prawns in two styles were presented in a rather unusual way in a martini glass...a la cocktail

Impeccably presented. The prawns were succulent, and fresh. One done with a mango sauce, the other a wasabi sauce.

Paradise is rather famous for their XO carrot cake, so we ordered one

Again excellent. The wok hei was apparent. A tad too much egg, though it tasted heavenly. The XO sauce...a home made speciality from scallops, prawns, dried shrimps, pork, and other ingredients selected by the chef...each XO sauce is different because of the special ingredients used. The radish cake itself was a bit too soft and tender...I wish for a more firm bite on the cake. But the flavours meld well in the palate.

A simple bamboo clam which was well received

Bamboo clams are at once easy to prepare as well as difficult to execute. Easy, because it is usually simply stir fried, or steamed. Fresh clams have a wonderful sweetness that is just so intoxicating. But the cooking time needs to be judged right...just a tad overcooked, and the clams turn tough and spoils the dish. Needless to say, the chef tampered his work very well.

We had the crispy seafood noodles as well

The noodles were faintly aromatic...just nicely so. Very crisply done. The scallops, prawns and mushrooms complement the sauce and the noodles very well.

And a bit of the unusual, though a dish which can be found in some hawker offerings in Malaysia...deep fried ice cream

Ice cream, in this case, I suspect a rather generic type as it did not taste anything special...is encased in a flour shell, which is quickly deep fried. The flour crisps up, and provides the ice cream with a heat barrier while in the deep fryer, and the ice cream remains cold and frozen. The sensation of hot and cold that one experience on the palate is what makes this special. A bit like a molten chocolate cake with vanilla ice cream.

A rather well presented menu, great tasting, if a bit expensive. But definitely a great place to entertain clients or foreign guests to show off our culinary diversity and heritage. Recommended.

Taste Paradise
2 Orchard Turn, #04-07 ION Orchard
Mon–Fri: 11.30am–3pm, 6pm–11pm
Sat–Sun & PH: 11am–4.30pm, 6pm–11pm

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