Great Cze Chars: Ga Hock Seafood

Great Cze Chars are not easy to find. Good ones are plenty. So when one finds a great one, go back often, and patronize the store, make sure they thrive.

I have been eating at Ga Hock, right across the road from Mindef for a while. And have always had great experiences there...for sure its not because of the ambience...as one sits under a shed, with full view of the kitchen.

But the food is good, and that makes up for all of it. Probably the best fish head curry in town, the nyonya styled curry is beautifully aromatic, and served with deep fried bean curd sticks:

May not look like much, but when soaked, the crispy fried beancurd sticks impart a wonderful flavour and consistency in the mouth that is absolutely marvellous. The gravy is thick, piquant, mild spiciness, and very aromatic. And the fish head itself, very fresh...I ate the soft gelatinous parts and they were wonderful, no after taste or untoward smells that a less than fresh fish head will have. Absolutely top class fish head curry, and certainly one of the best in Singapore. The style is similar to the one I tasted in Johor Bahru last year.

If it were only for this dish, I would come back again and again. But the other dishes were rather superb too. The sweet potato leaves in sambal was also excellent.

Deceptively simple. People used to throw away these leaves. But harvest them at the right time, I imagine when young, tender, and fried with great wok control with a wicked sambal, one gets a dish to die for. Very good vegetable dish here. 

So is the oyster omelette

The eggs were light, fluffy, tasty. The oysters were cooked just right...a few seconds more would have over cooked them, and a few seconds less would leave them bloody and raw. But this was very very good. The oysters were fat, juicy, tasty.

We also had the ginger chicken, which required a day's advance order

I guess the advance order is needed as the chicken is probably marinaded over a long time. The frying was, once again superbly done. Crisp on the outside, juicy on the inside. The slices of ginger were fried till crisp, like potato chips, and were rather nice to eat...the pungent nature of the ginger mellowed with the deep frying into a sweetish, crispy chip. Very nice, though I often preferred their har cheong kai.

And we had some prawns in black pepper

When it arrived, it was a little disappointing, as we had expected large prawns. The prawns were smallish, about an inch in diameter. But it slightly made up for the lack of size by the taste. Fresh, sweet, crunchy, with a crisp outer...it proved to be quite enjoyable.

Ga Hock is highly recommended. One of the gems of cze char cuisine in Singapore. The chefs/cooks exhibiting good taste, and excellent control of their wok and fire to achieve the beautiful consistency of the cooking. Excellent Plus Plus. 

Ga Hock Seafood

794 Upper Bukit Timah Rd, Singapore 678133 6314 5725