Gim Tim Restaurant - Traditional Hokkien Dishes

Gim Tim Pte Ltd (Restaurants) or well known as “锦珍” started from a small HDB area restaurant in a corner located at Ang Mo Kio Avenue 4. Gim Tim has grown into a group of 3 restaurants, serving exquisite cuisine with Hokkien, Szechuan and Cantonese dishes. And I believed most of us have a deep-impression of their mobile kitchen where Gim Tim has a mobile fleet that is specially fitted to cater for outdoor functions.

Same as Lim Hai Sheng’s Carrot Cake (Click HERE), Gim Tim is also one of the featured restaurants in Clarke Quay Food Street as well as the Singapore Chinese Dialect Heritage Feast too. And out of the 3 restaurants that Gim Tim has in Singapore, only the branch that located at Ang Mio Kio Ave 4 served authentic Hokkien Heritage Dishes.

Before we start off with today’s Hokkien dishes, let’s take a look at who is behind the kitchen whipping out all these fabulous Dialect Heritage Cuisines. Chef Lai Yong Meng - 赖泳鸣大厨 is the Master Chef of this restaurant who leads his team of chefs and helpers in preparing these delicious cuisines that will be featured during this Friday 16 July – 25 July 2010 Food Street event.

Chef Lai has a very friendly personality and we really enjoy chatting with him during the food sampling session. Through the conversation we can sense his passion towards his customers and food that he prepares with his professional skill. He has spent more than 30 years of his life working as a chef in major Chinese Restaurants in Singapore and Malaysia. Chef Lai also holds a position as the Second Vice President of Society of Chinese Cuisine Chefs (Singapore).

Before I came to this food sampling event, I don't really familiar with what are the commonly traditional dishes that most Hokkien people loves to cook or order during their eat out. What I have in mind was only their famous Kong Bak Pau or Hokkien Mee. But today after the conversation with Chef Lai I actually learnt a lot through him from this event. Now let’s us take a look at the first Hokkien Heritage Cuisine which is “Fish Maw Soup - 福建鱼鳔羹”.

Take a closer look at the ingredients; it is really full of Fish Maw chunks, julienned carrots, mushroom and etc. The soup tasate more or less like shark's fin soup texture but without adding shark’s fin in it. I have tried a few Fish Maw soup in different restaurants previously and I find the one served at this restaurant really brings out it’s full flavour and some how or rather you might really think that you are eating the real shark’s fin. You can grab a bowl of this to sample it tasate at the coming Clarke Quay Food Street at affordable pricing too.

Here comes today’s “Special” Hokkien cuisine which is known as “Fried Tapioca Roll - 福建大茨粉”. Accordingly to Chef Lai, this is a very old traditional Hokkien cuisine that is hardly found in most of the Hokkien Restaurants these day. This dish is fried with some handmade Tapioca roll that is cut into roughly 0.5” by 2” long strips. At first glance you might think that it look quite similar to the Hakka Abacus Seeds but with rather long strips instead of seeds. Although this cuisine might not look appetizing due to it’s colour (seems black) but I can assure you that if you love spicy food, you will love this. The dish is fixed with Chef Lai self-made Chilli paste that taste similar like “Hae Bee Hiam” (consists of crispy-fried pounded dried shrimp, spices and chilli) and it definitely brings out the bland taste of the tapioca strips.

I am sure you are familiar with this black sauce "Hokkien Mee - 福建面" where you can get it from some of the Cze Cha Stalls in Singapore. Eating this dish at a restaurant and having it at the Cze Cha stall seems a bit different perhaps due to psychology thinking. The noodle used here is those flat yellow type of noodle, which is different from the usual yellow noodle that is found in other stalls.

This is a complimentary dish from Chef Lai, “Hokkien Hei Zor - 福建虾枣” which is also one of the featured dish that will be available at the Clarke Quay Food Street. Look at the display, this is my first time seeing "Hei Zor" served with Achar as side dish, interesting combination right!

Look at the inner section of the Hei Zor, this really taste different from our Teochew Ngoh Hiang. They used more on prawn, water chestnut and fatty pork as the main ingredients. You must not give this a missed during the food fair. According to Chef Lai, they might be selling this for S$1.50 a roll during the food street fair. So keep an eye on this....

Lastly I must thanks Mr Desmond Liap and his crews for their warm services during this food tasting session despite that they were all very busy with the on-going banquet during our visit. Thanks for making everything so smooth during the interview and food sampling too.

Gim Tim Restaurant at Ang Mo Kio Ave 4 has both indoor and outdoor dining area to smooth the crowds during weekends and festive seasons. If you are interested to try these Hokkien Dishes from Gim Tim, do drop by their stall at counter #21/22 at the Clarke Quay Food Street and Singapore Chinese Dialect Heritage Feast from 16 July - 25 July 2010. More information can be found HERE.

Gim Tim Restarant - 锦珍
Block 157, Ang Mo Kio Ave 4
#01-546
Singapore 560157
Telephone: 6459 7766

No Signboard @ Vivo City

No Signboard! Finally we have scheduled our visit to “No Signboard Restaurant” at Vivo City after some brainstorming ideas on where to go for our usually weekend gathering. Since most of the members in our family group loves to eat “Chilli Crab” we decided to choose this restaurant due to their good feedback on their White Pepper Crab and Chilli Crab dish.

According to those who frequent this restaurant, reservation booking is always recommended to avoid the crowds or waiting time. As we are pretty late for lunch after church service around 2pm, they are barely any large crowds in it. Upon stepping into the Vivo City branch, we are captured by it beautiful interior design with crystals lighting, full-length windows, paintings, dragon statues coiling the pillars and etc. And you can also notice from the photo, even their restaurant name “无招牌” is uniquely engraved on the chopstick as well.

In total we ordered about 6 dishes, the first to be served is this "Steamed Japanese Beancurd with Diced Seafood". Each beancurd is stuffed with fresh seafood like prawn, squid, fish and some mushroom. It is served together on top of the steam egg custard with some green vegetables. The texture of the egg is so smooth and silky that makes it goes very well with the seafood beancurd.

Garlic Steam Bamboo Clam served shortly after the above seafood beancurd. Personally I don't really like this dish as I find that the amount of garlic used is too much and it actually mask the taste of the Bamboo Clam itself.

Other than the usual “Oatmeal Prawns” we decided to try out their “Deep-fried Butter Prawns” instead of “Deep-fried Butter Crayfish”. The prawns served are relatively big and most important they are fresh to taste. Each bite of it is so firm and crunchy…… and the butter crumps make it so fragrant and tasty to go with the prawns.

Yes! This is "Yee Fu Noodles" which is one of our favourite noodle dish that we usually order during any eat out. The Yee Fu Noodles here are fried with chives and buttom straw mushroom.

These are the two crab dishes that we have which is the "White Pepper Crab", the flesh of the white pepper crab was succulent, firm and well-infused with their special concocted white pepper powder seasoning and spring onion which makes it finger licking good. This dish will taste rather a bit spicy for those who can't take spicy food.

The Chilli Crab was fantastic at least it didn’t have the distinct tomato ketchup taste and it is served with the fried mantou. The fresh Sri Lanka crab is cooked in their signature robust chilli sauce flavour with prawn paste, garlic and other ingredients. Everyone loves to dip the deep-fried mantou with the egg sauce which make the taste even better. Since I am not really a crab love and it find it too time consuming eating each parts of it, I rather go for a few deep-fried mantou in the egg gravy.

No Signboard Seafood Restaurant
#03-02, 1 HarbourFront Centre Walk
Vivo City
Singapore 098585
Tel: 6376 9959
Website: http://www.nosignboardseafood.com/

Wild Turtle Soup Restaurant

"Wild Turtle House" located at Jalan Tampang, just opposite Sembawang Shopping Center. Due to the recent rainy weather, we hope to grab something comfort that might warm-up our body, so instead of their famous "Wild Turtle Soup"(which we don't dare to try by the thought of eating "turtle") we decided to try out their "Herbal Crocodile Soup - 砂煲药材鳄鱼汤". In this herbal soup, the chef used fresh Crocodile Meat instead of those dried type that you can find in most Chinese Medical Hall. Overall this soup taste great with it lightly herbal fragrant that cover up the "fishy" smell from the Crocodile Meat.

Yam Rice - 芋头饭 is one of our "Teochew" signature rice whereby most of the Teochew housewife can whip up this dish in their own kitchen. But for modern working mum like most of us, unless is during weekends or our leisure time, I guess we won't be sweating in the kitchen just to prepare all these traditional food. If you are not picky about specify taste, the yam rice served here was rather good with it's ingredients and seasoning.

Claypot Bak Kuet Teh - 肉骨茶 is one of the dish that is recommended by my 3rd aunty who is dinning there with her friend when we pop by the restaurant. Although their Bak Kuet Teh does not taste fantastic compare to those famous stalls in Singapore, but they do have their homecook style standard that attract customers to order this dish.

Stir-fry Chinese Spinach with Century Egg & Ikan Bilis - 江鱼仔苋菜 was quite similar to what my late father used to cook for us. But we find this vegetable dish was kind of overcooked and which overall makes it look kind of not appetising.

Claypot Pork Liver - 焖猪干 is always one of my favourite dish since young and I can have two bowl of rice just to go with this dish alone. The Claypot Pork Liver served in this restaurant was those very homecook style and the pork liver are so tender to bite as it is not overcooked.

Finally after a long wait, here comes their homemade Ngoh Hiang - 肉枣圆 which taste great with the sweet dipping sauce. The Ngoh Hiang served is cut into individual pieces then deep-fried till crispy on the outer layer but soft and juicy inside.

Wild Turtle Soup Restaurant
20 Jalan Tampang
(Opposite Sembawang Shopping Centre)

Crystal Jade Kitchen

Crystal Jade Kitchen has a number of branches scatter at different parts of Singapore. Their menu consists of authentic Hong Kong Style Dim Sum, Roast Duck/Meat, Congee, Noodle and Cantonese dishes.

Last week, we happened to shop around Bishan area so we decided to drop-by one of the Crystal Jade Kitchen located at basement 1 of Junction 8. While queuing up for our seats, we are attracted to their Rice Dumpling promotion(click here).

From the list, we decided to try something sweet and savory so we ordered this "Rice Dumpling with Pork - 五香咸肉粽" that consists of pork belly, whole salted egg yolk and green bean. The glutinous rice is very soft and lightly fragrant by the spices and seasoning and it goes well with the tender pork belly that make you crave for more. Personally I love the adding of green bean to this savory rice dumpling as it really blends well with the ingredients, especially with the salted egg yolk.

Since it is around lunch time, we decided to try their 2-in-1 combo lunch menu. This set comes with the "Poach Chinese Spinach with 2 kinds of eggs" and "Deep-fried Prawn Coated with Wasabi Mayonnaise".

This vegetable dish taste great with the combination of 3 different eggs such as Egg, Century Egg and Salted Egg. The soup broth of this dish is very tasty and you can even drink it like a soup because it is cook using superior stock.

Next dish is this "Deep-fried Prawn Coated with Wasabi Mayonnaise" which we find it a bit disappointed. The large prawns are coated with batter and almond flakes then deep-fried till golden. Although the prawns are very fresh and crunchy but it was kind of overpower by the over coating of Wasabi Mayonnaise sauce. The wasabi sauce actually makes the dish too spicy and greasy to consume. If the sauce is slighter lesser like what is shown in the their menu, I guess this dish will taste better than what is it now.

Zhou's Kitchen @ Far East Square

This year Mother's Day celebration as usual was organised by my brother at Zhou's Kitchen, Far East Square branch. As most of us are working and also to avoid the weekend crowds we decided to settle the dinner on Friday night.

Zhou's Kitchen provide casual Chinese dining concept and it has about four branches located in different parts of Singapore such as Square 2(novena), Anchorpoint and Jurong Point. Besides serving a tempting variety of A-La Carte dishes, there are set meals offering value and convenience too.

For today we are having their A-La Carte Dinner Buffet which cost about $29.80++ per Adult where you can pick your choice from "Cold Cuts and Appetizers", "Meat", "Seafood", "Vegetables", "Rice/Noodle" and "Dessert".

For Appetizers we have Century Egg and Cucumber cubes - 青瓜皮蛋 which is light and refreshing. Salad Prawns with Mixed Fruits in Thousand Island sauce and Deep-fried Fritter were rather kind of average standard. While "Fujian style Meat Roll that comes in 5 thin slices was kind of to our liking with it special ingredients.

Talk about their soup, it was rather disappointing. The 2nd soup shown in the above photo supposed to be their limited one serving dish known as "Braised Shark's Fin Broth with Crab Stick and Shredded Chicken - 红烧蟹柳鸡丝翅" but it ends up to be just like a normal bowl of diluted soup with some shredded chicken which mum hint to the waitress on her dismay. On the other hand we all agreed that the normal "Braised Beancurd Broth with Diced Seafood - 海鲜豆腐羹" taste even much better than the Shark's Fin broth.

For the Meat dishes, each of us select our favourite items such as "Pan-fried Beef Tenderloin with Black Pepper - 黑椒牛柳烧" which is fragrant and tender to taste, "Pi Pa Duck - 琵琶鸭" where the meat is soft and goes well with the topping sauce but their "Deep-fried Pork Ribs With Chef's Special Sauce - 京都排骨" is quiet a disappointment due to the presentation and the sauce taste so sour and the pork ribs are so tough. "Sweet and Sour Pork - 咕噜肉" on the other hand was much better with it's tasty sauce and overall combination, so end up we have two serving plates of that instead. As you can see from the photo, their "Deep-fried Chicken with Prawn Paste - 虾酱鸡" was just like some deep-fried chicken strips instead nothing fancy.

Beijing Roast Duck - 京式片皮鸭 is also one of the Limited to 2 Slices per Person items on the list. This dish is kind of different from the usual Peking Duck that use the outer crispy duck skin to wrap with the pancake wrapper. Rey enjoy himself on serving us this dish by assemble the spring onion, cucumber and sweet sauce with the duck and wrapper while we are busying with other dishes.

On the Seafood list, we tried their "Chilli Crab A-La Tung Lok - 辣椒螃蟹" other than the presentable look the taste wise was rather average or not suitable for our liking. The Chilli Crab sauce was too sour rather than those usual hot and spicy chilli crab sauce that we have patronised from some of the famous crab restaurant. "Poached Live Prawns - 白灼虾" was rather better with its look, taste and freshness. "Deep-fried Prawns with Crispy Oats - 香酥麦片虾" and Sauteed Shrimp with Long Bean in Sambal Sauce are another two prawn dishes that we ordered too.

We also tried two of their fish dishes such as "Thai Style Soon Hock Fish - 泰式炸笋壳鱼" and "Steamed Red Tilapia in Black Bean Sauce - 豉汁酱蒸红鱼". I also ordered brother's favourite "Stewed Ee-fu Noodles - 干烧伊面" and mum's favourite "Fried Rice with Chicken and Salted Fish - 咸鱼鸡粒炒饭".

Finally, the moment that I am waiting for is here. Dessert menu/items is always one of the main thing I look for when I scan through the menu. So when it comes to the end of the meal, I will always reserved extra space for my favourite dessert. Today we are having "Chilled Herbal Jelly With Honey - 龟苓膏", "Sweetened Almond Cream with White Fungus - 雪耳白果杏仁露", "Sesame Cream - 芝麻糊", "Glutinous Rice Balls with Peanut Crumbs - 擂沙汤丸" and lastly "Ice Cream Puff - 雪糕酥点".

Famous Crab King @ Marina South Pier

Time past really fast during festive season, last Sunday we just had our Reunion Dinner @ Si Chuan Dou Hua and today we are having another New Year lunch organised by Aunty Lily's family @ this "Famous Crab King Seafood Restaurant" which is located at "Marina South Pier - 滨海南码头".

"Famous Crab King - 强盛海鲜楼" has two branches in Singapore which is located in Toa Payoh Industrial Park and Marina South Pier. According to those who frequent these branches, they do have a solid reputation for providing fresh, quality food at reasonable prices. Marina South Pier branch is located on second storey of the pier and it's has an excellent view on the harbour despite you are dinning in the air-conditioning room or balcony view which you can enjoy the sea breeze/scenic while having your meal.

Upon arriving at the restaurant, we find that the dinning atmosphere was great with the harbour view clearly seen from the inside of the restaurant as well. Beside the that, they also have a few tanks of live seafood showcase at a corner near the kitchen area.

As usual, since it is still within the first 15 days of Chinese New Year, the custom of serving "Yusheng - 鱼生" as the starter of the meal still continued. The Yusheng here is quiet different from the usual one that we have, especially on their ingredients. From the name " Salmon Raw Fish Yu Sheng With Snow Pear - 水晶雪梨发财鱼生", you will be wondering how is the "Snow Pear - 雪梨" being incorporate into the Yusheng. To our surprised, they actually replace the white radish with shredded snow pear, and also some colourful "tadpole" eggs like sago which you don't really find in other Yusheng outside. So we give this dish about 8/10 for it's taste, colour and self-made crispy bites too...

While waiting for other dishes to be served, Rey and I went out to the balcony area where we can have a better view of the harbour. "Marina South Pier - 滨海南码头" is located in Marina South(used to be the place where people will gather around for steamboat, kite flying and etc during weekends) which is used as a terminal for tourists and day trippers who are boarding small boats and ferries heading for the Southern Islands. This pier was built to replace Clifford Pier since April 2006 to provide regular ferries to Kusu Island and Saint John's Island operate daily.

Em... This dish look sort of like "Pai Gu Wang - 排骨王" at first glance, but accordingly to my cousin, this is one of their famous signature dish known as " Pan Fried Pork Chop In Sweet & Sour Sauce - 翡翠香酥肉". The pork chop is very tender, juicy and fill with the aroma of the sauce. Most important, it does not taste/smell of those porky taste. This sure goes well with a bowl of steam rice.........

I love this " Braised Assorted Mushroom with Beancurd in Abalone Sauce - 鲍汁鲜菌豆腐". The outer layer of the doufu is crispy while the inner layer is soft and moist, accompany with the assorted mushroom and abalone sauce on top really enhance the flavour of the doufu. Other than these, this dish also served with some blanch "Spinach - 菠菜" on the side and the mushroom sauce goes really well with spinach.

Guess what, this is one of our all time favourite, "Deep Fried Prawns with Cereal - 麦片虾". Cousin was indeed very thoughtful that he actually give instruction to the chef to remove the shell of the prawns before stirring it through the cereal mixture. The cereal for this dish is nicely fried with that great aroma and the colour is still remains as light golden instead of over cooked/burnt. Overall, everyone of us give praise to this dish.

Em... this is the 4th Roast Chicken that I had for Chinese New Year dish. I still wondering why they must used roasted chicken instead of steam...........guess maybe is due to it's golden colour after deep-fried. I find this is rather a special dish that drizzle some combination of "Garlic, Spring Onion and White Onion" mixture on top of the roast chicken. But half of us still think that this combination should be placed on steam chicken instead of roast chicken so as to let the chicken absorb the fragrant and taste of the mixture.

Here comes the "Stars" of today's menu. We have two Crab dishes that is cooked in different method. First to come is their signature crab dish known as " Pumpkin Custard Crab - 金瓜奶黄蟹". I have read a few good review from magazine about this dish and today finally I got a chance to look and taste it. The pumpkin custard taste great with the deep-fried "Man Tou - 馒头", the sauce does not over powder by the pumpkin taste and they really combined well with the crab.

Next they served the "Fried Crab With Custard & Salted Yolk - 金沙奶油蟹" which is arranged in a very unique way that most of us have not seen before. They actually stacked up the pieces one by one on top of the crab shell to form a tall tower. This can be consider as one of the best Salted Egg Crab that I had tried before, the combination of the sauce is great, not too salty, not too sweet. Everything is just well combined and the crab pieces is nicely fried and overall we loved these two crab dishes. We do recommend you to give these a try if you do love crab too....

Lastly, cousin also ordered one of my brother's favourite dish which is this "Stewed Ee-Fu Noodle with Yellow Chives - 菲皇焖伊面". Accordingly to the dish, it supposed to be stewed with Yellow Chives, but when the dish is served we find there is a lot of assorted mushroom in it instead of yellow chives. I guess maybe they are out of stock for chives so they replaced it with mushroom instead....... The texture of the noodle is ok, but the taste of the sauce is not really good, still can have some room for improvement on this dish.

Finally, it's dessert time...... I have being waiting for dessert as usual. But I was kind of disappointed when they didn't served the "Chilled Mango Cream with Pomelo - 杨枝甘露" and replaced it with this "Red Bean Cream with Lotus Seeds - 莲子红豆沙". This red bean cream was kind of diluted rather than the creamy texture, and guess the serving waiter is either kind of new or he is simply not doing his job well as some of the bowl is only half filled and with too many lotus seeds while some bowls are empty with just the red bean soup instead.

Overall this place is still great for it's dish at a reasonable price if you wish to find some seaside view for dinning. Or if you are hanging around at "Marina Barrage - 滨海堤坝" area, perhaps you would also like to drop by for lunch/dinner which is less than 5 minutes drive from the Barrage. To get to Marina South Pier, you can either drive or travel by MRT to Marina Bay Station, and take bus service number 402 outside the station.