Tung Lok Overload

In recent years, the extended family's choice for a Chinese meal has always been Tung Lok, whether at Orchard Parade, Vivocity or Chinese Swimming Club.  Heck, I even had my (very small) wedding dinners at different Tung Lok restaurants across 2 different weekends, but that's a story for another day and there were no photos of food because (a), I hadn't started blogging yet; and (b) well...I was the bride, dammit.

Admittedly I have no idea what the difference is between Signatures and Classics, but what I do know is that both have pretty good food that we really enjoy. Here's a series of photos taken over the past 6 months from all our meals at Tung Lok.

Roast Peking Duck from Tung Lok at the Chinese Swimming Club - not as good as Da Dong, but a pretty good duck by local standards.

Duck skin wrapped up in little crepes. Mmm. 

Spinach with mustard and sesame sauce

Deep fried whitebait - the Chinese Swimming Club version is definitely very good

 Stir-fried black pepper beef - excellent with white rice

The mixed vegetable dish - this was so-so. 

I think this was deep-fried prawns with salted egg

Curry prawns with fried mantou. A firm favourite with the parents in law. 

The prawns were very fresh, with curry that was thin enough to drink up. 

 This was a special they had that month - roast pork knuckle. The skin was amazing.

Tofu and something (I have no idea) underneath - I remember it being preserved egg, but this certainly doesn't look like preserved egg to me.

Spinach with 3 eggs-  this was decent

Can't recall what this dessert was, but it was quite attractive-looking. Wasn't mine. 

This was mine! Ice cream mango with sago in coconut. A brilliant end to a brilliant meal.

Pulot hitam with coconut ice cream - not mine but at least I got a taste of it. Nice, but ordinary. 

Gui Lin Gao - not sure about the osmanthus in the syrup though. 

At another occasion, we had a 8 course banquet for someone's birthday. This was pan-fried foie gras served peking duck style with beancurd skin...delicious. 

Sharks' fin soup with some weird flaming thing

 Not a bad bowl of soup. 

Lobster with superior stock. 

 Beancurd and sea cucumber

Grilled soy honey pork

Scallop with eefu noodles

Palate cleansers that no one knew where to place

The birthday plate - more impressive with the dry ice effect

Aloe vera with lime sorbet in coconut.

Another occasion at Orchard Parade for the FIL's birthday, just one week after the 8 course banquet - love their siew yoke

The whitebait wasn't as good as Chinese Swimming Club's version

Dongpo Pork, I think it was, with beancurd strips. Tasty. 

Curry prawns made it to the table again. 

Lotus leaf rice with seafood. This was pretty good. 

And - the mango ice cream coconut dessert again. 

http://www.tunglok.com/

Ooi - OH WHAT A MEAL!

Oh what a night! Late December...what a very special time for me. As I remember what a night!  It was a brilliant month because further to Hinoki, I also had a meal at Ooi that was seriously worth shouting about. It's a hard line to draw between telling more people about a really good place and risk having it overrun with crowds, or even worse, seeing the quality decrease or prices increase, and wanting to share good things with people who care about good food. But since Tan Hsueh Yun had already told the world about it, me talking about it here would probably cause no further harm.

It was a wonderful evening with good friends, and it started off really well with this sake from Nagano called shimbun no sake daiginjo because it, well, came wrapped in newspaper. It's produced only once a year, with a polishing degree of 39%.

What the inside looked like.

We got to choose our own sake cups.

Sake tastes better when drunk with good friends

The first course of our omakase meal from left to right - dried radish strips, fish roe, sansai, kyoto tofu and lotus root with sesame. Everything was so delicate.

Another view - the little plate had salt that was for the tofu. I've never tasted such soft, silky tofu before.

The sashimi platter, including kanburi, saba (from Wakayama), Aji and Kobujime (both from Fukuoka), honmaguro, and otoro.

The marbling - divine. Extra large picture for added emphasis.

Next up were yam strips cut thinly to look like somen.

Extremely interesting texture.

 A simmered daikon slice with yuzu miso - this was another divine dish. Fresh, simple and delicious. 

Crab, with vinegar for dipping.

Check out the meat.

We had the head of the kanburi (king amberjack) grilled. This was sashimi grade fish, so when grilled, it was amazing.

Hiroshima oysters, battered and deep fried. Crispy on the outside, soft and succulent on the inside.

Another view of the oysters on their shells

Absolutely brilliant.

Mixed maki with various spare cuts of fish.

Otoro and snapper sushi.

At the end, finally, soup with clams.

Dessert, which consisted of Japanese strawberry, pear and persimmon. And chestnut ice cream imported from Japan (can't recall which part, and it's probably because of the sake).

The chestnut ice cream was amazing - the flavour was very delicate.

The place, which used to be at Cuppage Plaza, is run by a husband and wife team. According to the wife, apparently the husband insists on doing everything himself because if someone else does it, "it doesn't taste right". I hope he carries on that way for a long time because everything was close to perfect.

Holiday Inn Orchard City Centre

11 Cavenagh Rd, 01-13/14 

Tel: 6737 4929

Mentaiko Pasta Reprise

One of my cousins came back from Tokyo recently with a pack of smoked mentaiko. 

What it looked like on the inside

These looked seriously weird and phallic

The smoked version tasted slightly richer than the conventional raw mentaiko, and it helped to round off the saltiness.

Using the same recipe as last time, I scraped out all the little eggs from the inside and put them in a pot with melted butter.

Mixing it all up with mirin and Japanese mayo.

And we used our dehydrated pasta that tasted as good as fresh pasta.

Absolutely yummy.