Tuesday, December 20, 2005

More Teochew Dining

Huat Kee Teochew Restaurant
74 Amoy Street
Singapore 069893
Tel: 6423-4747

Ever since we stepped into Liang Kee (At Beo Cresent), my dad the true blue Teochew would constantly crave to go back there on a fortnightly basis. Eager to try something different, we started to search for other Teochew fix alternatives, and so here we are at Huat Kee.

The restaurant is located at Amoy street, which makes it a prime choice for many business lunches for Chinese businessmen and other business dealings. Although the restaurant’s signage reads Teochew Restaurant Huat Kee (Since 1998), in actual fact, this culinary history of this restaurant started in 1969 and 1998 is only a reflection of their time at the current Amoy Street address. We entered into the crowded double storied restaurant and were instantly worried that we were not going to get a table since we did not call to make a reservation, but we pushed our dad to the forefront and get him to charm the staff with his Teochew. Seeing how we were their “ka kee niang”, they managed to sit our family upstairs among a sea of reserved tables.


Steamed fish, Teochew Style

The food is traditional teochew and was good enough for my teochew father to consider bringing my teochew grandma, so, I can boldly say, it is authentic and pretty damn good. The first dish to arrive was our vegetables, Kai Lan stir fried with dried sole. The wok hei-ed lard flavoured vegetables were amazingly aromatic, green and crunchy. Following which we had the classic teochew goose meat and the prawn paste rolls. The goose meat was slightly tougher than I expected, but the prawn paste rolls, were good. The fried kway teow that came next was my favourite dish of the night. The sprinkling of chai poh in the noodles, gave it extra crunch and texture as well as a salty tangy flavour. Then came the plat du resistance, the ikan karua tail steamed teochew style – steamed to with preserved plums, tomatoes, ginger and preserved vegetables to create a subtle flavoured broth and retain the fish natural sweetness – the fish was fresh and sweet and the broth was delicate and clean that focused the attention on the natural flavours of the fish. To end it all off, we had portions of orh nee with pumpkin puree and ginko nuts. The warm comforting sticky paste, was thankfully not pumped up with too much sugar, but was wonderful to enjoy. To send you off, they serve you with a serving of ti guan yin tea to make you feel a little better about all the possible bad elements that you might have consumed during the course of your meal, not too bad eh?

Pay: $20-$30 a person

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8 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Why did u remove the name of the tea?

12:55 PM  
Blogger joone! said...

i was corrected by a friend, so, there you go, it's back on.

1:46 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Oh boy! The Kai Lan dish looks absolutely delish! So nice & green & looks so tender & sweet! I can finish the whole plate man. Kway Teow caught my eye too. Ok mux try out this rest soon.

8:33 PM  
Blogger *kel said...

Hmm, I love teochew food! Especially their steamed fish and porridge... yumm...

6:39 AM  
Blogger bean said...

Hi! Chanced upon your foodie blog while googling for "robertson quay ramen". Can I ask you, which other good teochew restaurants do you know of? Which one's the best? Am thinking of bringing parents out for reunion dinner, and dad is a true blue teochew. Thanks!

12:55 AM  
Blogger joone! said...

kel, just down the road from liang kee at beo cresent is a pretty good teochew porriage! They even had famous people like andy lau visit their shop.

hi bean, off the top of my head, my dad likes these few teochew places: 1. ah orh at 115 Jalan Bukit Merah, which does a beautiful steamed fish, 2. Liang Kee, i love their stir-fried fish head with bitter gourd, 3. Mong Hing at Keypoint at Beach Road, and of course Huat Kee. Among the four, I would lean towards recommending Huat Kee or Liang Kee. Ah orh makes beautiful food, but the pricing system is a little odd and so sometimes i'm not sure if he overcharges or not; Liang Kee is good value for money, and Huat Kee is probably the pricest but the best among the four. I hope that helps, if you need the address, i'll email them to you.

9:28 PM  
Blogger bean said...

cool thx joone! i'll do some research and make some phone calls b4 deciding.. dad actually suggested wen yan lou @ jurong east, dunno if i shld surprise him with huat kee or liang kee, heh.

6:21 PM  
Blogger bean said...

ok in the end dad decided 2 go 4 wen yan lou instead. anyway we r also regulars at Ah Orh. it's pretty good but truth to tell i've gotten abit tired of it. just like mom's cooking, good but abit too repetitive..

10:19 PM  

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