Nibble & scribble: Tai Ping Koon

I’ve been in a retro mood and my recent dinner at Tai Ping Koon just fed it even more. Tai Ping Koon is a Cantonese Western restaurant where time has stood still. The décor is retro and the dishes and service are old school to match. Much like the genre of “western” food that we have in Singapore where they serve up localized western dishes like chicken chop, Tai Ping Koon is famous for a number of these like the Swiss-style chicken wing name has its own history and a taste that has nothing to do with its name. The flavours here are more localised, Swiss-style chicken wings are braised in a sweet soy sauce, which was tasty in their own sticky and not overly sweet way. The main reason why we came here was to sample the roasted pigeon. Only way to eat pigeon is to get stuck in with your hands and just gnaw away, not the most polite way but probably the best. The pigeon is roasted whole and the skin was nicely glazed and evenly roasted and served with a sweetish soy sauce at the bottom that I don’t think was really necessary. I had a good gnaw at it, and it was good. To end off, we ordered to soufflé. Man, I didn’t know it was that large! The table of 2 next to us valiantly tried to conquer it but I would recommend at least 4 people? It is soufflés like that put the spectacle element into dining out and makes it fun. We all had a giggle and took photos of that gigantic thing and dug in with our spoons together. I was a little concern about it not being cooked in the centre but it turned out ok. What it had in size, it had had in wow factor but not that much taste. I appreciated that it wasn’t too sweet but it was more a textural rather than favourful spoonful.