Eat Out Review 1 - Bee Heong Palace Restaurant

I've decided to save some trouble and combine my culinary blog with a restaurant review blog.

Hope to have more followers this way..

And someday I will be more famous than HECTOR the food blogger (snigger)


Makan Place: Bee Heong Palace Restaurant (美香酒楼)




Not to be confused with: Beng Hiang Restaurant (茗香菜馆。。to be reviewed next time) or Bee Cheng Hiang (Bak Kwa)



Location: 134 Telok Ayer Street (Singapore)

GPS says: It's to down the road from Thiam Hock Keng Temple

Nearest MRT: Tanjong Pagar

URA Parking adequate on parallel lots

Date of visit: 4 Dec 08

Context: Lunch with 4 ex-colleagues, including a visitor from Vietnam



Type of Cuisine: Hokkien but I give a traditional rating of 4/10.. very modern but it's not a bad thing



Dishes Ordered:


1. Five Spice Hei Zhor or Prawn Rolls (五香虾枣）

Dip with Sweet sauce and chilli sauce, served with pickled vegetables

Rating: 7.5/10


A small order came with 3 rolls. 1 traditional normal roll and 2 peanut coated rolls


The traditional roll was no surprise, the fillings were generous with pork and peanut. Slight hint of water chestnut. Overall well-marinated and tasty. Skin was crispy and well-fried while meat fillings was succulent and moist. Comes a close 2nd to the one at Jalan Besar (泉馨园).


The modified version with peanut coating is a delight for a nut lover like myself, but might be a tad too adventurous for a traditionalist. The peanut coating takes away the shine from the well marinated fillings, which does not overpower you with five spice powder.


Vietnamese colleague enjoyed it, which is respectable as Vietnamese cha gio can give it a run for its money.




2. Duck Salad
Tangy plum sauce on jellyfish and roast duck skin
Rating: 7/10


Interesting twist to the normal duck tale from Beng Ting or Beng Hiang

Think their salad dressing is more plummy (tastes like Teochew raw fish salad dressing) and a greater kick.

Jellyfish was chewy and Q. Duck skin was crispy. A yummy and appetizing starter.

3. Fish Maw Thick Soup (鱼鳔羹)
Those thick starchy sweet and sour soup with fish maw bits in it.
Cheap version of shark's fin
Rating: 4/10

Didn't enjoy this. Had better. Can't taste the fish maw at all and soup was way too starchy. Overcome that with more vinegar and pepper to make it more like a 酸辣汤

4. Blanched Kailan

Standard fare with garlic. Good control of fire, vegetables were still crunchy and not too soggy.
Rating: 6/10

5. Black Hokkien Mee

What's a Hokkien meal without the black Hokkien mee. Although I think the KL version rocks with the pork lard and all, the Singapore version does seem more well-balanced and less oily. Served with seafood (prawns, squid) and meat pieces and chye sim bits
Rating: 6/10

This restaurant's version doesn't quite have the oompf. Tastes sprightly enough but not enough to have you take a second bowl after all the dishes afore-mentioned. Reasonable servings of seafood, meat and garnishings, but sauce lacks character (try 泉馨园 for instance).

6. Dessert: White Fungus with Gingko Nuts (白木耳炖白果)

The place doesn't really do desserts when the first off their list is mango pudding. We took this as it was a hot day and they didn't even have a ready cold version. Adding ice cubes to the hot dessert was a mistake. Ended up lukewarm.
Rating: 3/10

Gingko nuts weren't sweet or crunchy enough. Felt a bit 漏风 IMHO. Perhaps expiring kekeke.
Give desserts a skip unless you desperately need a sugar rush.

Service: Adequate, staff (mainly PRC Chinese) checks in regularly on you (refill tea, replaces dishes), bilingual. 1 gripe is they don't leave the tea pot on the table. So during busy spells, you might go thirsty for a while. They also charge for additional peanuts (grump).

Price per pax: $17 (would be less if you skipped the dessert)

Overall rating is 6.5/10

Value for money rating is 8/10.. not many air-conditioned places nowadays can let you have 5+1 dishes for $17 per head. Definitely a place to consider if you are in the area. However, not top of my list when choosing a Hokkien restaurant.

Might want to try their Braised Pork Buns (扣肉包) and special braised pork leg amongst the usual Hokkien dishes that they recommend.

Interesting that they serve their tea in ingot tea cups. It's not very ergonomically designed but yeah, fanciful.. much aligned to their modernised overtones to traditional food.

Kudos to them for being creative. But I'm a deep traditionalist when it comes to 家常菜, hence I would tend to be a bit more harsh.