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.

莲藕花生排骨汤 - Lotus Root with Peanuts and Spare Ribs Soup

Welcome Friends, to my new cookblog!

Just like a cookbook, it is meant to confuse you enough to make you attempt to re-create the dishes featured.

I have labelled each recipe into different categories and I might from time to time, vary the cooking methods according to seasons or if new ingredients are found :)

Let's start off with something simple... a soup

Yeah, just throw everything in can already... just remember to watch the fire.

莲藕花生排骨汤 - Lotus Root with Peanuts and Spare Ribs Soup

Serves: 4-6, or 1 for 4-6 lonely nights

Physical assets needed:

1 good deep metal pot that is not rusted, 1 ladle to scoop and stir, vegetable knife, paring knife or pen

Meats:

1kg spare ribs or mix of spare ribs and pork ribs (already butchered and with slightly bits of fat)

1 dried cuttlefish (cut into small pieces)

4-6 conpoys

Plants:
2 lotus root tubers (skinned and sliced into edible rings, between 4-5cm thick)*

4-6 red dates

200g deshelled peanuts (those used to cook soup from the dried goods section)

Condiments and Sauces:

Salt, Pepper

Light and Dark Soy Sauce

Sesame Seed Oil

Cooking wine

Stock (optional)

POTABLE WATER

Preparation method:

1. Wash ingredients thoroughly, especially if you do not want soiled soup. Root vegetables like their mud. I am a keen advocate of soaking everything in salt. It removes pesticides and chemicals that do not quite agree with our digestive system.

2. Season pork ribs with sesame seed oil (1 teasp), light and dark soya (1 tablesp), dash of cooking wine and pepper

3. Boil half a pot of water using big fire, as well as a kettle of water.

4. Use a bit of boiling kettle water to blanch the pork ribs, this apparently makes the taste less porky

5. Pour ribs into half pot of boiling water, turn to medium fire

6. Add red dates, cuttlefish and conpoy and stock (if you want) and bring down to slow fire

7. Wait for water to boil, then add peanuts and lotus roots.

8. After water boils again, top up water to brim of pot and add soy sauce or salt to bring it to taste

9. Continue boiling on small fire for 1-1.5 hours. You can also use a slow cooker if you have one. However, I find that gas stove is good enough if you cook in the morning and reheat it a few times before dinner. The soup should have just enough taste and flavour.

*You might encounter tiny roots, be patient and pluck away. Anyways, as the saying goes 藕断丝连, they can be pretty persistent. A little bit of the root skin tastes pretty good too, so wash thoroughly

Recommended method of eating:

- A decent home-cooked dinner must have soup, whether you are Cantonese or not

- Tastes better each time you bring it to a boil

- For hot days when you need the cooling effects of lotus roots