Keng Eng Kee Seafood – A Promising Start

Walked past Keng Eng Kee Restaurant for years and never once had the urge to dine there. Perhaps I was confused by what I saw: an air-con room without an attached kitchen and a cze char stall a few meters away that I much later learned were, in fact, two parts of a single restaurant.

Having said that, my foodie friends were talking about this restaurant of late, and I had read some favorable reviews of it on the Net; so I decided to give it a go. The prices on the menu shocked me in a very pleasant way. They were cheap, and cost the same if you had dined in the air-con room (so I was told) -- if you could get a table there.

The first dish that arrived at our table was, in fact, the first photo to catch my eye on the menu. Pearl Roll or明珠卷 in Chinese, looked good and sounded poetic. Deep-fried bean curd skin with salted egg yolk, ham and mushroom, the dish was visually attractive and I liked the crispy skin. The inclusion of ham was odd though, and didn't help the taste much, but it made a nice starter, and, at least, was eye candy.

For those who long for the taste of home cooking, the second dish was it -- a very straightforward version of sweet & sour pork! Unfussy, uncomplicated, and easy to replicate, just like mum’s cooking. The only nitpick I had with the dish was that its batter was a bit too soggy for my taste, but hey, not all mothers cook like a chef.

The next dish was by far the one I enjoyed most. Cuttlefish Kang Kong doesn't require much cooking, but the sweet sauce is key. The sauce served here was delicious but it tasted familiar. A final drop of white wine before leaving the kitchen would have made it perfect. However, I noticed another version of this dish featured in the post of one of our leading food bloggers, but his raving review of the dish obviously differs from mine. Do I detect a double standard here? Hmmmmm…..

The next dish got me thinking: Maybe it's the quality of pork available, but is getting a good Claypot Liver in Sg as difficult as looking for an attractive guy who isn't gay? One of the best efforts I’ve tasted thus far belonged to Manhill Restaurant. I was told the chef at Keng Eng Kee was a lad of 30 or so, and that he took pains to work at his wok technique. His mastery of heat control showed in the perfect ‘doneness’ of the liver. However, the liver slices were insufficiently uniform and were definitely too thin such that they lacked bite. I only wished the chef could have lavished as much time and effort on the knife as he did on the wok. It would have made him more rounded as a traditional Chinese kitchen master. He should have been more generous with the ginger and Chinese wine too.

The finale was a dish I was so looking forward to – Moonlight Hor Fun or 月光河粉. To begin with it was a dish that never fails to receive raves on the Net, and deservedly so. Secondly I had been on the hunt for a truly good specimen of it ever since the famous stall at Zion Food Center closed. Maybe I had set my hopes too high, but what I was served was utterly disappointing. The dish was lukewarm, with a raw egg nestled in the middle of hor fun that lacked any wok hei – and this from a chef who was known to be good at ‘throwing smoke’. The lack of heat in the dish actually raised the specter of Salmonella in my mind as I tossed the noodles.

Keng Eng Kee is a restaurant I would gladly return to, but it has its its rough edges, some glaringly so. The chef has much of his career ahead of him, and would do well to take all the accolades hurled his way, in stride. He obviously has a lot to learn, but his heart, as far as cooking is concerned, is in the right place.  

Keng Eng Kee Seafood

Blk 124 Bukit Merah Lane 1

#01-136

Singapore

Telephone: 6272 1038

Reputation – Bane or Blessing? A Visit to Desmond’s Creation

Chef Desmond Chia needs no introduction. He was one of two sons of the founder of Sik Wai Sin, one of the most reputable zi char restaurants in Singapore, famous for its limited but well-executed Cantonese menu. Diners were known to brave the heat at the non-air-conditioned Sik Wai Sin, waiting hours for a superb “home-cooked” meal. And while his brother presided over the steamed dishes at the restaurant, Desmond was the “man behind the fiery wok”, honing his skills with fried dishes for 13 years.

So when Chef Desmond decided to open his own restaurant, Desmond’s Creation, I had high expectations of it. I arrived at 11.45 am sharp – the opening time shown on their official operating hours; the shutter was down, finally opening at 11.55 am.

It soon became obvious that Desmond ran a tight three-person operation -- two men including himself in the kitchen and a woman manning the dining room. To their credit, and my amazement, things proceeded smoothly throughout the busy lunch hour and food was served without hiccups.

It was also instantly obvious that Desmond was not a risk-taking chef. The menu remained small and 99% of the dishes were “imported” from Sik Wai Sin. My hopes rose even higher upon seeing this, as I reckoned that nothing could possibly go wrong with such a small number of dishes – dishes that the chef had cooked for umpteen years.

The first dish to arrive was Braised Black Bean Pork Rib with Bitter Gourd. Usually, the black bean paste would be well sauted with the meat, and then with the vegetable. Here, I tasted nothing of the “fragrance” of a well-fried dish; it felt like the whole dish had been braised without undergoing fire.

Fried Beef Kailan, which came next, was decent. The vegetable was well fried and perfumed with “wok hei”. The downside was that some beef was cut not across the grain, leaving it a little on the tough side. Also, it would have been perfect had the chef sprinkled on a dash of Chinese wine before serving.

When we were ordering and had asked for tofu, the woman told us bluntly that this dish would come with “big” prawns. I suppose that was how restaurants maneuvered to increase revenue; I also got the impression that those who ate at Desmond’s Creation didn’t mind paying for slightly more “premium” food. Either way, the prawns proved over-cooked and hard. To make the matters worse the tofu was over-fried too. What we ended up with was a plate of hard prawns, dry tofu and diluted gravy.

Steamed Minced Pork with Salted Fish was a personal favourite of mine since I was a kid. In Chef Desmond’s version, he hand-chopped the pork, and this alone earned him loads of brownie points in my book. The glitch in the dish, however, was that he over-mixed the meat, causing the protein to over-bind and making the meat hard rather than crunchy.

But my biggest problem with this dish was the salted fish used. As noted earlier, since the customers were prepared to pay slighter more for their food, Chef Desmond should have opted for better-quality salted fish. The best salted fish (梅香马鲛鱼) for this dish would have been Spanish mackerel aged between 10 months and 3 years. The fish would be prepared by salting and sun-drying it for another 2 years minimum, which would leave the flesh slightly pink near the bones and with a pungent and ‘fleshy’ scent.

Even the portion of the salted fish that Chef Desmond used was too small for the amount of pork in the dish. The salted fish should have been of an amount sufficient to pervade thoroughly the meat and gravy during steaming. In the end, I could only detect a whiff of fish when the plate first landed on the table, and when I actually ate the salted fish itself.

Another downer was the Sweet & Sour Pork. The meat morsels were too small, slightly burnt, and too thickly coated with batter.  The sensation was of eating sweet & sour pork -- in its vegetarian version.

Steamed Fresh Carp with Bean Paste was the best dish of the meal. It was brilliantly executed -- Chef Desmond timed to perfection the cooking of the fish, and the bean paste was well balanced with a cocktail of sourness, sweetness, and savouriness.

These were dishes I had grown up eating from zi char stalls all across Singapore; so, like I said, I had high expectations. Perhaps too high. Perhaps by going it alone when he did, the chef bit off more than he could chew; perhaps his skills and experience fell a little short of his dreams. Perhaps.

Desmond’s Creation or Sik Bao Sin

592 Geylang Road

Singapore

Telephone: 6744 3757

Hainanese Pork Chops As I Remember It

Personally, I feel that one of the greatest inventions by the Singapore Hainanese chefs is Hainanese Pork Chops. From the European households whom most of the chefs worked for, they learnt how to use foreign sauces such as HP sauce, Lea & Perrins sauce, and the wonders of roux as thickener in making sauces.

While the British were used to apple sauce and mustard as accompaniments to their pork chops, the Hainanese substituted these with HP sauce and Lea & Perrins, as they agreed better with their taste buds.

Over the years, Hainanese pork chops would undergo further changes to make it even more appealing to the Chinese rather than the Caucasians. That included the use of ketchup as the key ingredient in the sauce. And bread crumbs or Jacob’s crumbs – one of the original ingredients – also disappeared from the recipe in most restaurants.

The recipe I’m trying to replicate here is much closer to the version I was brought up on in the 60s, the version that was served at most coffee houses and Hainanese restaurants.

Hainanese Pork Chops

Pork chop                                           6 slices, about ¾ cm thick each

Flour                                                    2 cups

Egg                                                      2, lightly beaten

Bread crumbs/ Jacob’s crumbs            2 cups

Oil                                                       3 cups

Potato                                                  2, cut into chunks

Mixed vegetables                                1 cup

Marinade:

Oyster sauce                                       1 tbsp

HP sauce                                             ½ tsp

Pepper                                                 ¼ tsp

Corn flour                                           1 tsp

Sauce:

Butter                                                   3 tbsp

AP flour                                               3 tbsp

HP sauce                                             4 tbp

Lea & Perrins                                       3 tbsp

Meat stock                                           ¼ cup

Pepper                                                 a dash

Salt                                                      ¼ tsp

Sugar                                                   2 tbsp

Method:

1.    Use a heavy mallet to break up the muscle fibers of the pork chops.

2.    Rub marinade into the pork and chill for at least 30 mins.

3.    Dust pork chops with flour, soak the meat thoroughly with egg mixture, dust with bread crumbs. Put it aside to rest for 5 minutes. This step will prevent excessive crumbs from falling off the meat during deep frying.

4.    Deep fry pork chops until both sides turn golden brown. Drain off the oil and slice into ½ cm thick. Place it on the serving plate.

5.    Boil potato until it is cooked. Drain and shake off the water completely. This step will create uneven surfaces on the potato, which will give the chips extra crisp. Deep fry the potato chips until golden brown. Drain and transfer to the serving plate.

6.    Pour sauce generously over the pork chops and serve immediately.

Sauce:

1.    Melt butter over medium heat. Saute mixed vegetables for 1 min.

2.    Add flour and cook for another 1 to 2 mins to create a roux.

3.    Add the rest of the sauce ingredients gradually and whisk until the sauce thickens.

4.    The sauce should not be too thick. If it is too thickened, add some stock to dilute it. Adjust the taste with salt and sugar.

5.    Set aside and keep warm.

Tian Qi – No Monkeying Around

I was introduced to Tian Qi, a Chinese herb, when I hit puberty. This was a period where I would, literally, grow by centimeters when I hit the sack. Yes, we humans only grow when we sleep. And this herb was believed to help the body to generate and regenerate new cells for growth.

There was a legend about how Tian Qi was discovered. A monkey was once badly injured by a villager. After several days however, the monkey was seen to have made great progress in recovery. The villager decided to trail the monkey and spied it digging some roots to eat. After the monkey left, he dug up the root and took it home. And that was how Tian Qi came to be a frequently prescribed medicine among traditional Chinese physicians to this day.

The herb is usually used in conjunction with Ginseng, because it is believed that Ginseng is great for improving “qi” or energy while Tian Qi delivers benefits to the blood and bones.

I wasn’t the only one taking this herb; my pets loved it too. I would grind the herb into powder and mix it into their food, and I was convinced that Tian Qi helped heal my animals’ cuts and wounds faster.

As I grew older, I would often boil the herb according to the recipe below. Tian Qi is also known to stabilize blood pressure and prevent stroke.  I would add pork trotter and chicken feet to further supplement the collagen in my body. Tian Qi is easily available from Chinese medical shops.

Tian Qi & Ginseng Soup

Tian Qi (田七)                      10 g, sliced thinly

Ginseng (泡参)                    20 g, sliced thinly

Pork trotter                           500 g

Chicken feet                          300 g

Chicken                                   400 g

Honey dates                         6

Chinese yam                        250 g, cut into chunks

Water                                      4 litres

Salt                                           2 tsp

1.          Put both Chinese herbs in a cloth bag. Secure the opening tightly.

2.          Blanch pork trotter, chicken feet and chicken for 5 minutes. Drain and rinse meat under tap water.

3.          Add Chinese herbs, honey dates and Chinese yam in a pot of water. Bring to boil.

4.          Add meat and boil for 10 minutes. Lower heat and simmer for 2 hours.

5.          Season soup with salt.

6.          Serve hot.