Dinner at Keng Eng Kee, Singapore
- leonorajansen
- Jul 19, 2014
- 3 min read
Since I've been back in Singapore we haven't gone for a family dinner yet (this means full family - grandma, aunt/uncle, cousins, etc.). Being half Singaporean and never having had Chilli Crab before, it was time for me to finally try it. My cousin had eaten at Keng Eng Kee, a Zi Char - Chinese Coffee shop that serves wallet-friendly homestyle Chinese food - before and so he suggested we try it. We ordered a lot of food, too much I'd say, but it all was very good. We ordered the Mingzhu Roll, which is a specialty from this place. It's fried Tau Pok stuffed with egg yolk, prawn, ham, mushroom and parsley and served with some form of mayo. The picture I took was blurry, so it isn't shown here, but to be honest I found the dish kind of strange and wouldn't really recommend it.
One of our family favourites, Sweet and Sour Pork was a must. The pork here is nice and crunchy and I really enjoyed how there were more vegetables than usual.
For vegetables we had the Sambal Kang Kong, which was good. But I think the amount of sambal was a bit too much, which made it a bit to oily.
We also had another favorite, Kailan with Garlic. The Kailan was really good and was finished within minutes. We ordered another portion of this, but found that the second portion wasn't as tasty as the one before. My brother remarked that it might be lacking garlic. (sorry for the slightly blurry picture)
It was then time for the highlights of the evening, the CRABS. We ordered two types, the first was Chilli Crab. Being my first Chilli Crab experience I was ready to dig in, I must say I really liked it. The Chilli Crab might have had a little too much egg white. Knowing that the sauce usually contains peanut, my cousin had specifically asked for a non-peanut version, since my brother is allergic. But once I tasted the sauce I immediately tasted the peanut. Slightly worrying that they claimed that it didn't have any peanut. And since we didn't want to risk it, my brother couldn't get to try it. Such a shame.
The second was the Salted Egg Yolk Crab, which is a signature dish of this Zi Char, and I don't think you can find it on any other menu. Once I tasted it, I was completely won over, and may, admitedly, like this one better than the Chili Crab. It was slightly sweeter in taste and the salted egg was just scrumptious.
Of course we needed to have the buns to go with the crab to dip in the sauce. Usually you'd get the fried Mantou to go with them, but here at Keng Eng Kee they are the steamed ones. This disappointed the majority of the family, but I didn't mind so much since they were so light, soft and fluffy. Still a great vessel to scoop all the sauce.
Another dish we always order is the Claypot Tofu. The egg tofu here was nice and silky smooth and the sauce was really tasty. I really enjoyed how the sauce wasn't starchy thick for a change.
Another dish we ordered, for which I don't have a picture, is the claypot pig liver. I also wouldn't know anything to say about it since I didn't try it, because I don't like liver. Some of the last dishes to come were a whole steamed Soon Hock - Fish. The fish was very fresh and silky smooth, a good choice.
Last dish of the night was Fried Mee Sua - a type of Noodles.The noodles on the other hand was disappointing. When it first arrived my grandma was the first to taste and she said it was too salty, so it was sent back. When we received the replacement it seemed like they left off all form of seasoning, since it had no taste whatsoever. Very disappointing.
Overall I really enjoyed the dinner, it was especially nice to see the whole family together again. Although my one cousin and my dad are missing, since they're abroad. When they're back, we'll definitely need to have a complete family dinner.