Dinner at Chopsuey Cafe, Singapore
- leonorajansen
- Apr 1, 2015
- 3 min read
My last dinner before flying back to Rotterdam, was at one of our (newly-found) family favorites. Chopsuey Cafe, serves fusion food. It's a modern/Western take on traditional Chinese food, and though fusion can often go very wrong, they've managed to find a nice balance. Sorry for the somewhat saturated/yellow coloring of the pictures, the lighting in the restaurant isn't very good.
We always order two baskets of this appetizer. Crispy Duck POW! Pockets - shredded duck confit & pulled roasted duck filled soft white buns served with a warmed sweet bean sauce. These buns are exquisite and the sauce is addicting. The different textures of duck are interesting and the buns are perfectly soft and fluffy. I would come here just to eat that.
The first of the mains was the Szechuan Pepper Chilli Chicken - wok-fried chicken tenders in blackened dried chilli, garlic flower, tofu, pickled radish & ginger, mushrooms and cashews in a peppery szechuan sauce. The sauce on this chicken was nice and sticky and the chicken tenders, were indeed tender.
As a vegetable dish we had the Stirfried Crunchy Leafy Greens - chinese kale & baby chard stirfried with whole baby garlic, white pepper and rice wine. This dish was disappointing. Usually asian stirfried vegetables are always good, but this one lacked flavor and was very watery. Not really something we'd go for in the future.
A much better choice for vegetables is the Szechuan String Beans with Minced Chicken - green beans topped with crispy crunchy shallots, shrimp, garlic, spices & minced chicken. This dish is very tasty, the beans are still nice and crunchy. The seasoning on the minced chicken is very tasty and addicting, so we couldn't stop going back for more.
This was a special on their menu and was their take on a Tahu Telor, Crispy Tofu Tower - layers of fried organic tofu and eggs topped with a salad and pineapple compote. At first my mum refused to order this because she couldn't understand how it could be any good, or any better than the one that we have at the Indonesian restaurant. After much convincing she let me order it, and upon tasting it she was glad we did. It was interesting since it wasn't like the traditional one and the homemade pineapple compote was nicely done. Luckily, I pushed for this, otherwise we would've missed out.
Our final main were the Numbing Pork Ribs - slow braised pork ribs, wok-fried with our house chilli sauce, coated with crushed szechuan pepper corns and topped with green mango salad. The meat just falls off the ribs, and the coating is just addicting. It's one of the dishes we order every time we come here to eat.
As dessert we got the Steamed Golden Banana Pudding with Fresh Coconut and Palm Sugar served with Vanilla Bean Ice Cream. This one doesn't look very special, but the pudding is nice and moist on the inside and the fresh coconut and gula melaka add a nice dimension to it. Sometimes simplicity is best.
Our meal at Chopsuey was another successful one, and slowly it has become one of my family's go to restaurants for our family dinners. Although the prices are a little more steeper than what you would pay for the traditional versions of certain dishes, the spin that they have on the food makes it unique and definitely worth it. Looking forward to my next visit here.