Yong Kee Seafood Restaurant 荣记海鲜火锅菜馆 At 43 Jalan Besar

by tbtool March 16, 2022

It is not very often that my children and I eat out together as their working commitments aren’t negotiable. I was happy as a lark the night before when they suggested dinner

I have mentioned before that Tian Tian Seafood Restaurant’s a must-eat *Cze Char place for us whenever we come home (Singapore) during school vacations when we were living in Melbourne. Now being rainy season in Singapore, eating steamboat is like having a pie-in-the-sky!

Our appointment was to meet at 239 Outram Road around 7.30pm but the sudden downpour changed our dinner plans. It would be difficult to get a cab on a rainy day for one thing, and with the other being that Tian Tian’s alfresco dining has no awning and sheltered seating area is quite limited. I told the girls via our group chat that it would be ridiculous to insist on having din-din at Tian Tian’s on a Saturday night.

Valerie was still in a meeting at 7.20pm when Vanessa was already in the train. They left me to decide the “ideal” restaurant. Haiz…

Danny mention this place while we were driving past Little India towards North Bridge Road that night. He said to go into Little India, Serangoon Road, and turn right into Upper Dickson Road, a one way street, and cruise till the end of the throughway to reach the other side of the grid at Jalan Besar Road. The kopitiam would be on my right. He gave me no name of the kopitiam, no name for the prawn noodle stall and he had no name to the cze char stall as well. I was banking on arriving there before giving the girls their ride’s direction. Clueless me would have to arrive earlier to suss out a koitiam cze char with a 24-hour prawn noodle stall in it…

yong kee seafood restaurant 9531 — Crispy Vermicelli 烧焦米粉 – S$6 (small). Nicknamed as Chao Ta Bee Hoon which translates to Burnt Rice Vermicelli. The rice stick noodle patty isn’t burnt but pan-fried till very crisp on one side. The fluffy vermicelli on the underside made this dish special. There were seafood as secondary ingredients in them, too. Lovely!

yong kee seafood restaurant 9540 — Preserved Beancurd Pork Belly 南乳炸花肉 – S$10 (small). Came with a sweet and savoury brown dipping sauce. A tad on the dry side but perhaps that’s the nature of this deep-fried dish. I would prefer a juicier inside even though the meat was tender. One consolation was the pork didn’t have offensive gamey smell or taste.

yong kee seafood restaurant 9529 — Nai Bai Cai 乃白菜 – S$10. Stir-fried and garnished with crispy fried haebee (dried shrimps). Absolutely gorgeous! The not-so-oily vegetables were crunchy with no bitter aftertaste. The crisp dried shrimps weren’t overly salty. Good texture and taste combination.

yong kee seafood restaurant 9543 — Deep-fried Cod 油浸鳕鱼 – S$25 (small).
4 generous-sized pieces of cod deep-fried till crisp garnished with spring onions and loads of golden-fried ginger julienne.
I found it a little to dry (luckily they were cod so more fatty and managed to retain some moist) but the children loved this.
Ryan liked the sauce which was oyster-flavoured.

yong kee seafood restaurant 9548 — Chilli Crabs 辣椒炒蟹 – S$27.50. The crustacean wasn’t Sri Lankan Crab so it was not very meaty. However, the flesh was firm (good) and the egg ribboned sauce was spicy and sweet in the right proportion. Ryan loves crab and I asked him how he would rate this dish. He said it was one of the better tasting ones he’d had so far.

yong kee seafood restaurant 9559 — Deep-fried Mantou 馒头 – S$3 (for 6 that’s the smallest offering). A last minute order to mop up the gravy of Chilli Crab and the Salted Egg Yolk Sauce from the Prawn dish. A mantou is a mantou! So long as the buns weren’t overly scorched, they will taste good. After all, its function is to mop gravies.

yong kee seafood restaurant 9557 — Food becomes tastier when we order in small portions and are “fighting” for them