Entree Kibbles: Kok Sen Restaurant - A Michelin Bib Gourmand Establishment @ Keong Saik Road [Chinatown, Singapore]

Sunday, November 18, 2018

Kok Sen Restaurant - A Michelin Bib Gourmand Establishment @ Keong Saik Road [Chinatown, Singapore]

Ever since my car was scrapped in 2016, the reduced convenience has resulted in me preferring to spend my weekends at home rather than going out. Hence, when my brother in law offered to drive us to Keong Saik Road for lunch after Kusu Island, i embraced the opportunity!

Known to be the next hip place after Tiong Bahru, i am glad to have so many models coming together for me to shoot this photo! In actual fact, the restaurant we wanted to patronize wouldn't be open for another 10 minutes and photo-taking is an effective way to keep the kids busy.

At noon, the restaurant pulled up its shutters. Frankly, i have no idea what this Kok Sen Restaurant served but my elder sister had dined there on two occasions with her colleagues and thought the food would be well-liked by my parents.

I only knew after my meal that this kopitiam-like establishment is a Michelin Bib Gourmand restaurant! To be totally honest, i don't really quite care but in the era of the social media; we apparently need this to create attention even though i still don't know how to do it. Haha.

According to Joyce, reservation is strongly recommended even though the eatery spreads across two different pre-war shop-houses and it wasn't that crowded when our group of 7 were there on a Sunday afternoon. p.s. the section we were allocated had, thankfully, air-conditioning.

Now, let's check out the food!

Claypot Yong Tau Foo - deep fried and then braised; this was said to be a must-order and it's apparent that almost every table in the restaurant had one.

Soaked in a pot of delicious, savoury broth, the pieces of yong tau foo were stuffed generously with fish-paste filling that tasted more like prawns! It's definitely worth its thumbs-up logo on the menu.

Golden Dragon Chicken - i thought the name sounded familiar and when this served-only-on-weekend dish appeared in front of me; i knew where i last had this novel dish. It's in Malaysia and i had it about ten years ago.

Good thing about the dish; it has no bones. However, instead of meat, you get a layer of fish paste underneath the lightly crisp roasted skin. As with the Malaysia's version, this was addictive and easy to over-indulge with the sweet dip.

Cereal Butter Squid - from the picture, i doubt you would even know the seafood was squid. Batter was too thick; resulting in weak crispiness and poor batter-squid ratio. I could hardly taste the squid and i think it's better to eat just the cereals, mixed with plain rice.

Deep Fried Grouper with Broccoli - i enjoyed the moist, juiciness of the deep fried grouper but there's an issue; it was on the bland side and it might be best to let the fish soak in the sauce a bit more before you dig into it. Do note that this is not on the menu.

Big Prawns Hor Fun - in addition to the claypot yong tau foo, this was another popular dish ordered by many diners! Visually, it looked like our typical horfun yet there's something not quite right here.

Have you noticed it yet? Not the big prawns as it's not uncommon to find prawns in horfun. Give you a hint, it's the sauce. Don't you think the sauce resembles that of chilli crab?

In reality, the taste was a perfect fusion between a good plate of hor fun (that's surrounded with wok hei) and chilli crab (yes, it's pretty spicy)! I especially love the large amount of deep-fried shallots scattered over the dish! Prawns were of decent size and fresh; how i wish they were de-shelled beforehand.

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Literally stuffed. Would i be back again? Maybe only for the Big Prawns Hor Fun and Claypot Yong Tau Foo as they were the best out of the lot and overall pricing was a bit too steep for my wallet.

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