Entree Kibbles: Feng Taiwanese Food - Winner for Singapore Food Masters 2018 and 2019 @ Northpoint City Mall [Yishun, Singapore] #northpoint

Sunday, October 18, 2020

Feng Taiwanese Food - Winner for Singapore Food Masters 2018 and 2019 @ Northpoint City Mall [Yishun, Singapore] #northpoint

Feng Food, offering Taiwanese cuisine, started operations at Yishun's Northpoint City Mall for almost three years and I had never once patronized it until I started noticing, after the circuit breaker (to counter the spread of COVID-19), the queue outside the eatery.

Finally got to arrange for an early lunch with my mom to check out the restaurant and the first things that caught my attention on the menu were the Singapore Food Masters logos! In the past when I still had a car, I would actually purposely seek out the nominated eateries listed on the annual Singapore Food Masters.

With just two of us, I can't be too liberal with our order; hence, just five items of which two were beverages. I love such order list where the chef recommendation labels were clearly indicated next to the food / drink.

Taiwanese Roselle Tea and Brown Sugar Caramel Pearl Milk Tea - hot one for mom whereas I would continue to pretend to be the youngling craving for sweet stuff. No much to complain about the roselle tea which had a strong fruity sourness. My milk tea was bland in the beginning until I realized I forgot to stir up the brown sugar on the bottom! So delicious although some pearls were too hard; p.s. expect a sugar high.

Hakka Style Braised Meat Rice - nowadays, loroufan is something I can't resist not ordering whenever I am at a Taiwanese restaurant! Provided it's on the menu of course.

From its appearance, there didn't seem to be any difference from the luroufan I had elsewhere although it's labelled as a hakka-style. A lot of expectations here for a winner of Singapore Food Masters 2018 and 2019.

It didn't impress as I always like my braised meat rice to veer on the sweeter side; the meat here was more savoury with a relatively stronger pork flavour. A pity as well that the preserved vegetables failed to work up an appetite, as they usually would.

Moon Shape Prawn Cake - I guess many people would wonder if this would be an equivalent to the Crispy Golden Prawn Pancake at Din Tai Feng when they saw it on the menu. It's incomparable as the one at Din Tai Feng is just epic!

This one from Feng Food had other fillers like carrots and likely flour. And did you did realize that it's obviously not moon-shaped?! Nonetheless, there's one element that stood out from Din Tai Feng's version; the accompanying chilli dip which was chockablock full of garlic and sugar with a dash of vinegar! Darn, I think this chilli would go well with most things!

Guan Miao Noodles Soup with Marinated Pork Chop - I was keen to try both the interesting looking guan miao noodle (specialty of Taiwan's Tainan area) and the pork chop and this option gave me the best of both worlds!

Now, this special noodle had a unique wavy shape and said to be handmade using traditional sun drying method with no added coloring and preservatives. To the untrained taste buds like mine, unfortunately, it tasted like mee hoon kueh and which is not the kind of noodles I like. Broth was also too light for my liking.

Marinated pork chop was lightly seasoned even though the highlight was more the tenderness of the meat which was optimally fried without the toughness. And of course, they went so well with the chilli dip! p.s. I requested for extra from the service staff member, who happily obliged.

=====

What we had were just a fraction of what were available on the menu and while I wasn't too impressed with the luroufan and the guanmian noodle (soup); the food were quite reasonably priced with good service. You bet I would be there soon, to check out other dishes!