Soup Restaurant (三盅兩件)

I've eaten at Soup Restaurant infrequently throughout the past years. For some reasons, they have never been mentioned in this blog, so here's some thoughts.

Their samsui ginger chicken can be considered their mainstay dish. Poached chicken, lightly seasoned after cooking and served with their ginger sauce and lettuce. Lettuce which serves as wraps for the chicken. I quite like it, but I've never had it with the ginger sauce. As a testimony to their preparation, even the breast meat is tender.

Though the place is called Soup Restaurant, I've never thought much of their soup. In recent times, they've started offering coconut soup. Ingredients which are cooked with coconut juice. These are quite nice. The one above was featured with black chicken.

The standards of their sweet and sour pork varies, but the cut of the meat used is quite good. The fat is layered in the meat so there aren't any parts that are just isolated fat. The better outlets do pretty nice ones - crisp on the outside, reasonably tender meat and the sauce isn't overly sweet or excessive. In the other outlets they are......simply not mention worthy.

The vegetable dish which they are quite well known for are their stir fried sweet potato leaves. They taste like most Chinese stir fried greens.

I was introduced to their fried fish belly just this year. Often acknowledge as one of the best if not the best part of the fish. The fish belly is deep fried for a crisp exterior before a stir fry with the sauces which are kinda absorbed onto the surface of the fried fish. This stuff is pretty good.

Tofu. Rough on the outside, tender and smooth on the inside. Quite nice.

We tried their mushroom bao because it was curious. The buns were made to look like mushrooms - similar to the char siew bao from East Bistro. Soup Kitchen has up the ante by making even the stem of the mushrooms. They looked more like stubby knobs than actual stems. These are filled with chopped mushrooms.

Because there are a number of outlets, the cooking standards vary. I haven't visited much of them but if anyone were to ask me, I'd recommend the one at Toa Payoh Central.