Gourmet Garden looks like a suburban Chinese restaurant but among the everyday Anglo-Chinese offerings, its menu features a wide selection of dishes from Malaysia and Singapore. Most of these are Malaysian Chinese with the odd Malay dish.
My favourite was the fried crab with sambal belachan. I've never crab prepared this way before despite belachan, a pungent fermented shrimp paste, being a common ingredient in Straits cuisine.
Frying belachan with chilli, minced garlic, shallot paste and sugar makes sambal belachan, the basis of the gravy in this dish. And what a gravy, already fiery and shrimpy, it was further enhanced by a generous helping of dried shrimps (har mai); an ideal accompaniment to the perfectly cooked sweet fresh crab.
Gourmet Garden's boss explained that as well as being their signature dish; this style of crab was quite unique to her restaurant as it was their very own creation. Served as an intermediate course, it was the highlight of the evening. Looking back, I should've asked whether they could've rustled up some deep fried Chinese buns (mantou) to dip into this rich gravy.
My favourite starter was the Teochew ngoh hiang, minced pork & prawns wrapped in beancurd skin then deep-fried. This was served sliced and was liberally laced with five-spice powder from which the dish's name is derived. Kweh pi tee are dainty crispy pastry cups filled with vegetables and topped with a prawn and these were OK. I wasn't that impressed by the achar but I'm not really a pickled vegetable kind of guy.
I fear that my impressions of the Hainanese chicken were spoiled by the memories of eating this dish in Singapore. This dish demands that the bird be just cooked and whilst it wasn't overcooked, it just didn't seem as juicy and moist as the chicken I tasted recently in Singapore.
The spice level of the rendang beef hadn't been dumbed down and it had a reassuringly kick to it. Unfortunately, the meat wasn't as tender as it should be but this is a common problem with 'slow-cooked' dishes in restaurants. I couldn't find fault with the kangkong (morning glory) but with hindsight, I would've preferred it stir-fried with belachan rather than fresh chilli & fermented beancurd.
There was plenty of prawns, chicken, fried tofu, fish balls, and noodles in the Singapore laksa. So it was quite ironic that this generosity spoiled the dish as the noodle-gravy balance was all wrong. With so much 'stuff', there wasn't enough laksa gravy to go round.
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