Food Review 2009 #2 - Golden Spoon Restuarant

OH! I just realised that this is the only 2nd published food review for this year! Well, I had some drafts but delayed them so much that I forgot how the dishes tasted like, so I can't really comment much on them...haiz... I know, I'm a BIG procrastinator!

Anyway, back to this review... I live near the Tiong Bahru area, a quaint little neighbourhood which has alot of yummy eateries. This time, my bro suggested we go for a new restaurant opened in one of the small lanes near the Tiong Bahru Market. The owners of this restaurant were formerly from Jumbo Seafood Restaurant, and I read rave reviews about them, so without any hesitation, I agreed to his suggestion. Surabaya Chicken : This dish rocks! I had no idea how the chicken was prepared when I was reading the menu. In fact, I was really curious how the dish actually looks like as it was called "dirty chicken" in Chinese in the menu! And the waitress explained to me that it's a very special dish and there's nothing "dirty" in it. LOL... when the dish finally arrived, I was pleasantly surprised. It's a deep fried chicken and those golden strips you see in the image are dried cuttlefish! Paired with a sweet dark sauce (tasted like kecap manis) it's PERFECT! I just couldn't stop eating.Stir-fried Baby French Beans : This were crunchy! Lightly flavoured and this is the first time I had baby french beans.One of their signature dish, Hae Zhor : Crisp beancurd skin, fresh and juicy insides. I can actually taste the crunchiness of the prawn paste. This is truly well-done! One of the best hae-zhor I had eaten. Thumbs-up!

Steamed Fish : This is "Ang goh-li" fish. It was steamed just right! and generously sprinkled with chopped garlic and spring onions. Yums!Drunken prawns : The prawns were reallllllly fresh and the shell came off so easily! It's cooked just right but the only grouse I had was that the sizes of the prawns were a little small. The broth was so sweet and aromatic too!Sea Cucumber and mushroom stew : Quite ok. Nothing to shout about...Cripsy Beancurd : Another of their signature dish, this beancurd really took me by surprise! I was not expecting much I guess, but it's delicious! There were bits of century egg within the beancurd.. and I even spotted salted egg yolk! DH took a piece of it and was commenting that it's good and then realised that there's century eggs in it. He does not take century eggs at all but still managed to actually eat a piece of the beancurd without realising there's century eggs inside. And SIL, who doesn't take tofu or bean products, took 2 piece of this!Yam paste (orh-nee) in coconut : finally... dessert time! Actually I was already very full from all the food but I just can't say no to yam paste. It's my favouritest-tiest dessert! And when the waitress described this dessert to me, I was completely sold. BUT, I was really disappointed. This dessert did not deliver at all. Firstly, having the yam paste in the coconut doesn't do anything at all to add to the flavour. Then the portion is really small (as in there's so pathetically little yam paste in the coconut). And then as you can see in the image, the yam paste spotted a really funny brownish colour instead of the purplish colour yam paste should have. Boy.. I'm so disappointed! What a way to mark the end of a nice meal. Darn...Anyway, out of 10, I'll give this restaurant a 8 (just make sure you don't order the yam paste as dessert :P), then I'm sure you'll enjoy yr meal. Price-wise, they are very reasonable. We spent around SGD25/head.

One of walls in the restaurant.... the many trophies and awards they received.