braised pork ribs - 10/10i think that sometimes we are all guilty of associating fine dining with western cuisine. i'm sure that the first thoughts that come to your mind when the two words "fine dining" come out mostly relate to some sort of expensive pretty fusion/contemporary food in the tiniest of portions. to be honest, i'm quite guilty of that too. i mean i have had pretty good chinese cuisine, but i think that alot of times i subconsciously associate fine food to contemporary food. but si chuan dou hua restaurant really wiped that out of my mind.
si chuan dou hua restaurant is rated 3 stars by wine and dine. there are only 5 restaurants in singapore which are given three stars (crystal jade golden palace, gunther's, iggy's, jiang-nan chun and si chuan dou hua). these are thus supposed to represent the best of the best. to be honest, reading the review in wine and dine, i wasn't 100% enthusiastic about coming here. don't get me wrong. the food sounded fantastic, but i just never really had the appeal to sichuan cuisine. but actually, this restaurant serves a mix of both sichuan food and cantonese food, and they do it fantastically well.
five delicacies combination - 10/10 for the sliced pork with garlic chilli (top right)the restaurant is located in UOB Plaza, at raffles place. its on the 60th storey so you get a fantasic view of the city. you have to change lifts twice just to get to the restaurant, and you even have to get through security. the location is pretty unusual, and during the day it mostly caters to the business crowd. they have 3 and 4 course set lunches too if i'm not mistaken.
anyway, fatty, along with d and i, got up to the restaurant, and were greeted by a brightly lit place and a little mainland chinese waitress. most of the staff are from mainland china, but the managers are not. fortunately, the one who took my order wasn't. i'd kind of have a hard time telling her what i wanted.
stir-fried venison with black pepper - 8.5/10
we looked through the menu, which was quite extensive. they have everything from soups to dim sum to proper restaurant dishes. after making a few picks, i called the head waitress to take our orders. we asked her for some house specialties and finally finished ordering. the tea-dude comes around soon enough. he pours your tea china style. he uses a tea pot with a super long spout. maybe about 3-4 feet long. and he's pretty action packed about it too, flipping his little tea pot and all.
the appetizer came first. it was the five delicacies combination. it was a tray that had 5 little platters on it. in the picture, starting clockwise with the tofu with cashew nuts (bottom left platter), is the jellyfish, mushrooms, sliced pork with garlic, and cocktail shrimp with sweet mayo. they were all very well done, but the sliced pork with garlic was INTENSE. it was spicy and incredibly delicious. the thinly sliced porked was cooked and served cool with the special garlic chilli sauce and spring onions. when you eat the pork, you can taste the firm texture of the meat, along with the crunchiness of the spring onions and the fantastic garlic chilli. i really can't describe this well enough. it was so good that i called the head waitress and asked her about the dish. she said that if we liked, we could get it as an ala-carte instead of just an appetizer. that i will do.
next up we had our soups. fatty had hot and sour soup, d had the eight treasure seafood soup and i had the double-boiled deluxe seafood soup with pork ribs. the soups were all done very well. you can taste the rich broth in each of the soups, and it really got the dinner off to a right start.
pan-fried beef in pepper sauce - 9/10
next we were served the pan-fried beef in pepper sauce. we were served this on three individual plates, and of course forks and knives to cut. i wasn't really expecting beef steak, but thats what we got. it was really good though. the beef was sliced thinly and very tender, yet firm and not too fatty at the same time. the sauce that dripped around it was a slightly sweet and tangy barbeque style sauce which was great.
prawns with minced garlic and chilli - 8.5/10
after that, the rest of the dishes came out together. we had the stir-fried venison with black pepper, which was juicy and tender. we also had the prawns with minced garlic and chilli. these were nice. the prawns were nice and big, and cooked in a tangy sweet chilli sauce that blended in very well. we also had the mei chai pai gu, which was the braised pork ribs (first picture). these were marvelous. they look really fatty when you cut into them. it might be a turnoff for those of you who are kinda paranoid (which is me). so i was like eww. not cool. but when i bit into it, it was bursting was tender and juicy goodness that i never expected from sight. this is another one of their must try dishes. it ws recommended by the waitress and it was fabulous.
"chong qing" diced chicken with dried chilli - 8/10 (points reduced slightly for attempted homicide)
and now came the crazy dish. haha. its called "chong qing" diced chicken with dried chilli. apparently this is the spiciest stuff on earth. my bro spent a month in chong qing in some homestay and he said the food was insane. it was so spicy that he couldn't eat anything. that was how bad it was. i took a piece of chicken. it was perfectly fried, just a nice thin layer over it and a tender and juicy flesh hiding inside it. but it was wayyy too spicy. i took two pieces and gave up. i took some more intermittently but it was to spicy to continue. d took one piece and that was it. she looked like she was going to pass out. when the waitress served us the dish, she told us to be careful of the tiny peppercorns. my brother said its called "ma" (3rd intonation). he said when he was there they added it to everything. he had to tell them no "ma" in his food all the time. anyway the waitress said be careful of the ma cause it numbs your tongue. i thought that sounded really cool so i happily decided to pop one in my mouth. not such a good idea. i wasn't too spicy (after all that chicken) but it really numbed your tongue. it was as though someone took a needle and injected anaesthesia into it. crazy sichuaneze dudes. it was good, but we couldn't finish it. we only ate about 1/5 of the dish.
homemade beancurd with spinach and dried scallop sauce - 7.5/10
last but not least we had the homemade beancurd with spinach and dried scallop sauce. this was nice. simple and delicious. the tofu was really soft and the scallop sauce was tasty. this went really well as a complement to the other dishes. a little more subtle to the tongue, but definitely not undeserving.
we finished of the meal with dessert, we had mango pudding, gui ling gao and the read bean pancake. the mango pudding was standard, nothing to rave about. the gui ling gao was pretty good, nice and refreshing with that herb taste to it. the red bean pancake was done very well though. definitely a good ending to the meal.
overall, i think this restaurant is damn good. probably the best chinese restaurant in sg. you probably won't be disappointed with any dish that you try here, but the ones i really liked are the pork ribs and the sliced pork in garlic and chilli sauce. those for me were really spectacular. a return visit is a must in my book.
80 Raffles Place
#60-01 UOB Plaza
Tel: 6535 6006
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