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Tucked away in People's Park Complex, Canto Kitchen still manages to lure diners to its good food.
Nice and crispy with a tasty black pepper sauce that is not overpowering. Just finish it before it gets cold and soft.
Eats
If you are missing the dishes of Chef Ang Song Kang (above), who is better known as Chef Kang, hotfoot it to People’s Park Complex.
In April, Life! reported that the chef had declared bankruptcy and closed down his restaurant, Canton Wok, in Joo Chiat Road after a failed business venture in China.
But he is back helming Canto Kitchen, a small restaurant tucked away on the fifth floor of People’s Park Complex next to the Five Star Tours travel agency. It was opened about half a year ago by the boss of the agency, Mr Ken Lim.
It can be quite a task finding the place as you have to take the escalator to the fourth floor, climb a flight of stairs to the fifth and walk through the travel agency to get to the restaurant.
But if you take the lift on the ground floor opposite UOB bank, it opens up on the fifth floor right by the restaurant entrance. Or, if you are driving, park on the fifth level and you will see it when you walk into the building.
The menu here is smaller than the one at Canton Wok, with an additional selection of noodles and rice dishes at lunchtime that are priced attractively below $5. But at dinner, you get only restaurant dishes that the chef is known for.
A number of his old staples are there. These include the deep-fried eggplant with pork floss ($8 for small), a dish very much associated with the chef.
In fact, the first time I tasted it was at Canton Wok five years ago, when it was still in Serangoon Central. The dish is now on restaurant menus everywhere.
The version in Canto Kitchen is still good, with the eggplant cut in thick strips and deep-fried till crisp on the outside and soft inside.
Another familiar dish is the garlic steamed crab with glutinous rice ($20, above). The crab is small and has little meat, but the highlight of this dish is the rice. And that is good, with the grains cooked till soft, and fragrant with the juices from the steamed crab.
Among the new dishes, I like the stir-fried black pepper lotus root ($8, top).
It is an original dish that should go down well with Singaporeans. Thin, crispy slices of lotus root are covered with a mild pepper sauce that is rather addictive. You can eat them on their own or with rice. The only problem is, they turn soft when cold.
Another new dish is the steamed cod fish with chef’s sauce ($28), which was on almost every table during my two visits to the restaurant.
It is actually steamed fish head and is good value for money, as the head is huge with plenty of meat and slabs of fat. The sauce, spiked with loads of minced garlic and chilli, is lovely but the fish itself is rather tough and not quite to my liking.
Other dishes can be better too. The Dongpo pork or braised pork belly with Shao Xin wine ($12) is overly fat; otherwise it is good with rice, and I like the stewed chicken feet that line the bottom of the claypot it is served in.
It is not fine-dining cooking but at such friendly prices, one is not expecting that. It is decent Cantonese fare in a comfortable environment that certainly beats eating in a stuffy zi char stall or hawker centre.
That perhaps explains why, despite being tucked away, the place was packed both at lunch and at dinner when I visited. So make sure you book ahead.
CANTO KITCHEN
Where: 05-01 People's Park Complex, 1 Park Road
Tel: 6536-0501
Open: Noon to 10.30pm daily
Food: 3/5
Service: **½
Ambience: **½
Price: $20 to $25 a person
Nearest MRT: Chinatown
Read also -> Where to eat Zi Char in Singapore
