Singapore, June 20, 2010- The influx of Chinese immigrants here in recent years has brought along with it some new culinary pleasures.
Many of the newcomers hail from the northern provinces, where the cuisine is very different from the food of Chinese Singaporeans, whose roots are in southern China.
Meanwhile, Singaporeans who have travelled to China have also come back with new ideas for restaurants after tasting food not common here.
The many Sichuan ma la (spicy and numbing) hotpot eateries that have opened in the past few years are evidence of this.
A more recent example can be found at Chong Qing Grilled Fish Restaurant in Mosque Street. The two-month-old restaurant specialises in a dish that combines a grilled fish with a Sichuan hotpot.
Chong Qing is a municipality in western China that was once a city in Sichuan province and the cooking is spicy with lots of garlic, chilli and tongue-numbing Sichuan pepper.
The grilled fish recipe is apparently more than 1000 years old and the dish was reputedly a favourite with Zhuge Liang (AD181-234), a famous counsellor from the Three Kingdoms period whom some may recognise as a main character in the John Woo movie Red Cliff (2008).
But despite the dish’s long history, it has yet to make an impact here and as far as I know, the only other place that serves it is Zhuge Liang Restaurant in Foch Road.
I have not tried that, however, so my first taste of the dish was at Chong Qing Grilled Fish a week ago.
The restaurant offers a choice of three types of fish and six types of broth, so you can go back several times and try a different flavour each time.
At my first dinner, I picked a seabass combined with a classic spicy and numbing broth.
Being used to Sichuan restaurants here toning down the spiciness of their ma la hotpot, I asked for the broth to be of the highest level – out of the three levels – of spiciness.
That turned out to be a big mistake.
It was one of the spiciest things I had ever eaten and much though I enjoyed the fiery kick, my tongue threw in the towel halfway through the dish when the burn robbed it of all other sensation.
But before it did, I thoroughly enjoyed the fish.
I am not usually fond of seabass, which I find too soft, but it was perfect for this dish.
It was tasty from a marinade of herbs and spices, and the grilling firmed up the exterior while leaving the meat inside moist and smooth.
And because it was soft, it soaked up the flavours of the spicy broth particularly well.
In fact, the red sea bream I had during my second visit to the restaurant did not do the job that well because it was firmer.
Also, I matched it with a pickled cabbage broth that was much milder and had less kick.
It tasted rather like oversoaked kiam chye (salted vegetable).
The third fish available was golden snapper and the other broths were fermented black bean, spicy and fragrant, chopped chilli and pickled chilli – all of which I will have to try another time.
A regular-sized fish enough for two to three persons costs $26 while a large one for up to five persons costs $36.
Though the fish is no doubt the star attraction, you should leave room to try the restaurant’s other offerings, especially cold starters such as mouth-watering chicken ($5.80) and sour and spicy cold bean jelly noodle ($5.80).
The mouth-watering chicken came with a tasty sauce of chilli and vinegar, and was not as fiery as it looked.
My only problem with it was that only breast meat was used and that is my least favourite part of a chicken.
The cold bean jelly noodle, however, was just right.
Better known as liang fen in Mandarin, the version here was firm enough to be picked up with chopsticks and smooth enough to slide down the throat effortlessly.
Many versions I had eaten were too soft and kept breaking up when I tried to pick them up.
Here, they were like a translucent kway teow and were a good match with the vinegary sauce they were served in.
The fish did not leave room to try many other dishes but I could not resist the temptation of a plate of Dongpo pork ($12) I saw at the next table. So I ordered it and had no regrets.
It actually did not taste much like the Dongpo pork you get in other restaurants here because the sauce was not sweet.
Instead, it had a herbal flavour.
But the meat was wondrously tender and, even better, did not feel greasy at all.
The oil had been skilfully coaxed out and the thin layer of fat left behind to melt in the mouth was just enough to smoothen the meat.
For once, I did not feel too guilty eating more than one piece of Dongpo pork.
In fact, I had three pieces.
Chong Qing Grilled Fish
Address: 18 Mosque Street #01-01 Singapore 059498
Tel: 6225 0087
Related links:
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| Spicy grilled fish is star attraction photo gallery |
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| Sichuan savouries |
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| Sichuan Mala Hotpot |
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| Attack of the killer tomato broth |
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| Chongqing hotpot at Chuan Wei Xuan |
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