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Singapore, 25 August, 2010 PRODUCE provenance is becoming an increasingly big issue as more diners take interest in knowing where their food hails from. And at Ocean Kingdom, the answer’s really simple: it comes right out of the cluster of large blue tanks in the establishment’s compound. That’s because the Joo Chiat restaurant is owned by seafood supplier Hai Guan Siah, which is located on the same premises – you can choose to cart home its live lobsters, scallops, crabs etc at wholesale prices or pick what you like and have it cooked on-site by Ocean Kingdom’s chefs. The Hai Guan Siah name may not be familiar to those who aren’t in the industry, but the company is actually one of the more longstanding seafood businesses in Singapore and supplies to several restaurants here. Its history stretches back to the 1970s, when Ocean Kingdom co-owner Tracci Cheo’s father, Cheo Bock Hua, was a deep-sea fisherman. Mr Cheo later opened his own kelong near Pulau Ubin, which he passed on to Ms Cheo’s brother, who continued running the business until its punishing schedule drove him to close it in 2000 and set up a seafood supplying firm instead. Says Ms Cheo: “Running a kelong is very difficult, you have to wake up in the wee hours of the morning every single day. So my brother decided to move on into wholesaling and set up Hai Guan Siah.” Earlier this year, the Cheos chanced upon the site that Ocean Kingdom now occupies, an old standalone building on stilts with its own fenced grounds, and they decided to branch out into a complementary business. “The space was big enough to house the fish and we thought it wouldn’t be a bad idea to use it as a restaurant as well because we could supply it with seafood,” explains Ms Cheo. Ocean Kingdom initially opened as Oceanus Live Seafood Restaurant in February, but it recently underwent a name change because the Cheos discovered another seafood company with the same moniker. At present, the old signboards are still up, but according to the owners, the new Ocean Kingdom ones should be in place by next week. The transition between names may be a little confusing, but once you find it, you’re in for a treat. The restaurant specialises in seafood that’s imported from around the region, oodles of which arrive a few times a week, and everything is fresh. There are lobsters, scallops, a couple of kinds of crab and more, all sharing menu space with some not-too-common items such as baby shark ($4 per 100g) and stone fish ($6 per 100g). One signature dish is the flower crab bee hoon with supreme soup ($4.50 per 100g), which unlike most local versions of crab bee hoon is done in an almost Vietnamese-Chinese style with thin strands of rice vermicelli in a tasty gravy that’s naturally sweetened by the flavour of the crab. Then there are the steamed scallops with garlic ($18 for six or $25 for 10), which are also delicious because the scallops are large, fresh and cooked just so with generous dollops of garlic and butter. Seafood aside, Ocean Kingdom also does a couple of meat dishes very well, such as its signature coffee pork ribs (from $12 for a small portion), which are heady with the smell of coffee but aren’t too cloying on the palate. It’s all about fresh ingredients cooked quite simply, and the fuss-free decor – simple wooden chairs, bare walls – reflects this philosophy (though it does stand at odds with the restaurant’s somewhat grandiose name). “We’re from a rustic background, so this rustic environment suits us,” says Ms Cheo. In future though, there are plans to spiff up the menu a bit. “We plan to introduce wine as well as more interesting dishes to give diners more choice,” Ms Cheo shares. “We’ll maybe do things like seafood stew or claypots because our seafood is so fresh. It’s in a different league from what you get at zi char stalls.” Ocean Kingdom Live Seafood Restaurant
382 Joo Chiat Road
Tel: 6342 0382
www.oceankingdomseafood.com (website to launch next week)
