Thursday, October 18, 2007

Red Oriental Korean Chinese Restaurant, Singapore

Jjam Bbong

There are so many Korean restaurants in Singapore, but this one in particular (76 Amoy Street, 6327-9036) caught my eye, as it boasted of "Korean Chinese" food. The menu items looked largely like Chinese food adapted to the Korean palate, so I figured that it might be an interesting adaptation like that Korean Japanese food at Bakang Tuna. I was wrong.

I asked for a recommendation and I got this rather sad looking bowl of noodles (spaghetti, apparently) and squid sitting in a typical Korean red broth. Fortunately it tasted better than it looked, but it wasn't anything to draw me back.

I am not sure if I understood the background here either. These guys were from mainland China, suggesting that it was actually Korean food adapted for the Chinese rather than the other way around. Then again, the guy talked about making it sweeter for the Singaporean palate, so I'm not quite sure what was going on.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I can tell you that the food served at this restaurant are indeed Chinese food adapted for Koreans. In fact, when Koreans say 'Chinese food', they usually refer to this type of pseudo-Chinese cuisine.

You can actually find some really good Koreanized Chinese restaurants in Korea. It's just that Dong Bang Hong (or Red Oriental Restaurant) serves mediocre renditions of those dishes.

ClearTear said...

there are many restaurant that hired china cooks to do the dishes, and often it turns out badly. There's a local coffeeshop in chinatown with a china chef, and the sambal Kangkong turns out assam-ish sour, i was so upset that our local dish been serve to tourist, giving them a wrong impression.

Crystal jade korean is also done by china cooks, and its bad. No offence to them, but i do think the china cooks should just do their own local dish, like shanghainese food, the good one in temple st.

Its always more authentic to be done by korean chef, like "TOGI" at mosque st.

huangsy said...

You may have liked the black bean sauce noodles better. Although the service staff are mainland Chinese, the guests there are mainly Koreans living in Singapore. I ate there with Korean friends, who did the ordering, and discovered other dishes such as the Eight Treasure Vegetables platter served with mustard sauce.

BTW, as a local Singaporean, besides chilli crabs, I usually recommend Nonya / Peranakan food to foreign visitors. It is very hard to find Nonya food outside of Singapore, Malacca and Penang. The nearest ones in CBD is at One George Street Bldg and UIC Building. I prefer the former and more so its outlets elsewhere.