Here's the mapo tofu from Ba Yu Ren Jia (thanks for the tip). It was a bit thicker than I was expecting but was otherwise spot-on, and helped to easily shovel down two bowls of steamed rice with it.
In that sense, I'm not sure why the Sunday Times criticized it for being "one-dimensional without enough sweetness and sourness to balance the spices." This dish really isn't supposed to be sweet or sour. Maybe he was comparing it to the Japanese version or something?
6 comments:
Hi, I really enjoyed reading through your blog this evening. As a fellow ex-pat blogger living in Singapore food is one of my favourite things about living here! Wish your blog had a easily searchable index though so I could pick a review when I'm going to be in a certain area to try out your recommendations...
Food critics are often like wine tasters.
Posers trying to create an industry for themselves.
As such they have to attempt to infuse depth and meaning into everything they do, even it be just a taste of some mapo tofu.
Food and taste is just so subjective that the only way to truly appreciate it is to try it yourself.
And I'm glad you did.
Since you could appreciate the fennel in whispering man's food, we thought you'd like the taste of this mapo tofu. There's a warm earthy depth to this and we suspect that they make the sauce specially to be the base of some of the dishes.
They do a pretty good (off-menu) fried tomato egg. It comes as a soup on the menu, but you could request for it to be stir fried. That really reminds me of china.
If you try saliva chicken here, you could ask for the authentic version, which is has less sauce and the chilli will be less sharp and more like the "dry heat" type. It comes with peanut powder which you could opt out of.
But if you like to save the chilli oil to douse your rice with, ask for the "more sauce" version.
Ooh and try the cold dishes! We've had weird tasting types like sweet cucumber salad!, all over the island and the ones here aren't like that.
The boss (head chef) is pretty friendly like the whispering man. Do ask him for recommendations. If you like water cooked beef, he says it's great with mantou.
Speaking of teochew steamed fish, there seems to be a pickled mustard and fish soup on the menu. I've not idea what it tastes like but the waitresses like it.
Actually some time back, after you posted about your spicy soya sauce chicken meal that turned into hotpot, I asked him about it and he said that he might introduce it as a special dish in the future.
Keep up the great blogging!
I love your blog!
Do you run another blog on Multiply?
I found your posting here:
http://plsdunstopdemusic.multiply.com/reviews/item/14
Wow. No, that's not me. It looks like he copied and pasted straight from my post. I guess that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery after all.
WOW (impressed look). Your version looks so yummy.
Here I bought a sauce pack so as to skip all the seasonings! and i will try this friday after work.
http://yummiexpress.freetzi.com
Post a Comment