The glamorous interior furnished with bright red lanterns and dark wooden furniture mimics upper class life in China back in the olden days.
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| A set of clean cutlery has been laid out for us. The fish on the plates symbolises wealth. |
When the Hakka people fled to Taiwan, they faced many hardships in farming new land and building new homes. To cope with these adversities, they developed a variety dishes which are distinctive of the Hakka culinary tradition. Hakka dishes are generally salty, savoury and oily. Large amounts of oil are added to the dish to restore physical energy required to perform strenuous labour and dishes are made extremely savoury and appetizing to increase appetite. Unlike traditional Hakka cuisine, the dishes at Hakkas were less oily but still savoury.
For starters, we ordered the Roasted Beef Ribs ($7.9). Marinated in a delicately sweet, savoury sauce and sprinkled with sesame, it was quite enjoyable but lacked the smoky grilled flavour.
Braised in a delicious sweet soy sauce, the Braised Pork ($12.9) was equally tasty. The pork had the perfect balance of fat and meat, making it juicily tender and flavourful. At first, I did find the layers of fat between the meat a little daunting but Hakka cuisine is traditionally oily.
Being a big fan of lamb, I ordered the Satay Lamb ($10.9). The Chinese Vegetable in the dish was perfectly stir fried and it still had a nice crunch to it, but I failed to find much lamb in the dish. Nevertheless, the chilli and delightfully spicy satay sauce gave it an extra kick.
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| Where's Wally? Where's the Lamb? |
SECOND VISIT:
The wonderful experience I had with the dishes above gave me high hopes for my second visit. This time, I decided to try out famous Taiwanese dishes, but I was sorely disappointed.
The Chicken in Three-cup Sauce ($15.9) was only lightly drizzled with sweet soy sauce but lacked the strong pungent flavours expected of this dish. When the chicken was placed on our table, the spoon nearly dropped on the ground - not because it was overflowing with chicken, but because the pot was only slightly bigger than a rice bowl. Apart from the few chicken pieces near the brim, the rest of the dish contained unwanted bony chicken parts and excessive chilli and garlic cloves. In fact, there were more chilli and garlic than chicken (at least in the dish that was served to me). Needless to say, I was rather unimpressed and confronted the waiter about this. The waiter explained that the price of $15.90 was "extremely low" so if I wanted more chicken I should have requested for it initially for an extra $4. Funny how the menu failed to mention this.
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| Picture on the menu portraying a large clay pot |
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| The actual Chicken in Three-cup Sauce with spoon nearly falling off |
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| Picture for Size Reference - in comparison with normal size pot |
Although the sauces in the Braised Beef Brisket in Clay Pot ($16.9) were savoury and enjoyable, the beef brisket was a little tough and chewy. The restaurant was probably concerned about our daily vegetable intake as there were more carrots and radishes than brisket. The radish was unusually hard and crunchy but I am aware that it is not radish season.
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| Picture on the menu |
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| The Healthy Version - what we actually got |
The highlight of the day was the Fried Chicken Wings, which was free if you spend more than $30. Perfectly crispy on the outside, juicy and succulent on the inside - delicious!
Verdict:
If you can get over the fact that "names and pictures are for references only", the food here generally tastes pretty good (with some exceptions).
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