Cafe De Hong Kong

Our September Food Outing was held at Cafe De Hong Kong (新天地小橱) last Saturday, 11 September 2010. This Hong Kong style cafe is located at 586 Balestier Road which can be reached by bus from either Novena or Toa Payoh. Our group makes an effort to have food outing at least once a month and last month our outing theme was on Burger Hunt(click HERE for details) and we managed to try about 10 different kinds of burgers from 2 different well received burger outlets in Orchard area. And for September, we are here at Cafe De Hong Kong to try something more adventure...... Can you make a Guess?

Yes!!! Our mission for this month, which we all look forward to, is to conquer our fear on eating "Crocodile Palm".... So let's continue with this post where I will share with you some interesting and yummy dishes that we had.

Upon entering the café, you definitely will be captured by all these lovely drawings and art crafts on both sides of the wall. And according to Alice, all these beautiful drawings are in the café are done by Mr Francis’s kids. From the photo, I feature some of my favourite pick such as the lovely DIY clock, pop-ups drawing on the café menu and spaceship.

First we have these lovely "Fortune Seafood Roll - 如意海鲜卷" as starter to excite our taste buds before the "Star" dish appears. Although this might be some deep-fried food but it is not that oily at all, the fresh and crunchy ingredients are wrapped with Vietnamese nested rice paper, deep-fried till golden and crispy, then topped with extra fish roe before serving. I think this is an ideal finger food to be served as starter together with cold beer before dinner.
Price: S$7.00 for 2 pieces

After the seafood roll, here comes our long waited "star" dish of the menu, “Stewed Crocodile Palm - 红烧鳄鱼掌”. Everyone was very excited about this dish when it is served and we thought at a certain angle, it looks sort of like black chicken feet.

Surprisingly this stewed crocodile palm is so soft, juicy and jelly like texture that is similar to sea cucumber. Most importantly it does not have any of that “fishy” smell or taste compare to those crocodile soup or stir-fried crocodile dishes that I have tried before. If you are just being served with a bowl of the flesh parts, I can guarantee that you can’t even tell this is crocodile meat. Overall this dish comes with one Crocodile Palm, green leafy vegetables, roasted pork and etc. Most of us agreed that the chef has done a great job on this dish too. From the menu, they also we spotted crocodile soup which perhaps we can give it a try next round.
Price: S$50.00 per pot (best is to pre-order ahead)

“Braised Duck with Sea Cucumber - 港式海参扒鸭" is the most expensive dish in our menu list due to the good quality of sea cucumber and cooking process and time taken for this dish. The duck is well cooked and the meat so soft and fragrant which required less chewing, and the sea cucumber is cut into thick chunk which makes it taste bouncy and yummy on each bites. The dish goes well with steam rice because of it's excellent gravy.
Price: S$78 per plate

Next interesting item on the list is this “Stewed Lamb Brisket - 枝竹羊腩煲”. It is piping hot when served so this will make a great choice for rainy days or year-end dinner where the weather is much cooler For those who dislike mutton/lamb because of it “scent’ you will be surprised with this dish. The chef used a great combination of spices that mask up most of the unpleasant scent of the lamb leaving it only with soft and tender meat. From the recommendation of the Francis, this dish goes well with little bit of fermented beancurd sauce(豆腐乳) and extra topping of thinly shredded “Kaffir Lime Leaf”.
Price: S$20.00 per pot

Talking about Fried Rice, which is your favourite choice? Although I am not a fan of fried rice because I often find it too oily or dry for my liking, but if I have to order I will always go for “Yang Zhou Chao Fan - 扬州炒饭” which I love it's special fragrant. For our last item on menu, we have this special fried rice that totally changed my view towards fried rice. This is also one of the chef recommended dish of this cafe which is known as "Fragrant Fish Roe Fried Rice - 太子炒饭". If you take a closer look at it, all those orange little dots are actually fish roes. Each mouthful that you eat, you will be able to taste all those popping fish roes in your mouth. Does it sounds great to you!
Price: S$10.00 per plate

After all the yummy dishes, here comes our dessert of the day, which is their popular “Hong Kong Style French Toast”. Look at the height and thickness of this toast, does it look sort of like “Deep-Fried Beancurd -豆干/豆腐“ to you? This taste really different from what I used to have from the local toast café. The bread is so soft and fragrant inside leaving a little crispy crust on the outer layer and most importantly it don’t gives you that greasy taste at all. It also goes pretty well with a cup of Hong Kong Style Milk Tea.
Price: S$5.00 per piece

For the lunch, we have enjoyed 10 wonderful dishes plus French Toast and fresh cut fruits as desserts and we are very thankful to Mr Francis Mak, whose specially design this set of menu for our food outing. We really appreciate his warm hospitality towards each one of us and his kitchen crews for whipped out all these yummy dishes. Lastly, I would like to thanks Alice and Maureen who helps to do all the co-ordination in order to host this food outing successfully.

For more photos of the dishes, you can click HERE.

Or you can also drop by to these websites on those who attended the outing for more read up and photos. Misstamchiak, Lobsterpaints, Camemberu, CalvinTimo, The HungryCow and The Hungry Photograper.

Cafe De Hong Kong
586 Balestier Road
#01-01 Eastpac Building
Singapore 329898
Tel: 6255 3865
Email: cafedehongkong@gmail.com
Web: www.cafedehongkong.com

Opening Hours:
11.30am - 3.00pm, 5.00pm - 12.00 Midnight
Closed on MONDAY, except Public Holiday(then the next day after PH close)