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Saturday, October 25, 2014

~ Restaurant HOME 家 @ The Rail Mall ~

Food Tasting Review: It was a rewarding trip to Restaurant HOME 家 @ The Rail Mall. Tucked quietly among the shop houses along Upper Bukit Timah Road, not only did we enjoyed a splendid dinner, sampling the dishes cooked up by renowned and award winning Chef Tan Yong Hua, we also made new friends.

家, as the name suggests, welcomes diners for a taste and feel of home. 

We started our meal with HOME's signature dish - Barbecued Peking Duck with Lychee Wood. The ducks are barbecued using Lychee wood in a specially custom-designed oven to ensure the Peking Ducks are perfect and of best quality.


Peking Duck Skin - This is suppose to be the best portion of the duck. The duck skin was crispy and thinly sliced. Dipping it into the sugar instantly melts in my mouth.


Barbecued Peking Duck with Lychee Wood (Half - $38++, Whole - $68++)

Time to get into action - making my own wrap with the Peking Duck. Personally, I am not a big fan of ducks mainly because of its taste and I find the meat tougher. I wonder if we spent too much time photo taking as I find the duck meat a little dry and stiff for my liking.


The good thing was the overall taste of the duck meat blends in nicely with the cumber slice, sauce and wrap. The sauce was not empowering and it compliments the duck meat giving it more moisture and sweetness.


Another signature dish from Chef Tan - Baked fish in Claypot. The fish is baked inside the claypot with ginger, lemongrass and spring onions for 8 to 9 minutes. This is done to retain the flavour within the pot. They also cooked up their own stock so that it will not overwhelm the taste of the fish.

Chef Tan also shared with us that the fish should be at least 1kg for best enjoyment. Unlike other restaurant that will separate the fish for their customer, at HOME, they do not do so. Once the fish has been cut, it will turn cold easily depleting the flavour of this dish. Instead, customers get to take the quantity and portion of the fish they like, just like dining at home.

Baked Marbel Goby in Claypot ($9 per 100g)

I'm in love with this dish the instance it was served. The aroma of the ginger was strong and fragrant. Digging into the fish was heavenly! The meat was tender, sweet and perfect with the ginger slice. I can imagine how well the gravy alone will go with the rice. Unfortunately, I have to reserve my tummy to sample the other dishes.


Bean curb is a common dish that we always order whenever we dine out as children loves them too. It is a comfort food where everyone can enjoy. I love the way HOME's homemade egg bean curb was presented. Green among the golden yellow. You can't really tell it is a bean curb with the thick layer of sauce on top.

Although the bean curb has been deep fried, I am amazed how the interior can retain its softness. With its unique flavour, it is a combination of softness from the egg bean curb and crunchiness from the little chunks of water chestnut and vegetables.

Homemade Egg Bean curb with Shrimp Paste, Crabmeat and Roe in Pi Pa Style ($18)

If I haven't been told that this is a duck dish, I would have thought this is roasted meat because it tasted just like it. The entire portion of the duck is fully utilized to avoid wastage. Using the left over duck meat and also its bones, they were deep fried and flavoured with chili, garlic and capsicum pepper fine salt. Meat is pretty tough but I like the overall taste.

Deep-fried Duck with Dried Chili, Roasted Minced Garlic and Capsicum Pepper Fine Salt ($10, second serving)

Lobster meat was juicy and tender particularly palatable since it was soaked in the gravy. The noodles is not the conventional "mee kia" that we find in our Bak Chor or Wan Ton mee. Instead, it was specially customized based on Chef Tan's recipe, to remove the alkaline content. The noodles is very Q, tangy and sweet. I will not mind having another 2 bowls of noodle serving in this case.

Stewed Golded Noodles with Lobster and Spring Onions wrapped in O Ba Leave (seasonal price)


SET LUNCH

Apart from the dishes you can order from the menu, restaurant HOME also provide set lunches where you can enjoy a complete meal that comes with a soup of a day, a noodle dish and dessert. (Price varies from $20++ to $26++). Check out HOME's set lunch menu here

Soup of the Day
It has been ages since I tasted dried vegetable soup. A simple dish with a flavour of home as I enjoy this soup when I was a child. Filled with dried vegetable, pork, honey dates and 南北杏, the soup was boiled for 1 hour. The soup turns out to be very sweet and refreshing.

Soup of the Day - Dried vegetable soup (菜干汤)

Noodle dish

There are 5 noodle set lunches you can select from. We got to sample 3 of them. 

If you love duck noodles, do give this a try as this is different from the conventional ones that you get to taste. 

Barbecued Duck with Lychee Wood served with Homemade Yellow Noodle

Roast meat is our personal favourite and needless to say we are bias when it comes to pork. :) The skin is crispy and its meat is tender and not too fatty.

Crispy Roast Pork with Homemade Yellow Noodle

It is always a challenge to decide what to have for lunch. This Abalone Ramen dish definitely going to give diners a welcoming alternative at an affordable price. A delicacy and indulgence for lunch!

Homemade Ramen with 8 Head Quality Amidori Abalone

Dessert

A unique dessert to end our meal. The cooling dessert, topped with mango dice is sourly yet refreshing. We thought it will be nice to be an appetizer too because the sourness helps to enhance our appetite. I believe having this after our meal aids in our digestion too.  

Chilled Rosella Flower Jelly with Diced Mango

Special thanks to Chef Tan Yong Hua (Restaurant HOME) and Hence (http://www.chubbybotakkoala.com/) for inviting us to the food tasting session. Hubby and I always learn something new learning from the experts and other food bloggers.

If you like to catch Chef Tan in action, he will be taking part in this year Ultimate Hawker Fest 2014 at Suntec Convention & Exhibition Hall 401 & 402 on 22 Nov 2014 from 11am-5pm doing his lychee wood roasted duck rice. Website: http://www.ultimatehawkerfest.sg

Restaurant HOME - 家
Address: 394, Upper Bukit Timah Road, S678046
Operating Hours: Lunch (12pm - 3pm), Dinner (6pm - 11pm). Open daily.
Website: http://www.restauranthome.com.sg/




3 comments:

Boh Tong aka Luke Tan said...

Barbecued Duck with Lychee Wood served with Homemade Yellow Noodle looks delicious!

Phoebe said...

Hi Boh Tong,

The actual portion will be even more than the ones we had. It's pretty tasty and I think the soup and dessert complete the set meal well.

Boh Tong aka Luke Tan said...

Phoebe, thanks for the reply :-)

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