My youngest brother invited us to celebrate Mother’s Day 👩🍼 (母亲节) with a meal at Fu Lee Seafood (富俐海鮮). This year, the tze char (煮炒) stall had came out with a set menu for the special occasion and we decided to go for it.
The very first dish to be served was this Premium Ocean Harvest Porridge (尊贵海洋珍馐粥). It is more like Pao Fan (泡饭) as it consists of rice soaked in broth brewed from pork, fish bones and prawn, served with seafood, and crispy rice. The seafood is just butterflied prawns 🦐 and clams with crispy rice puffs sprinkled on top but everyone loves it, nonetheless.
This Fish Maw Egg Soup (鱼鳔蛋花汤) was an add on order and not part of the set menu. The starchy soup is choked full of sliced fish maw, mushroom 🍄🟫 and crab meat 🦀. The must have condiments to go with the soup are black vinegar and white pepper. The only complaint was that it was too gooey.
Wasabi Mayo Coated Prawn Balls (芥末脆虾球) are actually whole prawns dusted in flour and deep-fried in hot oil before getting coated in a mixture of wasabi and mayonnaise. The prawns 🍤 remained crispy on the outside and succulent on the inside. The sesame seeds and wasabi mayo giving the shellfishes a nutty, spicy and savoury notes. The green 🍏 and red 🍎 apple salad added a refreshing finishing touch to the overall dish.
Seafood Yam Basket (佛钵飘香) was also a separate order. It is a mashed yam ring or taro 🥔 basket deep-fried then filled with separately stir-fried ingredients. The prawn 🦐, fish 🐟, squid 🦑, cashew nuts and vegetables are overflowing from the top. Underneath the yam basket is a nest of crispy deep-fried rice vermicelli.
As the server placed the plate on the table, everyone’s attention was momentarily fixed on the stack of Strawberry Glazed Iberico Pork Ribs (黑猪草莓一只骨) pile on high in the plate surrounded by strawberry 🍓 halves and an edible wafer flower. The sticky meat is tender and savoury sweet, well-liked by all of us. No strawberry taste detected on the ribs unless you ate it with the berries!
The Surf & Turf (富俐双拼) was a combination of crispy prawn fritter and smoked duck breast with sesame sauce. The fritter 🍤 did not come with whole prawn but minced or chopped up prawn meat with other ingredients mixed inside. The filling itself is nothing to shout about but the extra light and crispy batter is to die for.
The next dish is Golden Silk Tofu with Pumpkin Velvet & Yam Crisps (金丝南瓜豆腐). Silky bean curds deep-fried sitting in a pool of pumpkin sauce and littered with crispy shoestring taro fries. I enjoyed the savoury sweet pumpkin sauce clinging to the soft and fragrant fried tofu punctuated by crunchy taro fries.
Wok Fry Yangtze Nai Bai with Truffle Mushroom Sauce (松露蘑菇酱烩奶白菜) came served with a medley of sautéed mushrooms 🍄🟫 over blanch nai bai which is a different variation of the bok choy. Also referred to as milk cabbage, it is mildly sweet yet crunchy with dark green leaves and milky white stems. That is how the name "milk cabbage" 🥬 came about. There was supposed to be truffle in there but I don’t remembered tasting the unique flavour.
By the time the Crispy Chicken with Signature Glaze (风沙香酥鸡) was placed in front of me, I am already quite full. The glaze was not brushed onto the chicken but spread out on the plate. The chicken itself was crispy but bordered on the dry side. That signature sauce seems like a borrowed recipe from the roasted suckling pig’s sauce, popular in Singapore which isn’t bad at all.
When you have fresh fish, the best cooking style is to cook it with minimum ingredients like this Steamed Red Grouper with Garlic (蒜蓉蒸红斑). Steaming it let you savour the sweetness of its flesh and the superior soya sauce imparted it salty flavour to enhance the dish. Both spring onions and crispy garlic served to add flavour and texture to the already delicious fish. 🐟
To summarize the dinner, everyone enjoyed it thoroughly and we are already considering coming here for our Chinese New Year reunion dinner next year. The only complaint would be that the dishes were served too quickly one after another and there isn’t space on the table to accommodate so we have to rush to finish the earlier dishes to make way.
