Hai Zhong Bao (海中寶) Live Seafood @AMK

Daddy read about this zichar stall in the newspapers and thought the food looked pretty good! Some of his friends also said that the food was not bad, so off we went to try!

Located just a few blocks opposite Ang Mo Kio MRT Station and the Town Garden, Hai Zhong Bao Live Seafood occupies the corner stall of this kopitiam at the void deck of Blk 422. Like many kopitiams in Singapore, the environment is homely, lively and a little noisy at times, especially when a soccer match is going on. 🙂

Shanghai Beancurd

上海豆腐 Shanghai Beancurd: This was the highlight of the day! The skin of the toufu tasted like agedashi toufu, slightly crispy with this layer of light chewy-ness to it, and the toufu itself was silky smooth. Crab meat was sprinkled generously all over, and some strands of shark’s fin (might be fake?) were used as decoration… which could have been skipped since the shark’s fin did nothing to enhance the taste? Anyway, this was a delicious dish that everyone enjoyed. 😀

Empress Chicken

贵妃鸡 Empress Chicken: I had to pre-order this dish when I made reservations, because it supposedly required more preparation time. It appears that the staff could not agree on what to call it, so it’s both 贵妃鸡 (Empress Chicken) and 富贵鸡 (Prosperous Chicken). This is steamed chicken in very thick broth, with slices of dried abalone (we all were arguing on whether they were real or vegetarian abalone) on top. The dried slices were kinda chewy, but did not have much taste. The gravy was very rich and delicious; this was really the best part of this dish, coz the chicken wasn’t exceptional. Brother felt it was all MSG though, and he preferred the gravy of the tofu dish.

Zhejiang Pork Ribs

浙江排骨 Zhejiang Pork Ribs: The smaller pieces of pork ribs were very tender and succulent, but the bigger pieces were quite tough and tasteless – the sour-ish marinate could only be tasted on the surface. Nobody really liked this dish, except for me, but only because I got the smaller pieces… haha! 😛

Stir fried Hong Kong Kailan with Garlic

蒜茸芥兰 Stir fried Hong Kong Kailan with Garlic: This is quite a standard dish that we order when we eat zichar, and this dish did not disappoint. The Kailan stems were very crunchy! The veggies was not overly oily and was without the bitter taste that was sometimes associated with this vegetable. So, we enjoyed this dish too 🙂

Chilli Crabs

辣椒螃蟹 Chilli Crab: Quite disappointing! The gravy was too starchy, and the meat was not really firm 😦 Everyone agreed that this was the worst dish of the night. But we had thought that crabs were a popular item here…