Fiery Hunan fare at Spicy Moment
The new Duxton Hill restaurant serves up authentic, homey flavours in tasteful surroundings
NEW RESTAURANT
Spicy Moment 5 Duxton Hill Singapore 089591 Tel: 8068 3598 Open for lunch and dinner Tues to Sun: 12 pm to 3 pm; 5:30 pm to 11:30 pm.
EXCUSE us while we take a moment. We need to cry. We’re not being emotional, but what do you expect when we’re in a restaurant called Spicy Moment, not Neutral Cooking Hour?
At first glance, this unassuming eatery on Duxton Hill with its equally understated decor suggests a genial demeanour. But like a shiba inu that smiles at you, you mustn’t trust it.
The Chinese characters on the front window and door set the tone that this is a Chinese restaurant with a heavy China slant. But inside, you’re greeted with tasteful aesthetic restraint. It’s all cool cement screed with simple tables, some greenery and mint-green bar chairs facing a figurine of a young Chairman Mao – Hunan province’s most famous son – posing like a porcelain deity with offerings of maotai at his feet.
The rough-textured walls and indoor courtyard-like interiors exude a nostalgic air. It’s inspired by rustic countryside homes, says Ray Khew, the Singaporean owner who opened the place with his Shanghainese wife. The couple lived in Shanghai for 12 years and were fans of the original Spicy Moment in Shanghai, a popular haunt in its heyday but which has since closed. Now it’s making its debut in Singapore, with a chef who trained at the source and now dispenses authentic, yet pleasurable, pain that lingers for more than a moment.
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Of course, the cooking is spicy enough to curl your toes, but it is not so crippling that your insides want to escape your body and find a more benign digestive system to live with. We think at first that the heat has been dialled down slightly for local chilli ninnies, but Khew – who doubles as manager and head server – says this is how Hunan people cook at home. It makes you wonder if restaurants have been dialling up the heat all this while just to watch you scream.
For a small restaurant, the menu is wide. It has plenty of variety packed into both sides of a single sheet of thick washi paper. Compared to Sichuan cooking, which just wants to numb your taste buds into submission, Hunan cuisine balances the heat with a lively tanginess from pickled chillies.
Spicy Moment’s skill lies in the way it plays with just a handful of seasonings, drawing out completely different results just by tweaking the proportions of each. Somehow, the way it takes everyday ingredients and tosses them into folksy home-style dishes that you imagine are served at a Hunan family’s dinner table feels more satisfying - and real - than being at the chef’s table of the finest Chinese restaurant.
Some dishes you will like more than others, but you can’t go wrong no matter what you pick. Century eggs with grilled green chillies (S$15) is a keeper – the semi-firm jellied eggs with a soft-but-not-runny centre, covered with a mound of slinky, smoky roasted chillies that cuts through the earthy richness. The chilli hits you when you don’t expect it, and is the first warning salvo of what to expect.
Egg curd salad (S$14) has slippery, bouncy strips of steamed egg that look like firm bean curd but taste better, tossed with pickled vegetables in a super-spicy dressing. You’re starting to burn when a plate of peppercorn chicken (S$28) arrives like a minefield of dried chillies that you have to navigate like Super Mario trying not to fall into a crater of doom. The nimble will be rewarded with minute nuggets of deftly marinated chicken – mind the bones, though. A nuisance they are, but they pack more flavour than boneless morsels. You may need rice to offset the heat by now.
Don’t look down on boring stir-fried cabbage (S$21) or wok-fried potato slices (S$22). They’re must-haves, because the crisp-tender cabbage gets its oomph from sliced pork belly and chilli, while the twice-cooked potatoes get theirs from a sheen of magic sauce clinging to each savoury slice, with garlic and chillies to fulfill their torture quota.
The familiar braised pork belly (S$28) earns its Hunan qualifications with a spicy kick to its golden gravy tinged with cinnamon and star anise, and added deep-fried whole garlic and quail eggs. Rice is a must but save room for Hunan fried noodles (S$26) for its springy vermicelli wok-fried with Chinese bacon, spicy sausages and vegetables. It’s oily, but addictive.
If you haven’t had enough, there’s also steamed fish head with pickled chillies (S$48) – familiar and competent, if pretty ordinary.
It being the Chinese New Year season, not everything on the menu is available, but thoughts of yam paste and rabbit candy for dessert will have us coming back. And for the rest of the menu. Like guests at someone’s home for dinner, we’re the ones who don’t want to leave.
Rating: 7
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