New Chinese restaurant YongFu delivers a true taste of China
The Suntec City restaurant serves up unexpected flavours in quietly opulent surroundings
NEW RESTAURANT
YongFu Singapore #01-444 Suntec City Mall 3 Temasek Boulevard Singapore 038983 Tel: 8900 8046 Open daily for lunch and dinner: 11:30 am to 2:30 pm; 5:30 pm to 9:30 pm
STEPPING into the opulent black-clad confines of YongFu, past polished greeters in sharp suits with practised smiles, we feel our arms involuntarily tighten around our purse. A moment of weakness, the wink of a seductive yellow fish, and we and our money could soon be forcibly parted, never to see each other again.
But then YongFu is the kind of restaurant that invites rampant stereotyping. After all, it hails from China. It serves yellow croaker, a fish so pricey it can afford to hire other fish as bodyguards. This restaurant has many private rooms – so private they could have a secret passage to the basement car park, and you wouldn’t notice.
With the same look and feel of an upscale eatery in any major Chinese city, it explains why most of its customers are Chinese nationals. And for the minority who are wallet-guarding Singaporeans, it takes a while to feel at home here.
But once you settle in, YongFu is a class act in Chinese restaurant service. There is some initial hesitation as the staff seem unsure how to deal with first-timers, while we scan the never-ending pages of the iPad menu as if it were written in a foreign language.
A NEWSLETTER FOR YOU
Friday, 2 pm
Lifestyle
Our picks of the latest dining, travel and leisure options to treat yourself.
It’s in English and Chinese, but the variety is astounding and most of the dishes are unfamiliar. While it’s fundamentally Ningbo, the menu extends to other regions as well. Eventually we give up and settle on the set menu that was recommended to us from the start. “It’s a compilation of our signature dishes and also a good introduction to our cuisine,” says one of the suits in perfect English. In other words, polite-speak for “make everybody’s life easier, please”.
There are two options, but both are priced at S$499 for two – essentially S$250 a head. It’s not at all cheap, but you’re looking at three cold dishes, one soup, five hot dishes, a noodle dish and dessert. It’s the equivalent of menu speed-dating as you whizz through one after the other, and see which one you want to re-order if you come back a second time.
Even before your first course comes, there’s plenty to nibble on beyond the cookie-cutter candied walnuts. There are crunchy crackers made out of fish bones that are addictive, and chewy dried-orange discs that taste almost like dehydrated apricots. Pistachios, a shrimp-chilli paste and dried sakura ebi add to the pre-prandial snacks.
Service is so attentive that there is someone stationed in the dining room throughout your meal, even as the servers deliver your courses at near breakneck speed. We’ve barely scraped out precious morsels of raw swimmer crab – swimming in a gutsy marinade of wine, ginger, garlic and chilli – when squares of cold, meltingly-soft winter melon arrive. Described as pickled but more like tickled with vinegar, the refreshing, fall-apart cubes of gourd have a subtle infusion of sesame oil that makes it stand out.
Warm, homemade Ningbo fish cake is a must for fishball noodle connoisseurs – lightly fried and tasting of pure fish. On the other hand, a fusion of tender clam slices in a milky fish broth with rice works just fine on its own, without the addition of so-so uni and salty caviar.
Picking up the pace is stir-fried conch – crunchy clam slices tossed in sliced white chillies that look almost like shredded beancurd skin, with a perky hint of heat.
The sea cucumber is perfectly braised in a subtly sweet, dark soy sauce with softened leeks and a bit of chewy glutinous rice. It’s got a lovely texture without any of the alkaline aftertaste of lesser-quality versions. And while the real yellow croaker sets you back by S$1,000 on the menu, we get a non-yellow steamed croaker fillet that’s super tender and bathed in a smooth ginger-scallion sauce.
Peking duck is done two ways – as little canapes of crisp skin on toast topped with caviar, and in pre-wrapped pancakes stuffed with meat and leeks, served steaming hot in a basket.
If you’re groaning by now, there’s just stir-fried garlic chives next and a noodle dish you want to save space for – chewy, thin rice cakes tossed like kway teow in a simple mix of cabbage and leeks.
The best comes last, and is the winner in our speed-dating ritual. It’s a smooth glutinous rice ball that has the best combination of smoothness and bite, releasing a stream of creamy black sesame paste within. You barely notice that the “syrup” is actually plain hot water scented with some tiny flowers.
YongFu can’t quite match its China counterparts in terms of ingredients and sheer cooking skill, but it opens your eyes to a dining experience unlike what you’re used to. And like a good first date, a second is worth considering.
Rating: 7
Copyright SPH Media. All rights reserved.
