Por Kee Eating House @ Seng Poh Road

There are a lot of good food to eat in the Tiong Bahru area. From Tiong Bahru Market to the shop houses along the road, you can take your pick from many of the local Chinese delights available.

It is always difficult to find places to eat on Friday nights if you do not make reservations in advance as everyone will be out dinning and catching up with friends and families.  I guessed we were lucky to get a seat in the air-conditioned area of the fully packed Pork Kee Eating House 😉

Stepping into the restaurant, I am transported back to the eighties, when we used to dine at Chinese restaurants during important occasions. Big groups of people of all ages gathering around a big round table chatting and eating. Live seafood are displayed in tanks near the kitchen area and most of the service staff are local aunties who probably have been working for Por Kee since their youth.:)

Even their Menu is so old school. No fancy pictures of the food. Just plain items listing and their pricing.

The only pictures of food are those of their specialty professionally taken and displayed above the cashier. I am tempted to order so many of the dishes to try but with only two person, I have to refrain from ordering too much.

Our order of Fried Beef Hor Fun in Black Bean Sauce (Small – $8).

Close up of my bowl of the Beef Hor Fun. The beef was very tender and the Hor Fun, aka Rice noodles, was nicely coated with the black bean sauce. Very savoury dish but we thought it could be less salty :O

This is the Homemade Bean Curd Mushroom with Sweet Beans (Small – $16).  I found this dish a little expensive to order but after tasting it, I feel that you just have to try it! The homemade beancurd was fried to golden perfection and served with carrots, sweet beans, mushrooms and sea cucumber.

Close up of the inside of the Homemade Bean Curd.  Look at the thin outer layer of the bean curd that is fried to golden brown perfection!  I really wonder how they did it. The beancurd is very soft and very fragrant too. I wonder if they drizzled some special sauces over it to give it that fragrance and savouriness! 

Our Champagne Pork Rib (Small – $16).  This is one of their specialty and the presentation is so old school! It has been ages since I saw these flowers used as deocrations on plates. LOL..

I have never heard of cooking pork ribs with champagne and was trying my best to detect the champagne taste but failed. 😛 We were a little disappointed by the dish for it was quite tough and there was not much meat. It was quite a wrestle to get whatever meat there was off the bone! LOL…

Though we were already full after sharing 3 hearty dishes between the 2 of us, I still could not resist ordering dessert! There is a saying that ladies have a special compartment in in their stomach for desserts no matter how full they are. Oh well, that is definitely true!

My order of Sweet Yam Paste ($5).  The way the yam paste is served is not very traditional but I like it. They added sweet corn to the yam paste and it gives a nice, sweet crunch to the soft and mushy yam paste. Nice!

My dining companion could not resist ordering a dessert too under my influence. LOL.. This is his order of Longan with Sea Coconut ($3) which is actually not in the menu but they were nice enough to change the almond jelly beancurd to sea coconut for him. Very freshing and cleansing dessert. 🙂

Our meal came up to $51.60 for 2 person. There is no service charge at Por Kee, only GST hence it would be nice to leave a tip in appreciation for their service. Though we did not try their live seafood items, their food were flavoursome in general but we felt that they could have used less salt in the dishes.  We noticed that there were a lot of Chinese Indonesians at this restaurant and were a little puzzled. It was only after the meal that we took a closer look at the newspaper articles around the eating house and we understood why – Megawati had actually patronise this restaurant when she was in Singapore and made it a place she will definitely go to when she is in Singapore.

 

Por Kee Eating House 1996
Blk 69 Seng Poh Lane #01-02
Singapore 160069
Tel: 6221 0582
Opening hours:
Lunch – 11.30am to 2.30pm
Dinner – 5.30pm to 12.30am

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photos Taken with Iphone4S