[Tasting] Li Ji Chuan Chuan Xiang 李记串串香 @ 206 Jalan Besar

Was invited to a tasting session at Li Ji Chuan Chuan Xiang at its new outlet at 206 Jalan Besar. The brand originated from Chong Qing China with about 500 outlets and is renowned for its delicious skewers (串串) and hotpot. Li Ji Chuan Chuan Xiang flagship restaurant is in Chinatown Singapore since 2017.

For the uninitiated, its Jalan Besar outlet is just across the road of the famed pig's organ soup shop, and around the corner of the kopitiam with the well-known Amy Yip's buns.

interior

Was delighted to find out that one could enjoy private dining signature dishes by Chef Ng Sen Tio (黄胜潮) here. Now we can pair our comfort food with specialty Cantonese (粵) cuisine. Am liking this variety already!

If you prefer to dine in the comfort of a private room to celebrate special occasions, Li Ji Chuan Chuan Xiang at Jalan Besar has it.

hotpot with  soup bases setup

At Li Ji Chuan Chuan Xiang, one could do a single ($10), double ($13) or four flavours ($18) soup base. Looking at the price points, I'd say go for the four flavours soup base! 

Ahhh, but I need to tell you this first. My favourite is their 'Green Pepper Chilli Mala' (李记独特青一色锅底) soup base. Must order. However, need to top up $5, $3 and $2 respectively to the single, double and four flavours pricing to enjoy this.

For our hotpot's four flavours soup base, we had the following (arranged in the order of my preference~)

• 李记独特青一色锅底 Green Pepper Chilli Mala
• 三鲜鸡汤锅底 Chicken
• 番茄锅底 Tomato
• 麻辣锅底 （清油）Mala

Recommend to try the soup individually first before cooking and see which one you like the most. Let me know ya!

Let's take a look at the ingredients shall we? Starting with plates after plates of fresh looking produce.

梅花肉 Pork Collar @$8

玲玲卷 Ring Roll @$4

五花肉 Pork Belly @$8

油麥菜 Lettuce @$3

神仙牛肉 Signature Beef Slices @$8

肥牛片Fatty Beef Slices @$8

山药 Chinese Yam @$6

新鲜虾滑 Fresh Prawn Paste @$10

Of course, one can't leave without trying the skewers. Only 50cents per stick! Let's grab bunches of them!

香菜牛/猪肉 Beef/Pork with Coriander Skewer

土豆,海带,莲藕,冬瓜,西兰花 potato, seaweed, lotus root, winter melon, broccoli

秘制鸡肉 Special Recipe Chicken

Enough of the photo taking, and let's start cooking!

so hungry!

While waiting for the things to be cooked, let's fill our tummies with one of Chef Ng's Private Dining Dishes (私房菜) of Lobster Noodles. Impressive looking plate!

龙虾伊面 Lobster Noodle @$120 (1kg)

mine!

let's eat!

The friendly staff would enquire if you need any help with the sauces or if you prefer to concoct one on your own.

what would be your favourite hotpot dipping sauce?

For me, I asked for the shop's specialty and was presented with this bowl that seemed to have everything! I liked that the sauce wasn't too spicy.

shop's specialty dipping sauce @$2

I enjoyed in particularly the Signature Beef Slices (神仙牛肉) or should it be called heavenly beef instead? Haha! It is of a thicker cut, well marinated (spicy yes!) and gives a nice chew after cooking. Plenty of flavours. So good!

My favourite skewers would be the Corriander Skewer of Pork and Beef. Deceptively spicy too!

香菜猪肉 Pork with Coriander Skewer

香菜牛肉 Beef with Coriander Skewer

The best time to taste the Chicken (三鲜鸡汤锅底) and the Tomato (番茄锅底) soup again, was after all the cooking was done. Wahhhh... intense!

For dessert, we tried the 3 Treasures Dessert Platter which consists of a puff pastry, perched elegantly ontop a slice of watermelon and followed by a bowl of refreshing iced jelly topped with sweet hawthorn flakes.

三宝金典甜品 3 Treasures Dessert Platter @$8

delicious red bean and banana paste wrapped in pastry

Chef's recommendation is to have the pastry first, the fruit and lastly the iced bingfen jelly. 

iced jelly 冰粉 with hawthorn flakes

Overall, I enjoyed the variety and flavours offered at Li Ji Chuan Chuan Xiang plus there is now an option to order specialty Cantonese cuisine for celebrations and special occasions. Best of both worlds!

Thank you Jennifer of Jennifer Yeo Consultancy for the invite and Li Ji Chuan Chuan Xiang for hosting the dinner. Special thanks to William and Chef Ng for the delicious meal.

Li Ji Chuan Chuan Xiang 李记串串香

Flagship restaurant： 295 South Bridge Road Singapore 058838 

Operation Hours: 12pm to 12am 

For reservations, call 6221 9629. 

NEW Outlet： 206 Jalan Besar Singapore 208892 

Operation Hours: 12pm to 12am 

For reservations, call 6291 2289.

Beauty In The Pot 美滋锅 @ Star Vista

Once in a year gathering with ex-colleagues, and last year we were at Tan Yu and this time round, they decided to journey to the west. Hotpot, it shall be. Reservations were made by Jingwen (thanks!), and the wait was about 5 minutes for the table to be ready.

shopfront

rose bear (mascot?)

One thing to note is that each table was limited to just 90-minutes. Service was brisk, and diners are to order through the tablet. Liked that the information displayed included the trending items. For noobs, just get the #1 trending from each section, can't go wrong!

For soup, we ordered 4 different ones; collagen, mala, tomato and mushrooms. For sauce, the concept is similar to HDL, where diners would pay an amount (I think it was $2.99) per head and can get one sauce and fruits.

For drinks, we had the sour plum which strangely came looking like guava juice. A tad too sweet for me, this plum juice.

plum juice (refillable)

top clock-wise: collagen, mala, mushroom and tomato

Beauty Sesame Dip 美滋锅芝麻味碟

Fragrant Spicy Sauce 特制香辣酱

For hot pot, we ordered the usual meat, fish paste, vegetables, noodles, dumplings etc.

US Angus Prime Short Ribs 美国鲜嫩厚脂肥牛

US Angus Prime Short Ribs 美国鲜嫩厚脂肥牛

Mixed Dumplings Platter

The dumplings here were pretty good. The mixed dumplings platter was like a sampler set and had Pork and Chives Dumpling (韭菜猪肉饺), Prawn Roll Dumpling (虾卷) and Prawn Dumpling (珍宝鲜虾水饺).

cow stomach

Spicy Sliced Pork (香辣猪肉片)

let's eat!

busy busy

give me meat

If you had ordered any Specialty Homemade Paste (滑类), then the staff will help you to push those into the broth. Other than that, it was pretty much on your own.

Ebiko Prawn Paste 鱼子虾滑

one for the mushroom soup

The must order thing for the night, turned out to be the fried beancurd skin.

Fried Beancurd Skin (炸响铃)

It was so good after being dipped into the tomato broth. This was match-made in heaven 绝配 (imho).

fried beancurd skin in tomato broth (delicious!)

After you've finished your meal, the staff will serve you a complimentary shot of lime sorbet. Once again, it was pretty sweet and sour at the same time. Refreshing after a heavy meal.

lime sorbet shot

Then, do remind the staff to bring you the fruits. If you need more, just let the staff know.

fruits to end the meal

The time-limit was good to prevent us from over-ordering and over-eating. When we left at 10+pm, there was the next queue for the next seating as there is a promo of 20% off after 10.30pm.

Expect to spend about $40 to $50 per pax.

Beauty In The Pot 美滋锅

Address: 1 Vista Exchange Green The Star Vista #02-24 Singapore 138617

Website: https://inline.app/booking/-LQn02dF6LFREHgn1AI8:inline-live-2a466/-LfTW6Jgb06U5d_heiXZ?language=en

Contact: 62621692

Business Hours:

Daily: 11:30-03:00

[Media Invite] Wah! Kungfu 蛙功夫

What comes to mind, when you hear the name "Wah! Kungfu"? Probably thought it's either an exclamation about martial art or manga? In Chinese, its meaning is a tad more apparent as the word '蛙' in 蛙功夫 means kungfu frog? Well, its mascot is literally that!

Located right at the exit of Chinatown MRT, this place was easy to find. Just look out for that brightly lit bullfrog signboard peeking out of a window.

signboard

Wah! Kungfu is a contemporary Chinese restaurant that serves up flavourful mouthwatering spicy Hunan-style specialty grill, BBQ and stir-fries, and its interior is pretty much bar-like (夜店风) with neon lights, manga-style graffiti'ed wall-panels and its mascot of butt-kicking kungfu frog. Kitschy? Very. Fun, nonetheless.

guess you know my name

We were invited for a tasting session and got a chance to meet up with the owner of Wah! Kungfu. Young entrepreneur (probably in his late twenties or early thirties) and currently, he has three shops that serves Hunan-specialty food but with different concept and themes.

We were ushered to Level 2 where the lights are a bit more manageable. Service staff wears cutesy frog-ears and they are earnest in their work.

level 2

Its menu is single page and double-sided. We pretty much gotten their signature dishes that night and am happy to report that it was good.

The spice level for its pot/grill items is less spicy, medium spicy and very spicy. However, the very spicy version was still manageable as long as you have a jug of that kumquat lime juice nearby to quench some of those fire.

toy frog on every table

menu

For food, we had the bullfrog with soup, bullfrog on flat grill, BBQ chicken wings, BBQ lamb, BBQ fish, fresh crabs and shrimps in a pot, and some add-ons of stewed intestines and QQ shrimps.

平锅牛蛙 - 怪辣味 （flatgrill bullfrog - special pepper) @$39.80

The Special Pepper flavour bullfrog plate looked fearsome with all those red chilies piled ontop of it. Truth be told, it has a rating of 3 chilies on the menu which is the spiciest level. The meat has been deep fried and then recooked with the spices and hence, more flavourful. Indeed, it was tasty and its spicy level, was manageable. However, it is also more oily as compared to the pot with soup.

泡锅牛蛙 (香辣味) Bullfrog with soup (spicy flavour) @$39.80

My favourite bullfrog dish that night was the spicy flavour in the round pot with soup. Alhough, it similarly had a 3 chilies rating on the menu, it didn't come across as fiery as perhaps the soup helped to balance out the spicy flavours. Also, I liked it as one could taste more of the sweetness from the meat when it was cooked in this manner. Very yummy and goes well with rice.

drinks (left to right) kiwi fruit juice, plum huice, kumquat lime juice and pomegranate juice

外婆酸菜味 (pickled mustard) @$39.80

If you prefer something that is medium spicy and more of a appetising sourish tangy taste, can opt for the pickled mustard flavour. However, this version was not as sourish as we'd prefer and the soup came across as a tad too salty for my liking. This was the least spicy amongst all the pots that we've tasted.

There are side-dishes that one could add-on to the frog pots. For example, the stewed intestine, or the QQ shrimps. For us, we were happy to munch on these on its own as it was already very flavourful as it is.

stewed intestines @$9.80

QQ shrimp @$11.80

Items from the BBQ/grill section were also good. Particularly, I enjoyed the BBQ wings and the lamb skewers. So good! The wings were dry-rubbed with peppercorn salt and it has a bit of that ma-la (麻辣) numbing factor after a while. These are salty so get ready a drink before tucking into these moist and juicy wings.

BBQ mid-wings ( 考鸡翅）@$2.20 per skewer

The lamb skewer were tender and reminiscent of those 新疆烤羊肉串.

lamb skewer @$1.20 per stick

What happens if you don't take bullfrog? No worries, as there's still fish and crabs to choose from.

招牌烤鱼 (barbeque fish) @$35.80

The spicy hot grill fish has a fairly large fish on the plate. Probably 800gms to 1kg of seabass. The fish was fried and then cooked in the spicy broth. The flame will keep it bubbling for a while. Best enjoyed with a friend or two and with a bowl of rice.

fleshy

Another favourite of mine, was the Crab and shrimps pot. The crab was fresh and the spices actually accentuated the sweetness of the seafood. Very good. Unfortunately, the shrimps were overcooked in this one.

虾蟹一锅 (fresh crab and shrimps in one pot) @$38.80

We have seen two petite ladies sharing a pot, so it is possible to enjoy the food here even though in a smaller group. Just take your time to chat and savour the food slowly. After all, the night is still young.

Food portions at Wah! Kungfu is generous, and expect strong flavours throughout. Recommend the kumquat lime juice to quench thirst (and fire), the spicy flavour (round pot) for bullfrog, the fresh crab pot, the BBQ wings and lamb skewers.

Click here for Hungrygowhere promotion.

Thank you to HGW for the invite and Wah! Kungfu for hosting the dinner.

Wah! Kungfu 蛙功夫

Location: 74 Pagoda St, Singapore 059233
Website: http://www.hungrygowhere.com/singapore/wah-kungfu-chinatown/
Contact:  +65 62255981 
Business Hours:
Daily: 11:30 - 23:30