Kok Sen Restaurant

This entry is the beginning of a series of restaurant reviews in Singapore.

For the first leg of this journey, my not-so-uncle uncle took us to Kok Sen Restaurant in Chinatown. According to my granduncle, we had to go early lest the restaurant gets too crowded and parking gets hard to find. Those are the two signs of good food, but being in Singapore, I had my doubts.

Kok Sen Restaurant.

Kok Sen had a healthy crowd, with most tables being full. Luckily we had reserved a table beforehand. Our order was also taken with haste and the first dish was quick to arrive.

Crispy chicken skin with seafood ball.

I do not know what this dish is called but apparently it is one of the famous dishes from Kok Sen. The chicken skin was very crispy and light. It was not soaked in oil, therefore retaining the flavour of chicken in the skin. The seafood ball underneath the chicken skin was sweet and had an intense flavour, yet when eaten together with the chicken skin, the tastes of the seafood ball and chicken coexist in a sweet and savoury harmony.

Frog with ginger and spring onion.

The surprising element in this dish is the fact that there was no sauce. All of the sauce was reduced to almost nothing, resulting in a dry dish but moist crusts on the frog meat. However, for a dish with a completely reduced sauce, it came across as rather tasteless. Although the effect of the heat from the wok can be tasted in the frog meat, it was not complemented with a flavourful sauce, which is a real pity because it could have been a great dish.

Claypot tofu, seafood balls and eggplant.

I was rather disappointed with this dish. I do not have anything to complain about the tofu, the seafood balls or the eggplants. They were cooked perfectly. It is the sauce that I have a problem with. Kok Sen tries to mimic the Sichuan style fish fragrance eggplant, 魚香茄子. However, they have much to improve when it comes to sauce. The sauce was thick, but was not backed by any substantial flavour. Nonetheless, it is a challenge for restaurants to balance the complexity of fish fragrance sauce, as such, I did not expect a restaurant in this part of the world to be able to master the preparation of the sauce.

Steamed grouper tail.

This dish is another disappointment. The fish was not fresh. That pretty much explains itself. The fish meat was dry and hard. Furthermore, steaming fish pretty much places all emphasis on the texture. With such a fish, no one would be happy.

Fried kailan with beef slices.

This dish looked good, especially to a beef lover like me. However, once I sampled it, I was immediately put off. The ginger used in the dish overpowered all other flavours, such that the kailan and beef tasted like ginger. The beefy taste that beef is supposed to have was completely murdered by the use, or misuse, of ginger.

Spinach with salted egg and century egg.

There is nothing special about this dish. The standard is similar to any other versions of this dish from other restaurants, hence, there is no need for a lengthy review.

Kok Sen does have good dishes, but with many of their dishes lacking the spark that separates the delicious from the decent, I would not return until they take their culinary prowess up a notch.

30, Keong Saik Road,

Singapore 089137,

6223 2005

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