29 Yam Abacus

Made In China (main head picture)
Hua Song Museum,
Haw Par Villa,
262 Pasir Panjang Road,
Tel: 6777-7819
Open: 11.30am to 3pm, 6 to 11pm

The yam abacus is a homely dish that you find mainly in Hakka eateries or hawker stalls.

Many do it well enough to turn out a tasty version with lovely flavours from the dried shrimp, minced pork and mushroom used to fry the round pellets - the abacus seeds - that are made from mashed yam and tapioca flour.

But it can also be a bit stodgy and rough.

The version at Made In China (at $6 a plate) is done in a more refined manner, making it stand out from the rest.

Even the presentation is more artistic, with the chef using sprigs of dill to decorate the plate like miniature pine trees.

And on top of the usual pork and mushrooms, the yam pellets are also fried with bits of French beans and other vegetables. This gives the dish a bit of crunch and also makes its taste much lighter.

The price is another attraction. The dish is labour intensive and even hawker stalls sell it for $3 or $4 for a small plate.

To pay $6 and dine in air-conditioning comfort in a classy restaurant like Made In China is a fantastic deal. WAY

HSBC credit cardholders get 10 per cent off a la carte food bill until June 30 2008.

30 Braised Abalone

Ah Yat Abalone Forum Restaurant
Allson Hotel,
101 Victoria Street,
Tel: 6332-2288
Open: 11am to 3pm, 6 to 10.30pm

It's not for nothing that Ah Yat is synonymous with abalone throughout Asia, from Singapore to Hong Kong to Beijing.

The restaurant takes its name from its owner, Hong Kong chef Yeung Koon Yat, whose recipe for cooking abalone is such a treasured secret that even his staff are not privy to it.

What is known is that the abalones are simmered with other ingredients like chicken for days in a claypot until the sauce turns into a thick, brown gravy of intense flavour.

It is this gravy that makes Ah Yat unbeatable. Other restaurants can't seem to get the same concentrated flavour, perhaps because they just do not cook the same volume of abalones as Ah Yat.

As for the abalone itself, it stays flavourful with a firm texture that yields to the bite easily.

Ah Yat sells both dried as well as fresh ones. The dried version is more prized for its better flavour and firmer texture, and can cost as much as a few hundred dollars each.

The fresh ones are more affordable, with prices starting from $40 for its smallest South African abalone.

The most expensive 4 PPC (pieces per catty - which means it weighs a quarter of a catty) dried Amidori abalone from Japan is a whopping $1,680 each. WAY

31 Buddha Jumps Over The Wall

Spring JuChunYuan 130 Amoy Street 01-01, Far East Square, Tel: 6536-2655 Open: 11.30am to 3pm, 6 to 11pm. Closed on Sundays and public holidays

The dish Buddha Jumps Over The Wall caught on in this part of the world only in the late 1970s.

An expensive dish made from an array of Chinese delicacies such as abalone, sea cucumber and deer's tendon, it came to symbolise the growing wealth of Chinese businessmen who wanted to impress potential clients.

But apparently the dish has been around much longer. In fact, the 142-year-old JuChunYuan Fuzhou in China claims to be the one to have invented it back during the Qing dynasty.

The restaurant opened a branch here in May this year, and obviously the dish is one of the highlights there.

You can order it either as a one-person serving at $98 or a 10-person pot at $1,288.

The porcelain pot is packed with goodies - plump whole abalones, fish maw and dried scallop among others - all simmered in a stock brewed from pork, duck and chicken for 48 hours.

How the dish got its name is pretty interesting too. As a waitress here told it, a Qing scholar who was invited to dinner at the restaurant in China was so captivated by the aroma when the lid of the pot was lifted that he composed a poem on the spot.

It contained the line: "Catching a whiff, Buddha abandons his meditations and jumps over the wall."

When you get a whiff of the rich and slightly herbal fragrance yourself, you'd understand the source of his inspiration. WAY

HSBC credit cardholders get 10 per cent off food bill until June 30 2008. HSBC Premier MasterCard and Visa Platinum credit cardholders get 20 per cent off food bill until June 30 2008.

32 Roasted Suckling Pig

Xin Cuisine Chinese Restaurant
Holiday Inn Atrium Singapore,
317 Outram Road,
Tel: 6731-7173
Open: Noon to 3pm, 6.30 to 11pm

The crackling on the pig here is perfect: crispy and fragrant and yet not fatty.

Whether you eat it the popular way - dipped in hoisin sauce and wrapped with a flour crepe with a sprig of spring onion - or just plain on its own, it tastes wonderful.

The size of the $120 pig is just nice too, yielding enough crackling to serve a table of 10 persons.

The waitress usually removes the rest of the piglet after you finish off the crispy skin off its back. But there is often a lot of meat left on it, especially around the shoulders.

You can request to have it chopped up. But my friends and I would just ask for a knife and hack it up ourselves. It's more fun, and you slice off the chunks of meat from whichever part of the pig you like.

It takes about 45 minutes to prepare the dish. So it's best to order it when you call up for a reservation if you do not want to wait. WAY

HSBC credit cardholders get 15 per cent off the a la carte food menu until June 30 2008.

33 Hairy Crab

Li Bai Cantonese Restaurant
Sheraton Towers,
39 Scotts Road,
Tel: 6839-5623
Open: 11.30am to 2.30pm (Mondays to Saturdays), 10.30am to 2.30pm (Sundays), 6.20 to 10.30pm (daily)

The great thing about eating hairy crabs at Li Bai is that you do not need to worry your head about quality. It's always good.

Plus, if you are at a loss at how to tackle this funny-looking crab from the lakes near Shanghai, which is served whole, the waitress will peel it for you.

Each steamed crab costs $53 inclusive of a cup of hot ginger tea. The tea helps to warm up the body after eating the crab, which the Chinese consider a 'cooling' food.

Li Bai's chef has also come up with various ways of cooking the crab meat as well as the prized roe for those who prefer their crab to come sans shell.

These range from a sinfully rich braised shark's fin with hairy crab meat and roe ($68 per serving) to fried hairy crab roe with milky gravy and wrapped with egg ($22 per serving).

Hairy crabs are seasonal and best eaten from mid-October to November. This year's season at Li Bai starts tomorrow. WAY

HSBC Premier MasterCard and Visa Platinum credit cardholders get 10 per cent off food bill until June 30 2008.

34 Teochew Yu Sheng

East Ocean Teochew Restaurant
1 Scotts Road,
02-18 Shaw Centre,
Tel: 6235-9088
Open: 11.30am to 3pm, 6 to 11pm

Traditional Cantonese yu sheng is very nice, with its bright colours from shredded vegetables, both fresh and preserved. But the sweet plum sauce it is tossed in does not exactly perk up one's appetite.

Since it is served only during Chinese New Year, which is also the time when I'm most laden with good food, a light yu sheng is a much better idea.

East Ocean's Teochew version fits the bill. Priced at $55 for a small serving, it is like a Western salad with whole leaves of butterhead lettuce and endives.

These are arranged prettily in a floral pattern with slices of cucumber and shredded carrot.

The slivers of raw ikan parang are added at the table and the dish is tossed with a savoury soy-based dressing.

It's refreshing with a nice crunch of fresh vegetables and, more importantly, very delicious too.

Watch out for it the next Chinese New Year. WAY

35 Golden Coin Crab Tofu

Moi Lum Restaurant
4 Murray Street,
Murray Terrace,
Tel: 6226-2283
Open: 11am to 2.30pm, 6 to 10pm

In the 1980s, a friend introduced me to this restaurant for two dishes - the roast chicken and the golden coin crab tofu.

The chicken is still good but it is the tofu dish ($12) that has stayed ahead of the competition all these years.

I remembered that in the old days, the deep-fried tofu (which gave the dish its pretty name) had a very smooth texture.

If memory serves me right, it was a bit like the egg tofu that many restaurants now use for their version of the dish.

But Moi Lum's tofu now comes as round puffy balls with a sponge-like texture, much like tofu that has been frozen before being deep-fried.

The sponginess actually makes the tofu better at soaking up the starchy gravy it is cooked in. Pop one into the mouth and you can savour the gravy, sweet with the flavour of crab meat, oozing out.

For colour and a bit of crunch, the dish comes with vegetables such as broccoli, carrot and straw mushroom.

Eaten on its own or with hot white rice, it simply tastes wonderful. WAY

HSBC credit cardholders get a complimentary roast chicken with every $100 spent on a la carte food, until June 30 2008.

36 Curry Crab

No. 3 Crab Delicacy Seafood
265 Outram Road,
Tel: 6327-2148
Open: 11.30am to 2.30pm, 5 to 11.30pm

Arm yourself well. Wear dark clothes so the splashes of gravy don't show. Order a few plates of thick laksa noodles or steamed, fluffy mantou.

You'll need them for the curry crab ($42 per kg for the crab) experience at No. 3 Crab Delicacy Seafood.

Forget butter crab and black pepper crab. When you dine at this small, friendly restaurant, always order their special dish: mudcrabs in a mildly spicy, coconutty gravy.

Your spoon reaches automatically for the orange gravy. Made with a wet spice mix and a blend of ground spices that owner Thomas Lim concocted himself, the broth is not too chilli-hot and not too rich with coconut milk.

What you get is a slight tingling on the tongue which perks up the appetite instantly.

Drown those noodles ($3 a portion) in the gravy, let them sit in the juice, then eat. Then reach for another portion of noodles and gravy and do it all again. I know you'll want to.

There's also steamed mantou (six for $2.40), better than the fried ones because they soak up the gravy like sponges.

When you get to the crab, you'll find that the crustaceans have imbibed some of the curry flavour and taste sweet and juicy.

I've never had a bad crab here and it's probably because the owners also run a wet market stall, Lee Hoe Seafood at Tekka Market, selling fresh seafood. THY

HSBC credit cardholders get 20 per cent off lunch bill and 15 per cent off dinner bill until Dec 31 2008.

37 Cantonese Roast Chicken

Imperial Treasure Cantonese Cuisine
1 Kim Seng Road,
02-06 Great World City,
Tel: 6732-2232
Open: 11.30am to 2.30pm, 6 to 10.30pm

My favourite Cantonese roast chicken used to be found at Chef Chan's Restaurant at Odeon Towers.

But now that the restaurant has closed, I've found a successor at Imperial Treasure Cantonese Cuisine.

Priced at $16 for half a chicken, the  version here beats the competition in all the criteria of a good roast chicken.

The meat is well marinated but still tastes fresh. Some restaurants tend to seep the chicken in the marinade for so long that it covers up the natural flavours of the bird.

Another plus point is that the chicken is cooked just long enough to leave the meat still moist.

But it is the perfect crispness of the skin that makes the dish a winner. Few cooks can achieve such paper-thin crispness without burning the skin.

The Imperial Treasure chef does it right every time. WAY

38 Oyster Omelette

Beng Thin Hoon Kee
05-02 OCBC Centre,
65 Chulia Street,
Tel: 6533-2818
Open: 11.30am to 3pm, 6 to 10pm

Its legions of faithful fans - three generations of them - come for the unpretentious offerings of hearty homey fare at this old Hokkien restaurant.

There are the usual suspects like the delicious kong bak pau (steamed buns with braised pork, $15) and Fujian prawn ball ($10) but it is the oyster omelette ($12) that fans rave about.

Instead of fluffy chunks, the omelette is fried to a crepe-like crispiness. The texture is a lovely contrast to the juicy oysters that top this traditional dish.

Savour it with the tangy homemade chilli sauce and you will be tempted to put your diet on hold.

Apparently, this is a time-consuming dish to prepare. The thin crepe has to be carefully fried to the correct golden brown hue.

While the emphasis is obviously on the food, Beng Thin Hoon Kee now wants to update its look to keep up with the times.

It was opened by Lim Yew Hoon in 1949 in Hokkien Street and it moved to its current location in 1979. It is now run by his children.

It will be closed for renovation from Nov 19.

When it reopens on Dec 3, expect a more trendy look. TLT

39 Xiamen Popiah

Spring Court Restaurant
52-56 Upper Cross Street,
Tel: 6449-5030
Open: 11am to 2.30pm, 6 to 10.30pm

While the mainstay of this family-run restaurant in Chinatown is Cantonese cuisine, there is one Chinese dish - Xiamen popiah ($6 each) - that is close to managing director Soon Puay Keow's heart.

Her late mother, who was from Xiamen, a coastal city in south-eastern Fujian province, used to make it for family gatherings. Friends and relatives loved it.

When Madam Soon introduced it to the eatery at the end of last year, there was good response for this traditional Chinese crepe.

Each popiah is about double the size of an average spring roll.

The plump filling of shredded cabbage, bangkwang (turnip) and peas gives it a slightly crunchy texture.

Apart from the usual toasted peanuts which are coarsely ground, shredded omelette, carrot and fried tau kwa (beancurd) cubes, there is shredded seaweed which is specially imported from Xiamen.

The chopped prawn and fish meat, not usually found in popiah, add to the sweetness.

The filling is cooked in a special superior stock. Madam Soon would only let on that it includes pork bones and fried sole.

While the popiah may be a fairly new introduction, the restaurant has been around for 78 years.

The eatery first opened in Great World in 1929. It moved to Chinatown in 1978 and then moved again to East Coast in 1991.

It has been back in Chinatown since 2004. TLT

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