Tong Shui Cafe

I've always loved Bugis- shopping and eating are easily available at every corner of its streets. The hustle and the bustle, away from downtown downtown, yet close to where all the action is.

You are always spoilt for choice on what to do in Bugis- Parco Bugis Junction, Bugis Village, Icon for shopping or simply to plonk your butt down in one of the alleys to grab a bite.

But one of my favourite parts of Bugis is this alley which I have endearingly named "The food alley" (because I have no clue what is the actual street). It is where eateries like Ah Chew Tian Ping, the popular duck stall, western food restaurants, taiwanese food restaurants are. Chong Qing Hotpot is just the corner away. My perennial hobby is to walk down that alley and check out the various eateries. I'm so good at doing this, that most of the time I go there and eat at some tasty popular restaurant without even knowing the name of the restaurant.

I spotted something new the other day- I'm not sure if it is new new, or old new because I have been away for so long. Yesterday, W and I decided to go for a shopping trip. Mainly because we are still in a holiday mood though we have been back in Singapore for almost 3 weeks. How time flies. Unlike most Singaporean girls, W and I have to eat. *Grin* So the choice was up to me, since I’m usually the more fussy eater. I decided to go over to this “new” Hongkong Xiao Chi Restaurant named “Tong Shui Café”.

The place is really very Hongkong styled. Step in and you will notice the pink walls, red lanterns, and Chinese wooden tables.

On the innermost wall, it is adorned with all the magazine reviews it has garnered. Pretty impressive. A whole wall of reviews! Smack in the middle of all these reviews hangs a plasma TV.

Sit down and you notice how attentive to details this place is. The pepper shaker, chili holder, and even the wet tissue packaging (the pink and the green packet) are all designed to suit the theme of this place.

Even the menu is Chinese-nised!

First up was the appetizer that was served to us. I’m not sure if we were charged in the end because W footed the bill. It was pretty much Chinese style pickled vegetables. The sweet-sourish kind. W found it to be quite nice, while I on the other hand am not a fan of the pickled vegetables.

Our first dish then came was W’s Crispy Noodles. The menu described it as a fun presentation. Yet sometimes I am puzzled by how totally irrelevant the descriptions are and how they fail to elaborate more on what the dishes are. When we first saw it, W’s reaction was “Wow. The portion’s quite small right?” But the portion turned out to be quite adequate for us, as we were both girls. For guys though I think the other dishes would warrant a better choice. W’s Crispy noodles were quite alright. It had texture and crunch, though I felt that it could have been crispier to bring out the taste. One good example would be the Crispy noodles we had at Hon’s Wan-Ton house in Vancouver (which I shall talk about another time). Tong Shui’s sauce used in the Crispy noodles was good, rather tasty. The pork wasn’t too bad either, I felt that it gave quite a nice balance to the dish in general. W felt it was too salty, and I believe that could have been because after eating the dish for a while, it became too “over-bearing” (or Jalat like how some people describe it). I liked the saltiness of the pork though, felt it was just nice because the sauce was quite light. 3/5

Our next dish was my “Oven Baked Rice” served in a tim sum basket, with Chix Wings. I felt that the dish was only average. While the cheese was very generous, I would say that I didn’t quite like its texture. It came out to be rather hard and tough, rather than tender and chewy, like how you would expect most Mozzarella cheese to be. The rice was too dry, not moist enough and the taste was rather bland. There were peas and carrots added to give the rice crunch and flavour, however I felt that the rice could have been a tad more salty. The Chix wings (short form for Chicken Wings) were mediocre as well. The texture was rather dry, and the insides were not moist enough. So I got the feeling that I was eating dry, tough chicken meat that had been overcooked. Generally I felt that even NYDC would have fared better with the baked rice dish and I couldn’t fathom why there were so many reviews writing on the Oven Baked Rice Chix Wings that I had. To be fair though, the portion was big and I had a whole load of chicken wings that I couldn’t finish. The thing about bake rice dishes is that you have to be careful about the timing that you leave the dish in the oven, otherwise it will end up with the rice being burnt and dry, while the cheese has hardened, and the meat overcooked. In other words, the whole dish would be overcooked and unappetizing. There was once I patronized this Macau restaurant with my friends just before leaving for Canada and the baked rice there tasted like it had been left in the Microwave and taken out in 5 min. I was so insistent in my belief that the place was using Microwave to cook its dishes instead of a conventional oven! How can a restaurant possibly churn out a baked rice in 2 min? It MUST be using a microwave oven, and THAT explains the texture. In this case, for Tong Shui Café, I can’t be too sure about the style of cooking, but it wasn’t too good. 2/5

The last dish we ordered turn out to be the Stellar dish though. It was the Chef’s 8- Treasures Herbal Soup and it was really very well done indeed. There were generous portions of pork meat, ginseng, red dates, Tang gui used and the first sip I had confirmed that the soup had been boiled for a long time. The ginseng taste was very evident and the soup was very flavourful. I have tasted extremely bland soup where the flavours failed to emerge and that left me really disappointed- thus the key would be to boil the soup for as long as possible (though you have got to be careful in not burning the soup as a result), and that would cause the flavours of the ingredients to be brought out well. The pork used in this soup was very tender and moist, again evidence that the soup has been boiled long enough. 4/5 for the soup!

W said she quite liked the food at Tong Shui, though I felt that despite the whole load of reviews, the food was only ok. Ambience is quite alright, a refreshing change from the usual look of restaurants, service was ok too. The waitors were quite fast and attentive and our food arrived in less than 10 min. While W said she would go back to the restaurant again, I am quite hesistant. The desserts did look very appetizing, and the other dishes looked not too bad too, but I wouldn’t try the Oven Baked rice again. All in all, this restaurant is mediocre, and a 3/5 would be sufficient (balanced out by the fantastic soup and the okayed crispy noodles). I would have to make another trip down next time to try out the desserts though, and perhaps my impression of the place would improve with the other dishes.

note: (as of 1st Feb 2007) I discovered that this street is actually called Liang Seah Street!! :) My food street!!