We gathered at Yi Restaurant 奇味鸡煲 in Kovan for China style spicy hotpot. Aaron missed the spicy hotpots of Shanghai and Yi Restaurant was the nearest thing to those in China that he came across in Singapore.
Yi Restaurant is a basic shoplot eatery. The set up is bare bones, informal, free of frills. It was full house when we were there on a cool, rainy night ☔
The claypots sit on top of induction hotplates - not very elegant and thick cables run across the table to the wall socket.
Pour in the thick spicy dark soup, cook the ingredients in it and eat lah! Everybody can cook. It's a great communal eating tradition and Aaron said it kept him warm in Winter during his China days.
We had two pots, one more spicy and one less spicy. We didn't go for the max spicy level nor the lowest. While Chinese spicy hotpots are often very oily, Yi Restaurant's was not overly so. The flavour was salty-savoury spicy hot. The taste was intense, especially the hotter pot but there was little aroma.
Additional ingredients are stocked in a refrigerator and customers help themselves to plates of it. The staff will tally up the total cost at the end of the meal by counting the empty plates and write the bill accordingly.
The first thing that went in the hotpots were the large chunks of fresh chicken. I liked it as the meat was tender and juicy, and it had a nice natural chicky sweetness which the spicy broth complemented.
We threw in lots of other assorted random things into the bubbling hotpots like hungry teenagers celebrating the end of exams 😁 Hotpots are fun that way. We had quail eggs, various soft and fried tofu, ham, beef, wieners, vegetables, mushrooms, noodles etc etc.
The staff comes around to top up the soup regularly. She also scooped in sauces as the top ups diluted the taste of the soup.
Truth be told, other than the fresh chicken, and the fresh vegetables, the other ingredients tasted pretty generic. Most of the flavours came from the spicy broth clinging to the food. The spicy food went very well with plain white rice.
We enjoyed ourselves mainly because of the banter and laughter around the table. Hotpot and steamboat always work for get togethers.
Towards the end of the meal, even though I was totally stuffed, I still reached for a bottle of cold water as I was feeling thirsty and hot.
Our total bill for 10 persons came to about SGD190 including drinks.
Restaurant name: Yi Restaurant 奇味鸡煲
Address: 947 Upper Serangoon Road Singapore 534712 (less than 10 minutes walk from Kovan MRT station)
GPS: 1°21'40.8"N 103°53'10.9"E | 1.361345, 103.886346
Tel: 8484 6609
Hours: 5:00pm to 3:00am
Non Halal
Date visited: 11 Dec 2017
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