We arranged to meet for lunch at the Song Fa Kway Chap outlet at Food Opera at Ion Orchard.
As usual I arrived way too early, so that I can wander around, look see, look see around the place 🤭 Retiree mindset 🕺
Nowadays, I hang out at food courts a little more as the heat outdoors is getting a little unbearable, especially during lunch time. I walked around the thirty or so stalls at Opera Ion and found it has a good variety and mix of cuisine from local favourites to regional / international. Quite an interesting eating place.
Opera Ion was very busy during lunch but spacious, comfortable, clean and bright. It's a nice chill place to cool our heels in between shopping in Ion Orchard.
There's a Singapore style chicken rice stall with inviting plump, succulent birds.
The chicken in pork maw soup looked irresistible. The bubbling steamy soup looked so rich! Prices look affordable too at $9.50 a serving and rice for another $1.
The queue at Li Xin, one of the best fish ball noodle brands in Singapore, stretched to beyond my camera's field of view 😬
Odean Beef Noodle, an iconic brand from old Singapore. The last time I had a good beef noodle in a food court was in the 1980s across the road at the old Picnic at Scotts.
Picnic at Scotts was one of the first food courts in Singapore. (The actual first opened in 1985 in the demolished Funan Centre.)
We were meeting at Song Fa, another old Singapore brand from the 1960s. This is Song Fa's latest outlet, just opened last week (Jul 2023).
At their mini restaurant at Food Opera, Song Fa focus on Teochew classics of braised duck and kway chap.
We started with a large mixed platter of braised duck, pork belly, intestine, tofu, salted vegetable, and peanut.
The duck meat was soft and moist, with the slightly thickened sauce adding a layer of savoury, light spice and sweet flavours.
Love the soft spongy texture of fatty big intestines which were well infused with savoury and spice flavours from the braising stock.
Today, the braised pork skin well flavoured, was relatively firm and chewy.
I like this sizzling pork belly stir fried with salted fish, soy sauce, and aromatics. The layers of nice savoury and spicy tastes from the pork belly were perfect with balancing sweetness from white rice.
Fried garlic pork belly.
Crispy crunchy chewy fried pork belly marinated and encrusted with garlic. Addictive savoury taste with a bit of garlic heat.
Claypot spinach with fresh egg, salted egg and century egg.
A most agreeable way to eat your spinach 😂 But, seriously this is a delicious, complexly layered umami savoury sweet eggy dish.
Thin rice sheets in braising stock and thin rice gruel which I enjoyed the savoury braised meats with.
Song Fa has the option of peppery bak kut teh stock with their kway but I stuck to the traditional savoury brown stock. I didn't try this, this time.
Cold King's Garden Tea with honey.
The chili sauce dip behind (the tea). Nicely spicy savoury tangy with depth of flavour from generous use of galangal plus chili, of course.
Will definitely be back to explore and try more dishes at Song Fa and Food Opera at Ion Orchard.
The Song Fa Kway Chap outlet at Northshore 👈 click
David Wong said on Johor Kaki Facebook:
ReplyDelete"Suukee, in ur article u mentioned Ocean Beef Noodle in Scotts Picnic. Was it a typo? Should it be Odeon?
Btw, thought it was Hwa Heng that was at Scotts. This Odeon brand, does it have any relation to the Hwa Heng family that has stalls in Bendemeer and Jln Besar?"