Charcoal Fish Head Steamboat @ Lee Kwang Kee Teochew Cuisine 212 Toa Payoh 鱼头炉 • 李广记潮州菜馆

I love soups, so I love steamboats but I don't enjoy those with too much ingredients as these make me busy cooking and so is not very relaxing 😂

Hence, I prefer fish head steamboat 鱼头炉, especially the relatively uncomplicated types like Lee Kwang Kee 李广记 at HDB block 212 Toa Payoh lorong 8.

Uncomplicated is a misnomer - it is simple for us because the chef and kitchen did all the hard work 😂

Chef 刘明师傅 slices up the fresh red grouper fish. There are choices of snapper and pomfret too. 

Chef 刘明 made slicing the fish looked easy. He has been with Lee Kwang Kee for 14 years. Chef Liu and most of his crew hail from Chaoshan, Guangdong, China and it shows in his food. 

The fish head with the bright eye starring at the camera 👀

Chef fries the fish head, then add cabbage, fry them together before adding stock made with old hens and pork socket bone. 

The steamy fish head soup is tipped into the steamboat. 

Red hot embers are put into the funnel of the steamboat. 

The steamboat set comes with green vegetables, enoki mushroom and egg floss (fried scrambled eggs). Quite simple, without fancy frills nor processed food items. 

Chef Liu said these egg floss (fried scrambled eggs) are important. 

Chef Liu suggests adding the egg floss into the fish head soup and let it simmer briefly, thus adding another savoury eggy layer to the soup. 

Oh... I love the clean tasting soup here. Savoury sweet eggy and I can feel immediately the natural fresh ingredients in the piping hot soup. This differs from the Singapore version in having less yam and no tomatoes.

Dunk the thick grouper slices in the soup for a couple of minutes, and we can enjoy the marvellous fresh tender fish's sweetness. 

The staff going around to top up soup was very alert and attentive. He just comes around and fill the soup to the brim, which heats up to boiling point very quickly thanks to hot embers inside the funnel. 

We thoroughly enjoyed the goodness in the soup - fish head, fish slices, yam, tofu, cabbage, enoki mushroom (that's about it). The charcoal fire somehow impart a certain subtle smokiness to the soup. 

The service was good. All the staff were cheerful and helpful. This staff was helping a customer pick up cooked food from the steamboat ❤️

Many of the customers were families or gatherings of friends. Ah yes.... steamboat is not only a meal but a social event. 

I love the beauty of these charcoal fired Chinese cloisonné 景泰蓝 or enamel steamboats. There were many different designs and I was going around different tables to admire them 🤭

Lee Kwang Kee is a Teochew restaurant, so it has many Teochew specialties such as Teochew cold crab, besides fish head steamboat. 

I like their meaty sweet moist umami bomb, I mean Teochew cold crab 🦀

Savoury sweet authentic melt-in-mouth Teochew pork aspic, that doesn't use much, if any jellying agent. 

I like the fish head steamboat at Lee Kwang Kee, and the Teochew dishes I can order with it (which differs from the zhi char dishes offered at Singapore style fish head steamboat places). 

I feel Lee Kwang Kee's prices are very competitive too. There's membership discounts as well (ask about it).

Next time, I want to try their Teochew fried kway teow, yam dessert, etc. 

Restaurant name: Lee Kwang Kee Teochew Cuisine

Address: HDB Block 212 Lor 8 Toa Payoh, Singapore 310212

Nearest MRT: 10 minutes walk from Braddell station

Tel: 6259 0080

Hours: Lunch & Dinner (24/7 round the clock)

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Written by Tony Boey on 10 Sep 2024