Wu You Eating Place • Culinary Treasure House at Lavender Street 五攸食坊 • 美食宝宅 ☏ 89131519

Wu You Eating Place 无忧餐厅 | 312 Lavender Street, Singapore 338816 🚅 5 minute walk from Boon Keng station ☏ 8913 1519 ⏰ 11am - 3 pm | 5pm - 10 pm

Met at Wu You Eating Place for lunch. Buddies had been to Wu You before and they love it. This was my first time here and half way through the meal, I already made up my mind to come back again.

I walked past Wu You and didn't stop 🤭 missing the signboard. I thought that was a knick knack / trinket shop as there were lots of decorations hanging outside. Buddy saw me walked past and came out to pull me back 😂🙏

Inside, Wu You is a long narrow space crowded with furnishings, decorations, memorabilia, and food pictures, etc. It's private, personal, eccentric, whimsical like homes strewn with souvenirs collected from years of travels. Dazzling, bewildering.

Some shelves have crystals, emeralds and jade on display as Wu You's owners were dealing in precious stones before converting to food business two years ago.

Esmond Lee is the head, actually, the only chef while sister Jennifer runs the front office. Known as Bao Zhai 宝仔 and Bao Ma 宝妈 to their fans, Bao Zhai was professionally an interior designer. He retired from that industry two years ago to pursue his passion in cooking full time.

Since his teens, Bao Zhai was the chef and baker for all family feasts.

The Lees are Hainanese. Born in Beranang (Selangor), grew up in Ipoh and lived in Singapore for the past 30 years, Bao Zhai's cuisine reflects his diverse background and varied experiences.

Wu You Eating Place have neither a menu book nor even a fixed menu. If you walk in, you just have what Esmomd is cooking that day. If you want your select choice of dishes, call Jennifer ☎️ 8913 1519 and make arrangements.

Ask Jennifer about traditional Hainanese dishes like pork chop, Ipoh dishes like Ipoh style fried kway teow, dragon (qing long) vegetable omelette, Wu You's family signature braised duck. If you are celebrating a birthday, ask if Bao Zhai can bake a cake for you.

We started with soya sauce chicken. This was made with kampung chicken.

The meat and skin were tender with a slight chewiness. The golden mean between soft and chewy, I like. The meat was mildly savoury from braising stock allowing us to enjoy the free range bird's natural sweetness. (It doesn't have strong savoury and Chinese 5-spice taste sometimes encountered at other soya sauce chicken places.)

Wu You's rendition has a homely feel like this (though mine is at least 250 leagues behind Esmond's 🤭 ).

Sayur paku with prawn and squid. Not very photogenic, I had trouble looking for the best angle to show off my favourite dish of the day.

Fleshy soft crunchy sayur paku (fern) stir-fried with a robustly umami savoury sauce with belacan and a bit of heat. The meaty prawns were skilfully done light, crunchy, juicy and tasted fresh. The bits of squid were tender crunchy.

Large stir-fried prawns with mung bean noodles.

Large tender firm prawns but we got to shell it ourselves 😄

The best part of this dish was the soft crunchy mung bean noodles which infused all the umami savoury flavours from the prawns, sauces and aromatics.

We especially like the coriander root aroma and taste infused in the glass noodles.

Soup of the day was homely comforting chicken soup sweetened with pumpkin.

I prefer house made concoctions than fizzy cans anytime 😁

Wu You Eating Place is a good option if you are looking for a family meal or a gathering with homely dishes carefully prepared and executed with pride. The portions were big - we struggled to finish the food even though we thoroughly enjoyed every bite.

The dishes have the unique highly personal stamp of Esmond's background and personality - it's a very direct, visceral connection with the chef - the whole point of private dining.

Wu You Eating Place is in the process of acquiring a liquor licence.