Soup Restaurant @ 1 Utama

Soup Restaurant specializes in more than just soup. This place boasts of homecooked meals and family recipes with a distinctively traditional taste. It used to be called, “Soup Restaurant” in some places, and “Dian Xiao Er” in Singapore but now, they are just known popularly as Soup Restaurant.

The inspiration for the soothing bowls of soup at Soup Restaurant, comes from one of the owners, Mr Mok, drawing from his Cantonese upbringing in Chinatown – he introduced a series of Cantonese based home-cooked dishes which he termed “Chinatown Heritage Cuisine”. At a time when there was a surge in the popularity of Herbal Soups in Hong Kong, and with the emergence of restaurants specialising in Herbal Soups Mr Mok and co., decided that maybe there was a market for this sort of cooking afterall. They looked to neighbouring Singapore to start their business of Herbal Soups and home-cooked dishes, catered especially to young professionals with limited access to home-cooked food. Their tasty, wholesome dishes were well received, especially the “Samsui Ginger Chicken” , which became an instant hit and has since become one of Soup Restaurant’s signature dishes. Finally they expanded to Malaysia, and we checked the place out, just last week. The food is decent and really liked some of their signature dishes.

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Olive rice

This rice was a real hit with us. The unique texture of the bits of olive skin and flesh when you chance to bite into them, along with the rice that’s mixed thoroughly with olive oil – the sensation is fantastic! I had no idea that this was a traditional Cantonese dish. Very nice and flavourful. It’s almost like a Mediterranean inspired dish because of the characteristic olive oil aroma..

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Samsui Ginger Chicken

Another crazy addictive dish. The Samsui Ginger Chicken is tasty and fresh with a lovely taut and crunchy skin – must be the washing in cold water that has conferred this bouncy texture. The ginger that accompanies the chicken has a sharp zing and bite to it. Lovely!

So the story goes, that back in the 1930’s, when thousands of Samsui female immigrants left Guangdong to become construction laborers in Singapore, this dish was somewhat of a delicacy and could only be eaten as a treat, once in a long while. This is a dish that the Samsui women would whip up in the olden days to celebrate special occasions, as chicken was an expensive food item during those times. It of course evoked deep feelings of the motherland, and I am sure a tear or two were shed, eating this chicken. Sigh.. such history.

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You can eat the Samsui Chicken on its own…

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Or wrapped in the lettuce leaves the restaurant provides. Either way, equally good!

The chicken is broiled and every piece is tender and retains the essence, even the breast meat. The chicken is usually not fatty with just thin layers of skin on it. It is served with the most fragrant minced ginger ever tasted. Just dip the chicken pieces into the ginger sauce and wrap each piece with fresh lettuce leaves. It is an interesting way of eating broiled chicken — a taste combination of tender chicken meat, fragrant ginger bits with crunchy lettuce. Take one bite and you’ll be left longing for more.

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Minced pork with salted fish (ham yue tiok chee yoke)

This hearty, traditional minced pork dish in soya sauce, was slightly too sweet for me. Otherwise, no complaints.

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Spinach with century and salted egg

Divine! A must order.

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Fish slices cooked in spring onions and vegetables

This dish was tasteless. Of the lot, it was the most disappointing.

 

So where was the soup, you might ask? We actually forgot to order the soup (can you imagine) because we were so distracted by the Samsui Ginger Chicken, but next week, that’s on our list of must have’s at Soup Restaurant!

 

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Add:
Soup Restaurant @ 1 Utama,
G210A, Ground Floor,
One Utama (old wing),
Bandar Utama,
Petaling Jaya.
Tel: 03-7727-2788

 

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