STI: Belly up for char siew

April 5, 2009

Belly up for char siew

By Tan Hsueh Yun 

 

After I wrote about making char siew at home some months ago, I received an e-mail from a reader asking why my recipe called for shoulder meat. Would pork belly not be better, he wanted to know. I thought about it and wrote back to say that cut of meat might be a tad rich.

 

I think I shuddered a little too, before hitting the 'send' button.

 

Well Sir, I was wrong. Pork belly char siew is fantastic.

 

You can see what I mean at Restoran Selayang, a new stall at Plaza Singapura's foodcourt set up by MediaCorp actors Zhang Yaodong and Terence Cao. It serves Kuala Lumpur-style roast meats that Zhang's father, Mr Teoh Cheng Chua, sold in his own successful restaurant in Malaysia, also called Restoran Selayang, from the 1980s until he retired in 2003.

 

A protege of Mr Teoh is head chef of the Singapore operations, and his char siew and roast pork are delicious. The char siew ($3.80 for a plate of char siew rice) is not bright red with colouring like many foodcourt versions here. Neither is it dry and stringy. Instead, it is burnished a deep reddish brown, sliced fairly thick and has luscious, gleaming strips of fat.

 

Up north, people call this crystal char siew, because it is dipped into a mix of glucose and maltose before being given a final blast of heat. When the strips of pork are hung up at the stall, the sugar crystallises.

 

That explains why the meat is a little sweeter than usual and why there are so many delicious caramelised bits dotted all over the pork belly. I bit into a piece that was almost all charred and blissed out.

 

The meat keeps well too. Two colleagues ordered takeaways, and when we finally ate it hours later, the pork was still tender and juicy. Be sure to ask for the pork belly char siew, because they have leaner cuts for the health-conscious.

 

Also try the roast pork ($3.80 for a plate of roast pork rice). The meat is parboiled, marinated and then roasted. The crackling is really crisp but not in a way that might chip a tooth. The meat is tender and well seasoned too.

 

I liked the roast duck ($4.30 for a plate of roast duck rice) for its moist and tender breast meat. You can opt for noodles instead of rice. But while they are quite springy, they are not spectacular. Neither are the dumplings in soup - they were a little on the skinny side.

 

Best to just stick to the roast meats.

 

RESTORAN SELAYANG (KL)

Stall 9, Dining Codes by Kopitiam, 6th storey, Plaza Singapura, 68 Orchard Road

Open: 10am to 10pm daily

Rating: *** 1/2