I’m not a big fan of lobsters. When it comes to seafood, my crustacean of choice is actually crab, especially chilli crab. But once in a while, it’s nice to have some nice lobster. We’ve been meaning to try out a relatively famous seafood tze char restaurant near our place, and it was a good enough reason to finally pay them a visit.
Yang Ming Seafood is located in a kopitiam at Blk 150 Bishan Street 11, a short direct bus ride away from where we stay. Given that it was likely that we’d be ordering quite a decent amount, we recruited reinforcements in the form of our fellow foodie friend ML.
They have quite a few signature dishes, some of which require pre-ordering. The most famous being their “Andrew Lobster” which they tout on their menu as a “dish that you absolutely have to order” when dining there.
I reached out to them via Facebook Messenger, made reservations for a weekday lunch and placed a pre-order for their signature lobster dish, as well as the Ginger Kampong Chicken. The Pig’s Stomach Chicken Soup sounded quite intriguing, but we decided to skip it as ML is not a fan of offal.
Do note that our visit was back in December last year, and their Bishan outlet has been undergoing extensive renovation over the past few months. It seems like the work is done though, so by the time you read this, they would be back in operation.
It was a bit of a walk from the nearest bus stop, but that only helped to stimulate our appetite. We walked past a wet market, several clinics, a small playground and weaved through several HDB blocks before finally reaching our destination.
If it’s your first time there, look out for their bright pink neon sign and impressive tanks of live lobsters. Once you’re within visual range, there’s no way you’ll miss it.
Besides Yang Ming Seafood, clearly the anchor tenant of the kopitiam, there were several other stalls, including one that sold dim sum and another that sold vadai. The Wife bought some baos and vadais back for breakfast the next day, and they were all really good.
From various online posts and reviews, the restaurant apparently gets really crowded during dinner time and especially so over the weekend.
But when we were there just before noon on a weekday afternoon, it was quite quiet, quieter than your usual neighbourhood kopitiam on any given day. Something to note if you want to avoid the crowd.
In addition to the more pricey seafood items, the menu also includes your typical tze char dishes like sweet and sour pork, hotplate beancurd and different varieties of fried rice. Due to ongoing inflationary pressures and the fact that they invested in significant renovation, it’s likely that current prices will be higher than those from Dec 2022 shown below.
After we placed our orders, the Ginger Kampong Chicken appeared our on table very quickly. Since it’s a cold dish, they probably have it pre-prepared and ready to go in their fridge. Our frame of reference when it comes to ginger chicken is the poached one from Soup Restaurant, which we quite enjoy.
This version by Yang Ming similarly has ginger served on the side, but it was a superior dish. The chicken had a nice chewy texture, and was grilled beforehand to impart a light smokey taste. The dish of sesame oil-doused minced ginger was flavourful and much more robust. It was a great appetiser to start off our meal with.
I had chosen a pair of Boston lobsters for our Andrew Lobster, and was expecting the portion to be decently sized. But when the plate arrived, I couldn’t help but be impressed.
It was a more of a platter than a plate, and the lobsters were beautifully laid out on top of a bed of white cheong fun, doused with a soya sauce-based goopy coating and generously topped with coriander, chopped spring onions and fried garlic bits.
There are two things about lobster that I don’t like: one is the deceptively small amount of meat that each one contains; and two is how easy it is to overcook, resulting in a rubbery texture. The first issue was evident once we started digging into the dish. Despite the large surface area covered by the claws and shell, the edible portion was relatively modest.
Luckily, the second problem didn’t arise, because the meat retained a pleasant bite to it that didn’t descend into rubber band territory. Pairing it with the cheong fun was a good idea, as the silky but bland rice noodle sheets went well with the salty, umami sauce. We did find the overall flavour a bit too salty though, but it could very well be that our taste buds have been trained to accept less sodium.
Every meal at a Chinese eatery has to include an obligatory portion of vegetables, and our greens of choice was the Garlic Qing Long Vegetables. Compared to kai lan, it’s sort of an acquired taste, given its strong garlicky notes, but it’s something that we order more often than not.
We could have stopped at three dishes, but we were feeling a bit greedy and decided to another item. Our first choice was Prawn Paste Chicken, another staple of tze char restaurants, but were told that it was not available during lunch. Strange.
After considering various other options, we went with the Nonya Sotong, served sizzling in a hot plate. It was a sour, spicy mix of squid, ladies fingers, long beans, tomatoes, onions and pineapple. And while the nonya flavours were bold and unmistakable, it wasn’t particularly memorable.
The total damage for the lunch came up to S$154, or about S$51 per person. Which was quite an acceptable price, given that lobsters were involved. It helped that they didn’t add the usual 10% service charge to the bill, but their revenue was high enough that GST (then at 7%) was included.
Overall, we were quite happy with the quality of the food and would consider making a return visit. When we do, I would definitely want to pre-order the Pig’s Stomach Chicken Soup. Because the idea of a whole chicken stuffed into an entire pig’s stomach, which is then boiled in a white pepper-based soup. For someone who likes to have braised pig parts for breakfast, the whole concept is particularly enticing.
On our way out, I walked past their seafood tanks to check out their live lobsters again. I didn’t see any crabs on display, but I did notice a small tag at the bottom left corner which priced their live crabs at S$85/kg.
Given how much higher other restaurants charge for their crabs, it was a decent and attractive price. Looks like our return visit to Yang Ming Seafood might actually happen sooner that we think.
