my OPS friend HH hosted a birthday dinner for 11pax OPS friends at tunglok seafood, orchard central on 10.8.2017. ^^

2 other OPS friends, CH & FM also have their birthdays in august! 🙂

it’s an ala carte buffet, menu here. 

my friends ordered some starters – small octopus, maki & salmon sashimi.

salmon sashimi quite good, very fresh & sweet. maki & octopus were ok average…

later we ordered more salmon sashimi, & they came with the more fatty cuts of salmon sashimi. very nice! 🙂

the sharksfin soup with fishmaw quite ok too. stock was sweet & tasty, not too gluey, overall a tasty soup.

we had the jelly fish, quite refreshing. 🙂

& the deepfried fish skin, done well too…

the saliva chicken 口水鸡 was sub-par.

nothing like the excellent saliva chicken 口水鸡  eg at crystal jade lamian xiaolongbao. 

the saliva chicken 口水鸡we had the next day at 東北胖妈春饼店(Northeast Mom Spring Pancake) the next day was also better!

the garlic sauce sliced pork with cucumber was average also, garlic sauce was quite nice.

quite different from what a good 蒜泥白肉 should look like (above photo) 

prawn fritter was ok with the thai sweet sauce.

the mussels were ok, quite nice with the thai sweet sauce.

drunken prawns was quite good standard. nice herb flavoured soup & fresh, firm & bouncy prawns.

the first piece of cereal prawns i had was a bit soft, so not impressed at first. i took a couple more & they were in fact pretty good.

the chili sotong was a late order. turned out that it was done quite excellently, not overcooked not rubbery…

the deepfried egg plant was also done nicely, crispy batter.

the french beans & egg plants were ok.

diners allowed one order of chili crab.

the chili sauce was not spicy & a bit sweet, like more to cater for tourist.

many friends lazy to eat crab with hands, so we didn’t take much of the crab dish. kind of wasted…one friend lamenting that no pepper crab on the menu..anyway can only order this dish once!

we all had our 馒头 to eat with the chili crab sauce!

the red tilapia nonya steamed  was among the best dishes. tilapia is quite fishy & a bit soil taste. so the tangy, slight spicy nonya sauce went very well with the fish. 🙂

we also had the deepfried seabass油浸金目鲈. usually it is 油浸筍殼魚but the seabass did well too. the oil soaked deepfrying made the fish 脆 crunchy quite flavourful & the light soy sauce was quite a matching condiment.

one dish i didn’t like much was the beef in satay sauce. a bit sweet & for me, spoiled the taste of beef.

the superior stock for the spinach was quite excellent, very sweet & tasty…

the yeemeen = fuyu noodles also not bad, plain & simple & very tasty too. again the stock for braising did the trick.

we ordered 2 dessert for each pax – the ice jelly & the 龟苓膏.

both were competent…quite refreshing, so didn’t mind the dessert..

 i got 2 cakes for the birthday girl.

actually i had wanted to get the cake from flor. but i called the day before (too late), needed 2 days to order a large cake. flor only offer 6” cake at all their outlets unless pre-ordered.

so i decided to get their newest cake, the black gold, a chocolate mousse cake, at taka outlet for birthday girl to bring home. she & her daughters like chocolate cakes.

and for convenience, i got from swissbake at hollandv the paradiso, their best selling cake, to be shared after dinner. paradiso has more texture and so popular for most people. the chocolate mousse would be an excellent cake for chocolate lovers! 🙂

all had a wonderful evening with old friends – sharing delicious food, fun & feeling good!

c.h.e.f andy

+++++++++++++++++++++++++

TungLok Seafood @ Orchard Central