I read the Lokkee Page on Facebook at 6.30pm, and it was just in time to help me decide where to have my 8.00pm dinner date with my two ladies – wife and daughter. Any new restaurant from my friends in the TungLok Group is always welcome, more so when it promises a new genre of Chinese cuisine. Dancing Crab, with its trend-setting Cajun cuisine, was a hit with my group of young friends last year.

Trying out a new genre of cuisine amidst the highly diverse restaurant landscape in Singapore has always been exciting for me. It is even more so because over the past two weeks I had decided to celebrate, or invited to celebrate, Singapore’s Golden Jubilee with some of the great restaurants in Singapore. These included the Tatsuya, Garibaldi, Tong Le Private Dining, Rama Thai and Kuriya.

What piqued my attention about Lokkee was this description – that it is “a witty and cheeky play on what is most popularly known as Chinese take-out. This genre of Chinese cuisine, often defined by fortune cookies and take-out boxes, is reinterpreted and elevated here through fresh ingredients and clean flavours.” Hmm – for those of us who must have Chinese food in our overseas travel know well what take-out (‘takeaways’ to those using Queen’s English) taste like! They’re generally stomach fillers.

Let’s see how the good food people from the TungLok Group can re-invent take-out boxes (‘takeaways’) by reinterpreting and elevating them through fresh ingredients and clean flavours to make them worthy to carry its brand.

1. “Kung Pao” Chicken Nest

Alan, the waiting staff who served our table, recommended this dish. It was also amongst the restaurant’s specialty.

Just as the dish was about to be laid onto our table, I could smell the wisps of aroma of the deep-fried diced chicken and the bed of dried chillies, peppers, garlic and cashew nuts. It was served with a chopped dried chillies and mango purée.

Kung Pao Chicken Nest Or The Firecracker Chicken Nest

Alan was passionate in explaining the dish to us. He revealed to us how the team of MasterChefs at TungLok had tested and refined the dish. The four golden yellow egg yolk look-alikes (made from apricots) seemed to be strategically placed at the four corners.  The secret, I was told, was to suck one apricot ‘egg yolk’ after your mouth has been heated up by the spices! Yes, there were sensations indeed.

Thumbs up for the dish. I would have preferred the cashew nuts in a more crunchy state – and that meant not to mix them with the rest of the ingredients at the time of cooking.

Super Like This Kung Pao Chicken Nest

2. Chilli Crab Cakes

Dipped in the accompanying chilli crab sauce, these crab cakes tasted – well, like Singapore’s famed chilli crab! They had a high proportion of crab meat filling. The menu described them as a bite-sized Singapore tradition of shredded crab served in a panko crust. The three of us found the cakes a tad on the salty side.

Chilli Crab Cakes

3. Poké Salad 

The salad comprised diced salmon and tuna sashimi and is served with a house special Poké sauce in a tortilla bowl. How international can you get? We just love this dish – for its colour, texture of the fish and the Poké sauce.

We Just Loved This Poké Salad

4. Braised Pork Belly Bao

The pork belly was sous-vide for 48 hours and braised in a “Dong Po” sauce. Topped with crushed peanuts, it is served in steamed buns. Yummy indeed.

If you would like to pay more, the sous-vide pork belly (cooked for 48 hours at a low 55 °C or 131 °F temperature) that can be ordered at the crème de la crème of the TungLok Group’s restaurant, the Tóng Lè Private Dining, is definitely superior.

Braised Pork Belly Bao – Tasty For The Price

5. Baked Oysters With Bacon

This is the dish! Six fresh oysters baked au gratin style with soft white cheese. Eating each oyster with its chopped bacon yielded a delicious joy. This is definitely my pièce de résistance dish of the evening at Lokkee – a dish which I will come back for.

Baked Oysters With Bacon – A Must Try, My Pièce de Résistance

Where To Find Lokkee

Lokkee Restaurant

And you’ve still got a day to: • 30% OFF YOUR TOTAL BILL •
Now until 16 August 2015

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