Return to Paradise

Sometime back in July this year, I had blogged about this zhe-cha coffeeshop at Defu Lane 10 called The Seafood Paradise Restaurant (link back to previous post). Itching to suck at some well-cooked crabs, the whole family trooped back to this coffeeshop last week and with their extensive menu, we managed to order an array of dishes without repeating a single item from our last visit here.

Although this dish of butter crabs came last, I must feature it first cos' these guys do a really mean butter crab dish - creamy butter sauce spiced with some black pepper and slices of red-hot chilli padi (and I believe, some Thai-based spices, tho' I may be wrong), garnished with coriander leaves, fried bits of garlic and crunchy oat bits. A separate side order of fried mantous (little square breads) are a MUST in order to soak up all that lovely sauce. Finger-lickin' good!

This bitter gourd soup was ordered by hubby, which came as a total surprise not only to me but his family as well since hubby is not known to consume bitter gourds. Kudos to hubby though as the combination of bitter gourd slices cooked with fresh fish slices and cuttlefish produced a refreshing soup - with just a tang of that distinctive bitter gourd taste without overpowering the sweet flavors of the fresh fish slices and cuttlefish.

Most stuff wrapped in bacon and panfried or deepfried will taste good and this particular dish of bacon wrapped cheese sausage was no exception.

We also loved this dish of tender braised frog legs, which was served at the table with a bottle of Brands' Essence of Chicken that we duly poured right into the broth itself. The broth was quite flavorful tho' I generally prefer my frog legs sauteed with dried chillies in thick black sauce normally served with porridge (but that's a post for another day).

We were fairly impressed with the presentation for this dish of 'luohan chye', with the braised mushrooms of different varieties, baby corn, black wood-eared fungus and other ingredients all wrapped inside a parcel of beancurd skin. Cutting open the parcel released the ingredients within as well as the aromatic steam of the braised mushrooms and vegetables.

And finally, I must share with you this unusual dish called the Jinlong Suckling Chicken. Now, I've eaten suckling pig but I must say that this is the first time I've come across a dish called suckling chicken. Thin slices of chicken meat (meat that is sliced just next to the skin) together with its crispy roasted chicken skin are served with a savory sweet sauce. Altho' the skin did not remain all that crispy after being drizzled with the said sauce, it was nevertheless tasty and before we knew it, our chopsticks had picked up more than one slice (which was the number we had originally intended to limit ourselves to per person, considering that chicken skin no matter how lovely couldn't be all that healthy for us, no?).

Our return to Paradise did not disappoint and we now await eagerly our next visit here - which can only happen after that little bump at the tummy region has had some work-out done to it!

The Seafood Paradise Restaurant
91 Defu Lane 10
Swee Hin Building
Singapore 539221
Tel: 64872429