Ma Po Beancurd Little Kitchen, Beach Rd, Singapore

After that bad experience with Szechuan food at Crystal Jade, we decided to try out this place at 345 Beach Rd (with a vengence!). The great thing about this joint is that it closes at 2AM so it's ideal for those late night hunger pangs.

No we didn't order everything on the menu but I must admit, this was quite alot for a supper. I blame the waitress, she didn't tell us when to stop ordering haha. Nevertheless, we managed to salvage our situation and enjoyed most of the dishes. Some of these items were really spicy (although not as spicy compared to some of the stuff I've had in China). Most of the dishes were quite respectable, the fried beans with minced pork were greasy and fragrant although it could have had more mince, the cold dishes came in little 2SGD sampler plates which I thought was a nice way of adding more variety to the meal without overdoing it (the effectiveness of this is debatable though).

Now this is how "saliva" chicken should be. The spices and chilli-kick in this really put the one we had a few weeks ago to utter shame. The pieces were tender and chunky too, so although there was an odd bone here and there, it was bearable. I like the nice touch of adding crunchy roasted peanuts as well which provided a good contrast to the tenderness of the chicken.

This was my favorite dish of the night. Crispy chicken pieces stir-fried with dried chillis. Salty and greasy, this is great beer grub (they serve Tsingtao here by the way). Reminds me of deep-fried yabbies with dried chillis that I had in Shanghai. I really should do some posts of my meals in China soon for a good educational comparison.

The quintessential Szechuan dish, Ma Po Beancurd. Afterall, it would have been audacious of us to enter a eating house named after this dish and not order it. I'm actually not a fan of Ma Po beancurd but if the reviews from my other diner were accurate this is of pretty good quality. I did like picking out the minced pork bits though haha.

The dessert of Chinese red bean pancakes was probably the only bummer that night. There was nothing wrong with it, it was sweet and greasy but it wasn't spectacular either and the red bean paste tasted pre-made and processed in bulk. The waitress also served it together with the main dishes despite our previous reiteration during the order-taking to only serve it at the end. It did serve a purpose though, one of my diners who doesn't have the capacity to eat spicier than average foods had to intermittently quench the chilli-blast with a slice of sweet red bean pancake. A nice little Szechuan joint run by Szechuan natives, this place gives you a great chilli-blast (in more ways than one haha) for about 25SGD per person.

D