Guo Fu Steamboat

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Headed to 国府珍锅 Guo Fu Steamboat for their steamboat dinner buffet. The place wasn’t very crowded, it was rather spacious, clean and neat inside – a stark contrast to the steamboat shops along Bugis.

We had the option of having an individual pot or a communal sharing pot, and we opted for the latter. We were allowed to select 2 flavours for the large steamboat 鸳鸯锅 and we chose herbal and spicy. As we discovered later, both flavours essentially shared the same soup base, just that chili oil was added to create the “spicy” version. Both soups were on the salty side, with the spicy version seriously lacking in spiciness.

The accompanying sauces/condiments included the sesame and chili sauce. The sesame sauce was rather bland, diluted and too thin. The chili sauce contained a bit of nuts, which did add crunchiness to the dip, but sadly, it wasn’t spicy at all.

There were the usual seafood and meat offerings for steamboat. We particularly liked the sliced fishes and they were thick, succulent and fresh.

There were certain cooked dishes which were part of the buffet. The pumpkin cake  炸南瓜饼 was very oily and the amount of pumpkins was very little. The fried banana 炸香焦 was not as oily as the goreng pisang sold in hawker centres, but still rather mediocre. The shallot pancake 葱油饼 tasted seemingly like deep fried roti prata. We like the xiao long bao 小茏包 and steamed dumplings 蒸饺. The skins weren’t too thick, encompassing the juicy meat with a bit of gravy.

Desserts wise, they served cold pumpkin puree. It wasn’t really puree, in our opinion, but more of cold pumpkin soup. It was thin, bit sweet but lacking in the taste of pumpkins.

At $24 per pax (with 10% discount from the VIP card), the steamboat buffet was pretty worthwhile. The raw food was pretty fresh and there was a decent variety of meat, vegetables, mushrooms, tofu, prawns. More importantly, the place wasn’t too rowdy, dirty and unkempt. It was a pretty good place to enjoy a long meal and catch up with friends.

We wanted to go imperial skye hotpot but didn't realise that it was CLOSED. Such a pity. Food was good and soup was good. Guess cos no business in the afternoon makes it problematic to keep it alive.

Guo Fu was the 2nd choice as we were looking forward to hotpot. Food choices disappointing. Soup chargable. Overall we paid more than $25 per pax. Definately not worth going back.

Service wasn't fantastic. We would request for some items each time BUT each time something will be forgetten (and it's always the prawns or some other expensive stuff!).

Overall if you have a choice, do not bother to go there. All the soup based is the same even the expensive one! When you expect refill, you think they will refill that type of soup base BUT no...it's all same base. So why bother to pay more?

I have to confess that we went to this place because there is no more seats at the other restuarant nearby last night. Due to the crave for steamboat, decided to try this place out.

Ambience is pretty neat, due to ala carte buffet style, thus customers are not required to walk around.

We ordered a share steamboat where soup base was charged seperately, not invclusive in the per pax price of $18.99. Probably the smallest steamboat that I have seen, maybe due to the original setup is one mini steampot per pax.

Taste of the mala soup base is not bad, bland pretty well with the pork belly & mutton. Seafood dip sauce is quite tasty. However I will prefer to have a table to different sauces for selection, instead we have to ask for other sauces seperately, including seasme oil, chopped spring onion, corridander, chiili, etc

Overall experience is not so comfortable, imo, I will prefer to have buffet that we can choose our own food, this place is far too "restricted" and most of the things we need to get from the staffs, and probably due to the closing time is at 10pm, at 9pm, they were more focusing on clearing the tables rather than serving the customers. One thing to take note, there is no crabs in their menu!! Soup base has to be charged seperately.

Pardon me for comparing them with the other restuarant nearby, but it is not difficult to see why their competition is full house.

I've been to this restaurant twice. The environment is pretty good. It's very well renovated place in old chinese style located in the city, walkable from Chinatown MRT. This restaurant serves zhen guo which is smaller version of steamboat, which is quite delicate. Price is OK being around 25 per person. The service could be improved. During peak hour, they kind of lack man power to serve customers. As the meal comes as buffet form in unlimited orders, sometimes need to wait quite a while to get served for a new order list..

Book from Ninelogic.com, we got 10% discount. And the mini hot pot can be with different soup. That is worth to try.

firstly, got misled by the other review (see Guo Fu Kitchen) and couldn't find the place. this is the correct address!

we were seated in the back, next to a grungy wall. not so cool. but the china square central area is a nice place to have dinner.

waiters/waitresses were very attentive and kept asking if we were ready to order.

read some blogs which recommended guo fu for sichuan food and decided to try out this place. we tried:

1. mushroom hot pot ($18) - not worth it. we couldn't really tell what we were eating. it was an interesting dish though.

2. gan bian si ji dou, fried green beans, ($7) - pretty good! plump juicy beans with a touch of garlic

3. shui zhu yu ($12) - i was surprised to find vermicelli inside. and beansprouts! fish was fresh, thinly sliced. not bad.

4. gong bao ji ding, diced chicken with red chilli ($12) - this was the only non-spicy dish (and we were quite thankful for it, sichuan food definitely has a kick to it that numbs your tongue), but not quite what we expected.

this place seems pretty authentic, but we were just confused at first because it appears to be a primarily steamboat place.

This is a mini-steamboat, where each person has their own mini hotpot, so it's good for those who are hygiene conscious. The fire lasts for only 1 hour.

There was a buy 3-get 1 free promotion, but we had to pay $2 each for the soup base - there's the normal chicken broth, mala, and can't remember what else.

You order the steamboat items on a sheet of paper, and they bring the items to you. There's the usual steamboat items, which are fresh.

They also serve complimentary xiao long bao, and some tim sum items.

We went at 1pm, and by 2pm, they were rushing us to finish.