Love the food, love the price... But damn... it's sometimes easier to get a seat in a crowded MRT than to get parking there. Even after you have managed to get a car park, you'd be surprised to see how close the seats are to each other.

But what the hell... I dun mind, cos the people's friendly there.

The CPF aka Crab, Prawn & Fish in a claypot is great.
The fish head steam boat is wonderful.
Prawn paste chicken is super.
Baby Squid was yummy.

Well, look @ the picts, they are as yummy as they look.

They have lots of staff to serve, so min on waiting time for service... Unless you are waiting for a table.

Most importantly, @ the right price too.

Saw this restaurant on TV and decided to give it a try.
Went there at about 9pm, so there wasn't much people there.
There is a few steamboat restaurant there, but is not difficult to identify this one as there are posters of TV programs interview everywhere.

The waitress greet us politely, and bring us to our table.
hmmmm, no aircon, no nice seats, is just like coffee shops.
(People there are solely for food...)

We look through the menu and ordered the famous herbal wine soup steamboat that cost $30 (sharing portion for 2 pax). There is this interesting steamboat call CPF (crab, prawn and frog leg) also with similar soup base at a higher price... (I probably will try it the next time i go).

Within 5 minutes, the waitress came with a big claypot of soup and set it to boil. The table had this normal design for steamboat with a hole in the middle. BUT be careful of the heat, cos my legs were feeling really warm half way through the dinner.
We tried the soup, tastes very nice even without any food inside...
Is herbal with wine..and it just taste like soup that is ready to be serve for drinking.

The ingredients for the steamboat came shortly in a big serving plate. Ya, the plate is big, but the portion is not really that big.
(but definately enough for the 2 of us). Crab, sea cucumber, scallop, frog leg, prawns, fish, squid, vege... quite interesting to see this kind of combination for steamboat. Cos steamboat else where dont usually serve frog leg.

I saw people throwing everything into the pot and eat from there, but we prefer to cook the food only when we wanna eat it (to prevent it from overcooked). The food taste good with the spark of the soup base. By end of dinner, we had almost finish up all the soup in the big claypot...

Oh... by the way, they also serve beer at coffee shop price!!!
Total bill ia about $40 for 2 pax. They do not charge GST and service charge :)

I definately will come back again for the soup during cool/ rainy days. But not on warm/sunny days, as the herbal wine soup is really "heaty". Can feel that the body is very "warm" after the dinner.

ok seriously if you're the sort who LOVES going for delicious cantonese style soups and what not, you've got to try this.

The herbal wine steamboat comes with the tastiest broth ive ever had in a steamboat (and im kind of a steamboat person). The soup on its own, has a nice hint of the flavour of the more than five varieties of wine the chef puts into the soup, making it full bodied and rich. This richnes is nicely balanced by the herbal bouquet that one smells the moment the cover comes off the claypot. yes i did say claypot. this steamboat is served in a mammoth claypot that just enhances its allure. For those of you worried about herbal tastes/smells, rest assured that the chef is skillful enough to create a broth that is delightfully herbal not sickeningly herbal. just taste it for yourself. nuff said.

This steamboat costs $30, and comes with a nice tray of ingredients, which nicely serves three, so you dont really have to order ala carte unless you wanna add on crabs or something (which they do have). Interestingly, besides regular stuff like golden mushrooms, veggies, sotong, this restaurant gives you very fresh scallops, three huge prawns, and FROG LEGS. now if you like frog legs, this is a welcome and unique addition indeed. if you dont, well, they do taste like chicken...... oh yes and of course he has a variety of sliced chicken and pork. he also has this homemade fishpaste balls i think. im not too sure what goes in there, but no matter how long you boil them in the soup, they dont harden, they just remain yieldingly soft and tasty.

you can request for soup top ups. the staff will gladly oblige. usually by the time im halfway through the ingredients, i would have drunk most of the soup already, simply because it's so tasty. One other thing i might add, they have a very good chilli dipping sauce to go with your food. if you're like me, and chilli is (half) your culinary life, then this chilli sauce gets 5 stars. watch out though, it is quite spicy. sort of like chicken rice chilli, but sweeter and with an unmistakeable X ingredient that makes it yummy.

and when you think you may burst into flames from the piping hot broth and the spicy hot chilli, order a nomin special lime juice. made inhouse by a relative of the chef, this lime juice is really special! because they include the use of sour plums to make the drink. and by that i dont mean arbitrarily dumping one into your glass the way some other stalls do it. instead, they apparently boil the sourplums to get a syrup, which is mixed in with the limejuice. the result: a nice tangy mix of sweet and sour, with zesty sourness from the lime, and that indefinable tangy sourness from the sour plums, but still overall, sweet enough to slake your thirst and cool your burning tongue.

overall, this gets two thumbs up from me. and i do usually go back when my steamboat craving hits...

one thing i might add, it's coffee shop style though. so dont go expecting airconditioning and waitresses clad in tight skirts. Also, this joint serves tons of other food, tze char style, and they also have a few other varieties of steamboat. but this herbal steamboat is their signature dish. though if you're going in a big group you can probably order much more stuff to share.