Seafood Kampong

Looks like the best place to have our company lunch but turn out to be a disasterous one.

Firstly, the waiters & waiteress do not have a positive appearance to the customers. Lack of enthusiaticness to welcome us. Did not even care to open the door for us (a known company in Singapore).

The sharks fins taste like mixture of flour & water.

Prawns & Fish was quite nice.

The Peking Chicken tasted like over cooked & called it a signature dish?

Sea Cucumber & Dried oyster, we couldnt swallow it.

The noodles was quite salty.

Finally, the dessert, was the worst!!! Called Mango something was too diluted. Non of us finished it. Just a sip & we highlighted the waiteress. The waiteress brought the bowl back to the counter & we witness the cook took a spoon, sipped it & out of a sudden, he threw that spoon hard into the sink. My bosses & my colleagues were in shocked. We were offered for a replacement of the dessert but we choose not to fear that we might be sabotage.

And one more thing. This place SHOULD NOT BE HALAL CERTIFIED as we witness the waiters & waiteress provide wine for other customers at the other table. Will lodge a complain to MUIS for this.

Definetely will not return back.

Yes you read that right. Seafood Kampung is Halal certified.

Ate here twice recently. First time was a "tester" among 3 people, to see if the food was good enough to be recommended to the rest of the family. It wasn't hard to pass the test, I mean how often do you find HALAL zi char food? Certain members of the family were Muslim so this was a great find.

Second time we booked a table for 13 people to celebrate three birthdays. The boyfriend was I/C of the liaison with the restaurant and had to make several calls leading up to the day to place special orders of 3 crabs (min. requirements: at least 1.5kg each), lobster cold dish (restaurant suggested lobster salad instead) and prawns (the biggest they had). They were quite curt during the first call (e.g. told us they do not have any 1.5kg crabs and did not offer to order from their supplier) but then came to realise we meant business and were likely to spend a bomb there and they became nicer and more cooperative (e.g. called us to say they managed to get 1.75kg crab few days before the dinner).

So anyway, on the day of the dinner, we were pleasantly surprised to have been given a "VIP" room (they only had one). A waitress was "assigned" to us and attended to our whims and needs well. We ordered a bucket load of food but because the serving portions weren't too big, we could finish up every morsel of food.

Menu for the night:

- lobster salad: great presentation. unique ingredients with some cherry tomatoes and grapes all on a bed of jelly. lobster was fresh and tasty.

- steamed prawns: not a prawn person but this was very fresh. liked this alot, more than expected.

- steamed fish (HK style): again, very fresh fish. the sauce was fantastic. fish abit too small for 13 people though.

- abalone with sea cucumber: weren't enough abalone to go round so I didn't get a chance to try the abalone. served with sea cucumber and broccoli, both were good.

- fried mini squids: crispy, crunchy and a tad spicy. seemed to have Thai influences as it was a little assam (sourish) as well.

- beijing chicken: their version of the peking duck. not too bad but i still like my peking duck.

- crispy chicken with thai mango sauce: our favorite dish. it's spicy, sourish and sweet at the same time. the chicken was very cripsy and succulent. had bits of mango as well. LOVE!

- 8-types of vegetables: assortment of vegetables fried together, included snow peas and gingko nuts. i really liked the fried slices of yam/sweet potato(not sure which is it).

- kailan: good, not too oily. fresh as well.

- 3 crabs (garlic, black pepper and chilli crab): i didn't really fancy the chilli crab, thought it tasted a little weird. but the garlic and black pepper were good. HUGE at 1.75kg! Note: if you want crabs of this size, you need to pre-order 2 days in advance.

- venison with spring onion & ginger: didn't try this cos i was so full by the time it was served.

- mango sago with pomelo: lovely. my favorite dessert at the moment.

Every single dish was good. We were very impressed by the quality of the food and to put it simply, it performed better than expected. Service was attentive and prompt. Our plates were changed very regularly, tea was topped up promptly and they provided a whole stack of wet towels when the crabs were served.

Again, this is probably one of the very few restaurants that serve halal zi char food. So if you have a Muslim guest and you want to have a Chinese dinner, this is probably the best place to do it.

Prices are also very reasonable. Our entire meal cost around $600, which came up to about $45 per head, which was very reasonable for the food we had.

Will be back!

Located in the Htns-JOM clubhouse off Balestier Road, I will remember this Chinese restaurant as good food at "zi char" prices. 5 of us had 6 dishes and the damage was $120:

nonya fish head $18

- not too spicy, good mix of sour, sweet taste

Fish maw golden mushroom soup $24 (medium)

- OK

deep fried soft shell crab $18 (small)

- OK

Orange prawn ball $18 (Small)

- interesting combination

stir fry 8 types of vege $12 (Medium)

- ok

bean curb $12 (Medium)

- ok

The service is prompt and friendly. This restaurant is a relatively new occupant and the place was about 20-30% full on Sun night, maybe business will pick up when more pp know about it.