Wing Seong Fatty's (Albert) Restaurant

Based on my colleague, "The Food Guru's" recommendation, we decided to have a simple lunch at this establishment nearby our office.

Not feeling too hungry, we ordered the a beef, chicken and vegetable dish. Starting with the asam beef, it is not something I would recommend as the beef tasted liked it had gone through some serious rounds of tenderisation and the asam flavours was too light with quite a strong "lemak" finish.

The prawn paste chicken ("har chiong kai") came as expected, nothing much to shout about.

I did however, enjoy the pea shoots (dou miao) which had a strong garlic flavour to the crunchy vegetable.

Overall, I found the food to be okay. The place has more than twenty years of history and has earned its share of followers. Service staff were friendly and helpful.

Fatty's is across the pedestrian street from Sim Lim Square - a notorious place for rip-offs. It seems ol' Fatty himself has been taking lessons from the cowboys there.

Ordered up two main courses to share - firstly, the medium assorted vegetables ($8) was very nice and full of a bunch of different vegetables (to be expected I suppose). Secondly, got the fried kway teow with seafood and gravy ($8) which was pretty spectacular. Picked up a Tiger ($6.40/ lg bottle) and were in and out of there in 30 minutes.

Got the bill, and there is a surcharge for the towels (60c). We didn't use the towels, so I have no idea why they added it to the bill. It is a shame, because this sort of penny pinching just sucks, and where I would have thought about returning to this place - I think I will try something else. If the manager ever reads this, please stop being a cheap bastard and charging for standard dining items.

10 Feb 2008 : Hmmm.... my D decided to drop by this place to pick up a ROAST DUCK ($36) and haul it (together with my M and I) over to a senior peasants' CNY party. It came with a container of black gravy and a packet of chilli sauce.





I found the roast duck really ordinary.... there was nothing special about it. The skin wasn't crispy and the meat wasn't particularly tender.

For the past four years, I have been visiting Fatty Wing's restaurant with a bunch of great friends every Chinese New Year... So yea... it's my 4th visit thus far.

I wont say food is exceptionally good. I suspect the only reason why we re-visit Fatty Wing every year is because we want to be able to grow old and tell our kids stories of a great 'lao di fang'. =)

Anyway... unlike the other reviewers, I dont have a strange obsession with Fatty Wing's shelled prawns... hahaha... In fact, it didn't even occur to me the prawns I eat every year were shelled until I read the reviews below! :P

I actually thought the food came in too small a portion. We ordered 6 dishes and we specified we wanted large portions. Apart from the toufu, the rest looked very normal (that is, small portions). And that cost us more than $200. That said, I'm a small eater so that didn't really bother me much. I hope my friends had enough to fill their stomachs tho'.

In general, service was good. We really felt at home with the loud chatter, vibrant zi-char ambience. and patient uncles who thought nothing of our sporadic orders for lime juice. I definitely will return again for my annual CNY lunches.

Food you might wanna try: Cereal Prawns (shelled... good for children and lazy folks)

Okay...now that everyone (oh well, TWO people) has had their say on Fatty Wing Seong, it's now my turn to give my ten cents' worth.

Few people know about this Fatty Weng restaurant because many are likely to remember the more famous outlet at Singapore Badminton Hall, but the Wing "Da Fat Man" Seong over at Burlington Square has been quietly working the stoves for quite a while now.

Although I'm not really sure who The Real Fatty is (please let that white rapper boy forgive me for stealing his line), what's most important is whether this fat man at Albert can cook.

And cook he can. Although the standards aren't what you would call top quality.

This is the first time that I'm eating cereal prawns which have been shelled, and while they are good, I can't help but feel that cereal prawns have more oomph when cooked with their shells intact. Fatty Wing's prawns were fresh and springy, but lacks the nice crunch that the shell provides. But those who always look on in horror whenever I devour un-shelled cereal prawns head and all, THIS is the place to be.

Yu sheng at Fatty Wing, though, is good. It's not cloyingly sweet like the ones they serve at other restaurants and it's actually good enough to eat, instead of just tossing around and leaving it untouched after.

Despite the patchy food standards, stick to the tried and tested zi-char favourites and the fat man will not disappoint. Service is also top-notch (I'm comparing with kopitiams here) because our multiple orders of lime juice came just within two snaps of our fingers.

So hungry after running around sim lim? Grab your friends and go visit Fatty Wing!

Riiiiight.....I have been to Sim Lim countless times (like all Singaporean GUYS!), but funny thing is....never stepped into this place!

Food is not the best I have eaten (except for the cereal prawns...more on that soon!)...BUT in terms of value, it actually ranks up there. For the meal below (and a drink), it cost me less than $20

In summary, this is what I had with a group of buddies:

The GOOD

(1) Cereal Prawns - Good texture, and no need to peel! It is cooked just right, and has a really tasty zest to it

(2) Sliced Fish in some kind of special sauce - Unlike the standard "just fry with ginger and spring onion" variety, this slightly sweetish sauce actually went quite well with the fish!

(3) Har Cheong Gai (Prawn Paste Chicken) - Taste nice, but ya know...I'm always biased towards Har Cheong Gai...so you can't take my word for it here!

The SO-SO

(4) Beef fried with ginger and spring onion - Kinda flat

(5) Claypot Tauhu - Tasted a tad funny and weird

The DON"T KNOW

(6) Kai Lan Dish - Somehow I did not get a chance to eat this as it got swiped up fairly quick - guess it must have been good!

(7) Yu Sheng - I'm really a bad reader of this dish, as they somehow all taste the same very year???? Think I should not be a Yu Sheng reviewer!

All in all, it was a nice hidden find. Prices are decent, you get a fairly good meal if you order the right dishes, and best part is, the waiters/waitresses don't seem to have the traditional bad service that I and many Singaporeans have come to expect from Chinese restaurants that are at least half decent! My experience is that usually really jialat Chinese restaurants OR super high class Chinese restaurants give good service - for different reasons. The former is desperate for your money, the latter feel so bad about getting such high margins that they decide to give you good service!!!

In fact, they actually did not mind when we created a din by singing a really loud birthday song that echoed off the plain white walls (we had someone who had huge lungs and other impressive attributes!) or when we ordered our drinks in batches (1 drink, then later another drink, then 2 drinks, then 1 drink, then another 3 drinks.....all in the space of 5-10min....imagine doing this at some "famous" zi char and see what you get!) Service here is actually not too bad!

It costs $3.10 to take a cab from the New Moon shops at Victoria Street to Burlington Square. I know this because I didn't alight at the Bugis Village bus stop and ended up near Stamford Primary. Grrr.

Fatty Wing, not the Guillamard/Guillarmard/Guillemard (dammit, dunno how to spell) one, at Burlington Square is our lao di fang for CNY gathering.

It's our 4th year there and we eat the same things every year.

I like the yu sheng at Fatty Wing because the uncle serves it with all the 料 on the dish and we didn't need to go through all the 恭喜发财 and 黄金满地 talk.

The har cheong gai (fried chicken) and cereal prawn (PEELED!!!) were also very yummy.

The lime juice is super sweet so you can actually pour into another 2 cups and add water to it. Save money.

So for about 7 dishes and a lime juice each, we paid $17.60 per person. I think pretty decent for quick service and clean toilet (ladies, no toilet paper though).