It looks like a classic Taiwanese teahouse. Kinda cosy and comfortable. I'm a little surprise the place is not bigger though.
Anyway, with 5 of us, there's definitely plenty of space in the stomach, so we ordered....alot.
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| Asparagus with Matsutake Mushrooms (Small) $13.80 |
Their appetisers are simple, peanuts and pickled papaya with carrots added. From the taste of it, the papaya pickles were freshly made.
A clean and simple dish, crunchy asparagus with a good serving of cashews, mushrooms and carrots.
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| Pumpkin with Doumiao (Small) $9.80 |
This is really good. What's good about it was the pumpkin puree. It's sweet and goes well with the green tasting Dou Miao. I love that hardly any seasoning was used in this dish.
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| Classic Luo Han Zhai $15.80 |
Another simple yet pleasant dish. We all liked the beancurd skin (tau kee). I also like the variety of ingredients in this dish. There's capsicum, radish, tau kee, mushrooms, broccoli, white fungi and 1 more that I can't identify.
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| Carrot cake $3.80 |
Oh till I tried this, I didn't realised I missed carrot cake so much! I usually don't like the stuff, even prior to going green. But this really reminds me of the traditional carrot cake one used to find in Chinatown. Minimum oil was used and it was light and fluffy with mushroom bits.
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| Stir Fried Chili Fish $15.80 |
Any vegetarian who misses Sambal stingray definitely gotta order this. It's even better than the real thing......
The 'sambal chili' is amazingly good and so is the mock fish used. We learned that it's actually beancurd skin with seaweed. It taste pretty close to your actually fish and is of a better standard than the usual mock fish sold in vegetarian groceries.
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| Hakka Zeoadary Beancurd Hotpot $10.80 |
This is an interesting dish. It looks incredibly salty, but is actually the least salty of them all. I like how it's actually a stew of mock meat (taste very much like lean mincemeat), mushrooms and tofu. The tofu taste very light, very pleasant on its own.
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| Curry Hotpot (chicken) $10.80 |
If you look very closer at the picture, you might notice that there's no oil layer on top of the curry. Definite win for this health freak.
What I appreciate about this curry is that the potatoes were baked, lady's finger and brinjal were blanched, and none of the ingredients were fried. The coconut milk was also lightened thus the end result is a curry that is fairly well flavoured and non oily.
Though, the curry can be stronger and just a tad spicier for that extra kick. Mutton curry might be a better option as mock mutton somehow taste better with curry than mock chicken. The curry hotpot is tasty enough on its own, but compared to the other dishes, it comes across as a little bland.
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| Si Chuan Style Brinjal Hotpot $10.80 |
This is another of my favourite for tonight. Despite its hailing from Sichuan, there's no layer of ominous chili oil on top.
It was stewed brinjal with mock wu hua rou (5 flower pork), the leaner cut. I'm blown away by the mock meat. It tasted better than the original. Little need to be said, this is a spendid dish. The brinjal, mushrooms and mock meat were give time to stew in the claypot, so the end product was really awesome.
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| Sambal Vegetarian fish $15.80 |
We loved the Stir Fried Chili fish so much that we decided to give its sambal counterpart a try. But it turned out to be quite different.
The sambal is not at all spicy (or just a hint or so). But the mock fish reminded me of grilled pompret. The beancurd skin although fried, remain moist and tender inside while crisp outside. After trying it, I understood why the sambal wasn't made spicier - so that the taste of the mock fish can be appreciated.
From this dish and the earlier Stir Fried Chili fish, we tried to guess the ingredients for a good vegetarian Spicy sambal. First one can start with this base, a less salty (or watered) bean paste with moderately hot chili oil added as your basic sambal. To spice it up, chopped 2-4 'Zitianjiao' (hot, tiny chili) with a dash of spicy chili oil, and give it a good fry in the wok. It might work. Will blog when I get around to trying it out :D
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| HongKong Fried Noodles (Large) $10.80 |
The HongKong Fried noodles is nicely stir fried. The strange part about it was its scent. It smells of strongly of pepper and a little of mock ham. Neither pleasant nor unpleasant, just unusual. I like the noodles. It tasted like egg noodles,delicious, chewy and cooked just right. It also tasted fairly light and doesn't leave oil traces. Ingredients were also fairly portioned
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| Yam paste with gingko nuts $4.50 |
I love Orh-nee, yet I'm scared of putting on excessive weight. This one however is quite reassuring. There isn't as much oil mixed into the Yam paste, so it's a little on the dry side. Which is the reason for a thick layer of diluted coconut milk added to moisten the yam paste. The portion is bigger than it seems though. The entire three quarter of the cup was filled with yam.
Taste wise, it definitely doesn't match up to the usual dessert standard with less oil and sugar. But all the better for a guilt free dessert and less stress on my kidneys.
Conclusion. The food at Lao Di Fang is really good. I love that they decided on using authentic ingredients to bring out the flavour of the dishes and cutting down on the oil, salt and sugar used. It is noticeable that serious consideration had gone into creating a remarkable yet healthy vegan dish without onions or garlic. A side note, I didn't have water retention after such a huge dinner, so my body's really happy with that.
Oh this is definitely the place if you wana impress the socks off your carnivorous friends. :)
Lao Di Fang
http://www.classicldf.sg/menu.html
9 Penang Road, #B1-12 Park Mall Singapore 238459
Tel: 65338959
Opening Hours: 11.30am - 3.00pm
5.00pm - 10.00pm
1 comment:
So glad it was good! Great to hear about the restraint on oil and salt, too. All looks and sounds incredibly yummy. Thanks for sharing.
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