Chinese New Year feasting started early this year. My colleagues and I had reunion dinner last Sunday evening at Thiam Hock Restaurant. The said restaurant was fully packed with patrons on the upper floor.
Without further ado, let me show you what we had for dinner the other day!
Stir Fry Deer Meat with Ginger & Onion
The above dish is one of the classics at Thiam Hock Restaurant. The deer meat were tender and it definitely required some skills to slice the meat properly or else they would turn dry and tough when cooked. The meat were well marinated in and out.
Stir Fry Hong Kong Dou Miao
As the regular vegetable dishes available on the menu didn’t appeal to us, we asked for recommendation and the waitress recommended us this. We agreed and requested for simple stir fry with garlic only. The vegetable was fresh and had a natural sweetness.
茶香口水鸡
My colleagues intended to order fresh fish as one of the main courses but we were being informed that they didn’t have any fresh catch of the day aside from some fish heads. Therefore, cooking methods would be limited.
So, we asked if they have any fresh chicken. They did and recommended us 茶香口水鸡. As the dish was served with fresh chicken, the meat was tender despite the chicken breast. The gravy was appetizing and my colleague commented that it was made with scallop sauce?
Tofu with Minced Meat
As we were having too much meat in a meal, we ordered Deep Fried Signature Tofu but served with this instead. According to the waitress, the tofu were house made and deep fried, topped with minced meat. They were decent enough in my opinion. Texture wise, the house made tofu were soft and silky. The minced meat scattered on top of the tofu were overly generous in my opinion.
茶壶鸡汤
I am sure some of you would be curious to know what this was. This was slow boiled chicken soup but served in a teapot. The soup was flavorful and sweet at the same time. Mom mentioned that the soup was boiled with dried cuttlefish for added sweetness.
Yangzhou Fried Rice
This was supposed to be the first few dishes served but it was second last served as the waitress didn’t get this on her order at the time when we were placing food order. The fried rice was nicely done to my liking and it had the wok hei that I loved. On the downside, it was oily in my opinion.
Verdict: Food was great but the customer service was meh in my opinion. The waitress either got our orders wrongly and completely missed it out. I wouldn’t recommend going during peak hours or seasons as there might be mishaps happening, just like the one we experienced. Total bill came up to be B$98.
Thiam Hock Restaurant
No: 5, Yong Siong Hai Building,
Kampung Menglait, Jalan Gadong,
Bandar Seri Begawan BE3180,
Negara Brunei Darussalam
Tel: +673-2441679
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