The Ship Again

This is the second time in a month to The Ship, the nostalgic Hainanese-Western restaurant in Shaw Center.

The last time we were there, we ordered their signature The Ship signature steak. This time, I am back for their other famous dish – Fish Bee Hoon.

There’s a few questions to go through when you order the fish bee hoon – fried or normal? thick or thin? white or clear? For the unfamiliar, they refer to how you want your fish sliced – deep fried with a thin coat of flour or as-is boiled in soup; your choice of the thick rice noodles or the regular rice vermicelli (which we refer colloquially as thick or thin bee hoon); whether you want to add evaporated milk in the soup or just the regular pork and fish bone soup.

The soup has the sweetness of “shang yu” or snakehead carp as they are called in Cantonese. There are places where the stock is naturally white because of the deep fried fish bones used, but here the stock is usually clear with salted mustard lettuce 咸菜 and lots of ginger. Come with the normal combination caixin and tomato in soup, it is no wonder why this is a bestseller at The Ship. Because the fish used is snakehead, I prefer the fried fish in case the fish tastes muddy – a very common problem with snakeheads. My fear was unfounded as the fish was very fresh. It came as a set with dessert and a drink for $16.80++, reasonable for Orchard Road.

The Soup of the Day is Mexican chicken soup, which is tomato soup with chicken bits. The soup reminded me of Campbell’s, which is good. Campbell’s always invoke the fuzzy, cozy feeling.

I ordered another soup as my bee hoon noodle does not come with soup. I forgot the noodle itself is soup! Anyway, I need all the liquid after gym. Regretted my choice, the lobster bisque was watery and not a strong lobster or seafood taste.

And we shared a starter (which came after I have finished my bee hoon noodles) – our favourite – escargots.

I was surprised that the escargots tasted like curry. I asked if they put curry in the snails, which they confirmed that they did. Facepalm moment. Skip this next time – I made a mental note.

Princess ordered fish and chips. She enjoyed it, I didn’t. The fish was three thin slices of cod. They could do better than this.

And the dessert of the day was honeydew pudding. Delicious! You know the flavour of the honeydew was artificial but you don’t care. It tasted just like those Japanese honeydew ice cream with bits of aloe vera.

We enjoyed our last visit so much that Princess wanted to come again. I fulfilled my aim to try their bee hoon and I wasn’t disappointed. As for the rest of the menu, we should have stuck to their popular choices rather than trust the signature sign on the menu. Service was fantastic as usual. This place has become our family favourite very quickly.

The Ship Restaurant & Bar
Shaw Centre, 1 Scotts Road #03-16/18
Tel : +65 6235 2235

Date Visited : Oct 2020