Shu Yan 蜀宴 @ Chinatown

A nice CNY lunch with colleagues. Something spicy like Sichuan to kick off the Year of the Dragon

Chicken With Spicy Sauce 重庆口水鸡

There wasn’t many good “saliva chicken” in Singapore. A good chicken must have a sophisticated, multi-layered taste: garlicky, gingery, umami (from the fresh chicken stock), savoury (from soy sauce), sour (from Chinese black rice vinegar), sweet, nutty (from peanuts & sesame) and mouth-numbing (from Sichuan pepper). And then the chicken must be perfectly cooked and infused with the chilli oil. They got the taste right, but the chicken was overcooked.

“Shuyan” Crispy Chicken 蜀宴香酥鸡

I was late for lunch, and the whole crispy chicken was already high gone. It was delicious and crispy on the outside, juicy and tender inside.

Marinated Pig Feet 金牌猪手

I was surprised at the crunchiness of the skin of the pig trotter. I prefer the Teochew version where the trotter is cooked to a soft, melty texture. But the Sichuan crunchy version is exactly that – the snack was perfect with cold beer.

Stone Grilled Beef And Tofu 石锅豆花肥牛

This was the best dish for the lunch, the best of two famous Sichuan dishes – slice beef cooked in a peppercorn stock and silky beancurd. Sichuan is famous for excellent water and therefore the beancurd is really smooth and silky here. And they use the beancurd in savoury and spicy dishes instead of eating them as a dessert like in Singapore. Delicious.

Shredded Cabbage 手撕包菜

OK, even the Chinese name called for hand shredded, the cabbage was pretty regularly cut. The technique calls for the cabbage to be served individual leaf apart. And this was quite well executed.

Fragrant New Zealand Lamb Ribs 飘香新西兰羊排

While this dish has Xinjiang origins, it is served at dinner tables in Sichuan all the time. The lamb ribs had been grilled to a crisp on the outside and the fats had all rendered properly. Sprinkle with the cumin chilli flakes, and this became a really good eat.

Kidney Bean and Trotter Soup 芸豆猪蹄汤

My mom used to cook pig trotters with soy bean and it was delicious eat. Kidney bean and trotter soup 芸豆猪蹄汤 is the Sichuan equivalent of the home cooked soup. The idea is the same – for the team taken for the beans to be cooked through, the pig trotters would have cooked through and released all the collagens into the soup.

The soup came out very late in the meal, and everyone just had a bowl. There was plenty more for another round. The soup tasted like Teochew pig stomach soup, but the collagen from the trotter had made it slightly sticky to the lips. Yummy.

Preserved Meat Fried Rice 腊味炒饭

If you are looking for drier and wokhei in the fried rice, the Sichuan version is not what you will like then. The fried rice was quite moist with bits of preserved meat (mainly Chinese sausage). Overall, I really enjoyed the texture and flavours of this fried rice.

Sichuan Ice Jelly 四川冰粉

The last time I had this dessert was in Chengdu at Tao Lin. Sichuan Ice Jelly 四川冰粉 is a street food popular in Sichuan with origins from Southwest China. The version in Chengdu had a lot more ingredients like raisins and glutinous rice balls and fresh fruits, and a lot sweeter with osmantheus syrup. I guessed they had to adjust to local tastes.

The restaurant had great CP value, given the whole lunch was less than $300 (including GST and non-alcoholic drink orders). Service was OK, some of the waitresses did not speak Mandarin or English so they were having problem understanding what we wanted, let alone explaining what was on the menu. Otherwise, the food was delicious and the portion was generous. Definitely a will-come-back-for-more category.

Shu Yan Sichuan Cuisine
133 New Bridge Road, Chinatown point, #01-41/42, Singapore, 059413
Tel : +65 6732 1898

Visited Feb 2024