Soup Restaurant (Suntec City Mall)

I am not a chicken rice person but I simply love to eat the steamed chicken, Samsui chicken, from The Soup restaurant. Cravings for chicken rice type of chicken but won't eat from normal chicken rice stall, I gathered few colleagues down to the restaurant to satisfy my love for the dish.

The samsui chicken is the signature dish that most patrons will order. They served the chicken with some cabbage at the side along with their special ginger sauce. One is to add the ginger sauce to the sliced chicken and wrap it with a piece of the cabbage. it's refreshing and yummy!

The next dish, sambal tofu with prawns, is kinda like a replica of chilli crab except that it's milder. The sauce is really good to be as a condiment to the fired rice that we ordered.

The sliced ginger fish is only average as it's quite bland. There was no sweetness taste in the fish...so i'll give it a pass next time.

The broccoli with scallop is cooked nicely. Broccoli was crispy and scallop sweet. I like that!

The penang fried mee sua was very well done except it's a bit oily. I won't be able to finish off a plate on my own though. It's good for sharing with each person taking a small bowl serving.

Yangzhou fried rice tasted different from the normal that I know. Probably because of the preserved sausage meat dice that they added. The taste came out too strong for me.

Their daily soup is always a must. I can just imagine how long they have been boiling the soup for. It's nice!

I will definitely go back for more of the chicken and soup!

Date: 9 Aug 2008 (SG National Day!) Timing: abt 8-9 pm Total Bill: $59.10 Breakdown~~~ Set Menu 2A - $43.80 Towels 2pc - $0.80 Peanuts - $2.00 Chrysanthemum Tea (1 pot) - $3.60 excl. svc charges & GST..........

Ambience/ Decorations/ Cleanliness: Good. Very chinese-style, makes you feel pretty comfortable. Not my first time here but always the experience has been pretty good so far... When you walk in, there's a mini "pond" with a peach tree... There's this big "cut-out" gold graffitti/ floral pattern pasted on the window panel in which you can see from both outside & inside.. That's v nice....... Furniture are those chinese antique/wooden-style ones.. (refer to the photo, window panel). & the walls are furnished with those chinese flower wallpapers (refer to the photo, wallpaper).. CHEENA indeed~~~

They also won a Chinese New Year decoration award (i think) if I nvr see wrongly... :P

Svc: Good! Staff very friendly & takes initiative (greets warmly, comes to take order, clears tables, re-fills tea etc). Food came pretty fast after we were served our Chrysanthemum Tea & Peanuts... (considering we were damn hungry already!)

FoOd: overall Yummy!! We ordered a set meal (it's printed Set Menu 2A in the rcpt...). I really think it's called "Chinatown Set Meal" for 2 pax which includes the following:

a) Samsui Chicken (1 of their their signature dish) See photo-the biggest plate, ard middle right top> This is very yummy!! It's sort of a "cold" dish & you need to put it in the "garlic" sauce & bingo!! It is really yummy.. Not to forget, wrap it up with the lettuce pieces provided. (see photo, samsui chicken) & walla!! Simply tasty.. The "white"(not roasted) chicken pieces is tender, the sauce compliments it.. When you bite it & chew it inside, the "gravy" & crispness freshness of the lettuce makes it v refreshing!

b) Baby Kailan with Dang Gui See photo-left top plate> This is also v tasty especially the gravy.. Sweet saltish taste.. not too much of either. The veggie is fresh, and the Dang Gui.. Well, to me you need not worry too much abt the Herbal taste as you can taste it, but it is not too strong/ unpleasant/ bitter.. So not to worry, in fact, with that little herbal sweet gravy taste, the veggie tastes v nice~~.

c) Steamed Fish Slices (i think also 1 of the signature dishes) See photo-bottom left plate> For me who doesn't really TOO favour ordering/going-for steamed fish slices.. THIS is really nice.. The fish is fresh & not "chao-chor" (what we say in hokkien-refers to slightly stale or in fact just stale). It's not too hard, the texture is smooth, & you gotta dip it all over with the gravy... mmmMmm.. Yummy~~ Sweet saltish mixture.

d) Ribs Dong Gua (i think wintermelon in english??) Soup See photo-bottom right bowl> This is the only dish that I'm not too "into".. Comes in 2 bowls, 1 for each pax. The soup on the whole is quite tasty, with the soup tasting sweet & the aroma.. But HOWEVER, I didn't quite like the ribs meat as I find them v reddish in colour (I din really dare to eat, & I didn't) it seems full of fatty meat - see photo, fatty meat. But those who likes it, I think probably you'll like it, and there's quite a fair amt of the meat as well for you to savour..

I think it's a pretty healthy mixture of choice of foods to have.. Haha, & together with the pot of nice-aromatic chrysanthemum tea (which I'd always loved the smell!!), I think overall the food's very good~

With everything taken in consideration, I think it's a great experience to dine there... Price might be costly if you say it's for a "normal"/casual meal, but for a rest. cost & its location "brand".. It's pretty fair I would say, usually ard this pricing... But affordable I guess to go occassionally..

CHEERS for their good svc, rest. decoration ambience & food!~ :)