Paradise Teochew Restaurant

This week is pretty much themed the week of slacking. I have been busy settling into my new job and I'm finally more settled now that I've cleared more of the miscellaneous stuff. Also, the weather has been very much a pain. This makes stepping out of the house a dread and pretty much all I did was hide at home and plan my next holiday. The highlight of the week is my mother's birthday! She being a Teochew Nang, will spur me to specially eat Teochew restaurant once a year.

I'm not a fan of Teochew restaurants most of the time. It's really not because of a lack of trying to give Teochew restaurants a chance. For some reason, I always have an issue with their service and I'll end up staring at the menu for ages and have trouble deciding what to eat. In a way, my fussy tongue may not be the best to ask for Teochew food recommendations (because I don't know how to appreciate it) but I've eaten at a fair share of such places to give my fussy assessment. 

Like I said, I always have an issue with the service. First, the cold dish isn't served first and the fish maw or sharks fin isn't served second... The sautéed scallops with asparagus in XO sauce ($26) is by the way my favorite dish of the night. It's flavorful and well cooked. Asparagus was crunchy yet not hard, scallops soft yet chewy. I take issue with the presentation though. It doesn't look like the photo in the menu at all... 

The second dish of the night is the Teochew pork roll, prawn ball and braised sliced duck ($29). All three dishes were traditionally prepared Teochew food. I quite like the authencity of its presentation even though there's no particular wow factor to bring me specially back to eat it. 

We settled for two soups for the night. Sautéed promfret fillet with tomato and salted vegetables ($28) and crab meat with fish maw broth ($40). Both dishes were forgettable. I felt the fish maw broth was overly starchy and the sautéed promfret fillet was a little stingy with the ingredients. 

Since it's my mom's birthday, it's Chinese tradition to order noodles. We selected this unique crispy sweet and sour noodle in teochew style ($14) as our finale. It's a refreshing way to eat noodles. The server told us to eat it like roti prata. True to his description, this noodles comes with sugar and vinegar dips. I would say it's my second favorite dish of the night and if I bring friends here to dine, I'd be sure to have them try this too. 

The Paradise Group has hits and misses among their restaurants. The group boast a number of home runs and a number of plain passable restaurants. In my view, Paradise Teochew Restaurant falls in the plain and ordinary category. It's not bad food just not spectacular food. Among the Teochew food I've tried, this is above average. If you have a mom like mine who loves Teochew food, you might want to give this restaurant a chance. Who knows, a Teochew Nang might appreciate them better than I do. 

Paradise Teochew Restaurant 

21 Amber Road, #03-01, Chinese Swimming Club