Food review: National Kitchen by Violet Oon

SINGAPORE — She is Singapore’s original culinary celebrity. In fact, having studied, cooked, and written about Singapore food for more than 50 years, some might even say Violet Oon is a bit of a national treasure. Which explains why expectations of the dining experience at National Kitchen by Violet Oon are exceptionally high.

The restaurant at the National Gallery is gorgeous in gilded dark wood and Peranakan tiles and serves a menu that will no doubt draw both Singaporeans and foreign visitors in search of a taste of the island’s culinary canon.

In that regard, Oon and her team do not disappoint. Along with classics from her Peranakan heritage and a couple of modern interpretations, they also dish out homespun local favourites, such as Indian idli (steamed fermented rice cakes) served with coconut and tomato chutney (S$7), and Hakka abacus beads (yam 
dumplings, S$16).

The food is brought to the table by refreshingly professional, knowledgeable and warm service staff decked out in smart black suits, who are exactly the kind of team you want representing the island’s service culture to foreign visitors. They gently steered us to dishes such as ngoh hiang (minced chicken, crab, prawns and water chestnuts rolled in bean curd skin, S$15) and daging chabek beef cheeks (S$35) — and for good reason.

The ngoh hiang, redolent of five-spice powder, was consistently luscious within, each slice deep-fried to yield a crisp, thin crust. Even though, on our second visit, they arrived looking scorched, the morsels filled with the wet crunch of water chestnuts and prawns were still 
surprisingly juicy.

The beef cheek, meanwhile, had been stewed so that the gelatinous meat practically fell apart at the gentle prodding of a fork. It was bathed in a deep-red sambal that tasted of chillies cooked long and slow.

The buah keluak noodles (S$24), though, could have used more nuanced flavours. The dish, comprising of spaghetti tossed in a paste made with buah keluak (a black nut from Indonesia), minced prawns, chillies, spices and coconut milk, was dominated by the earthy buah keluak “flesh” and coconut milk. The rest of the ingredients were barely discernible.

The dry laksa (S$22), on the other hand, was much tastier. The slippery fresh rice noodles (chor bee hoon) were slicked with a coconut-rich laksa sauce perfumed with dried shrimps and grassy laksa leaves. The ikan goreng chilli (morsels of fried red snapper topped with a sambal made from bird’s eye chillies and garlic, S$19) packed a really spicy punch, but that didn’t hide the fact that it was over-salted. Our server cheerfully took it back to the kitchen and brought out a second version that though lower on the sodium scale, was still a tad too salty for our 
taste buds.

A meal packed with such punchy flavours requires a sweet ending. Here, the dessert menu delivers with options such as roti jala (lace pancakes) with gula Melaka and banana sauce (S$10) and pulut hitam (black rice pudding) with coconut ice cream (S$12). Delicious as these desserts were, however, we wished there were cooler, lighter options with which to wash down the spicy food, such as, perhaps, chendol, chilled sago gula Melaka pudding, longan tofu and the like. ANNETTE TAN

National Kitchen by Violet Oon, #02-01 National Gallery Singapore, City Hall Wing. Telephone: 9834 9935. Opening hours: noon to 3pm, 6pm to 11pm daily

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