Picture this scenario:
You have some important guests in town and you want to bring them somewhere to taste some local Chinese cuisine. Your first choice is your favourite zi char place, but you want somewhere a little more clean and comfortable. You could bring them to one of the many Chinese restaurants around, but they’d probably be eating the same type of dishes you could find in a typical Chinese restaurant overseas! So what do you do?
Well, now you have the option to bring them to Famous Treasure, a newly opened restaurant in Capitol Piazza where you are able to order Fish Head curry and KL Hokkien Mee in a classy Chinese restaurant environment. The folks at Famous Treasure don’t really like me to call their food “upmarket zi char” food, so let’s just call it modern Nanyang cuisine!
So, what is “Modern Nanyang Cuisine”? It is, essentially, our version of Chinese food that has been influenced by local ingredients as well as Malay and Indian influences. So, you can expect dishes like their wok fried squid with cinchalok and lady’s fingers 4.25/5 which isn’t classic Chinese cuisine, but certainly something that the Chinese living in South East Asia are very familiar with.
They have two bars at the restaurant. One focuses on wine while the other is a whiskey bar, perfect for patrons who want to have a drink and order a few small bites. Their marinated cockles and steamed pork belly with minced garlic are both perfect accompaniments for a shot or two in case you are not after a full meal.
The restaurant is new setup with involvement from the management of Famous Kitchen which I had blogged about previously and so some of their signature dishes can also be found here. The steamed Soon Hock with preserved vegetables is quite a unique dish which is not commonly found else where. The fish is first steamed and then served with a piquant sauce made with preserved mustard greens and topped with peanuts. It’s one of those tangy dishes which really gets the salivary glands working. 4.25/5
My favourite dish at Famous Kitchen has always been the salt baked blue swimmer crabs. It’s salty, savoury and smokey crustacean flavour continues to linger on your fingers long after you have dispatched with the sweet and succulent flesh! Finger lickin’ good! 4.5/5
The sauce which is served with the steamed chicken is quite unique and makes the dish stand out from the usual steamed chicken that we commonly come across. It is made from a specially imported bone marrow paste and gives it a flavour that reminded me of luncheon meat! 4/5
The fish head curry is very good and worth ordering if you are trying to introduce this very Singaporean dish to visitors. The curry is very well balanced and they use wild caught ang goli (Goldbanded jobfish) instead of farmed ang goi (crimson snapper) which is usually found in cheaper zi char establishments. 4.25/5
I reiterate what I said at the beginning of the post that Famous Treasure serves “Nanyang” cuisine. Which other Chinese restaurant in Singapore would serve KL Hokkien mee? The KL Hokkien mee is very competent and they managed to get the KL style tai lok meen which makes it pretty authentic. 4/5
Conclusion
Great place to enjoy some local Chinese food in a comfortable and modern setting. The restaurant has semi private booths which can seat four as well as private rooms for 10 and 20 pax which is perfect for lunch and dinner meetings.
Disclosure
This restaurant is partly owned by our long time makan kaki, fashionfoodie.
