Pork cutlet egg fried rice ($12.90+)!
Yishun Taiwanese cafe pork cutlet egg fried rice: a sliced pan-fried pork chop over golden egg fried rice. $12.90+.
Lunch at a Yishun Taiwanese cafe: pork cutlet egg fried rice, $12.90+. ๐
What was on the plate:
- Pork cutlet: a pan-fried pork chop, peppered and seared, sliced into thick fingers and laid alongside the rice
- Golden egg fried rice: the yolk-stained grains, each separate and slicked, scallion through it
This is the Taiwanese-cafe version of a dish that also lives at hawker stalls for half the price: a da pai (ๅคงๆ) style pork chop, the cut pounded broad and thin, marinated in soy, white pepper and five-spice, pan-seared and sliced, over a plate of egg fried rice. The flavours are the same as the $6.50 hawker plate; the difference is the air-con, the plating and the markup.
The pork chop ran the seared-not-breaded style, the crust coming from the pan rather than a panko coating, with cracked pepper for the sharp note. Sliced before serving, the juices run down toward the rice. The cut was crisp at the edges and tender through the middle, done right.
The fried rice had the separated-grain texture you want, egg worked through so it coats rather than clumps, the golden colour from egg and heat rather than soy. A Taiwanese cafe leans on the wok for this base just as a hawker does, and the execution here was solid.
The honest framing: this is a reliable, well-made plate, but at $12.90+ you are paying roughly double the hawker price for the same dish. Worth it for the comfort of a sit-down cafe, but the value-conscious know the hawker version exists.
Overall: 4.1 / 5. ๐๐๐ผ The crispy peppered cutlet over the separated-grain rice was the standout. Reliable Taiwanese cafe pick, would re-order when in the mall.
