Sunday tze char lunch — salted egg + pea sprouts + har cheong gai ($36.80)!
Tze char Sunday lunch at Orchard — salted egg squid, stir-fried pea sprouts with garlic, har cheong gai (prawn paste chicken wings), 3 rice. $36.80.
Sunday family lunch at an Orchard tze char — classic 3-dish + rice combo for $36.80. The three SG-Chinese restaurant essentials. 😋
What was on the table ($36.80 for 3 pax):
- Salted egg squid (middle dish) — chunks of deep-fried squid (or fish) in a creamy golden salted egg sauce with curry leaves scattered through.
- Stir-fried pea sprouts / dou miao (bottom-left) — bright green leafy stir-fry topped with fried garlic + shallot bits in the centre, served on a yellow plate.
- Har cheong gai / prawn paste chicken wings (bottom-right) — golden deep-fried chicken wings marinated in fermented prawn paste (har cheong), the signature SG-Cantonese tze char dish.
- 3 plates of white rice for the table.
This is the textbook tze char trio — any SG family meal at a zi char (cook-and-fry) restaurant defaults to: 1 seafood (salted egg) + 1 vegetable (dou miao) + 1 chicken (har cheong gai) + rice. Three different proteins, three different textures, one shared rice pool.
Salted egg squid is the contemporary tze char headliner — salted duck egg yolks broken into cream + butter + curry leaves + chilli, then folded around deep-fried squid chunks. The dish that put salted egg on every menu since 2015. Curry leaves are the secret — the South Indian aromatic that elevates it from heavy to fragrant.
Stir-fried dou miao (pea sprouts) is the proper Cantonese greens — high-heat wok flash with garlic + a touch of Shaoxing wine. The fried garlic + shallot bits on top is the auntie’s finishing flourish. Pea sprouts are the premium green (above kang kong, on par with chye sim).
Har cheong gai (prawn paste chicken wings) is the SG-Cantonese signature — marinating chicken wings in fermented prawn paste (har cheong / hae ko) for hours then deep frying. The result: deeply umami-savoury wings with the unique fermented seafood funk. No SG tze char menu is complete without it.
$36.80 for 3 dishes + 3 rice = roughly $12 per head at the table. Mid-tier orchard tze char pricing.
Total: $36.80.
Overall: 4.5 / 5. Salted egg sauce had proper buttery-fragrant depth, dou miao stayed crunchy, har cheong gai had real fermented prawn paste funk. The classic tze char trio done right. 😍👍🏼
