SHAO Rangoon Road is Shao 燒 Teochew restaurant’s third outlet in Singapore. Teochew restaurants are not common in Singapore, so a new one is certainly worthy of a visit. Especially when we had a good experience with their first outlet – SHAO Frankel Avenue.
New Teochew Restaurant at Rangoon Road
With a location directly across the road from famous bak but teh restaurant Ng Ah Sio, the opening of the new SHAO Rangoon Road will add to the dining buzz in this corner of the Farrer Park precinct. Another top BKT restaurant, Legendary Bak Kut Teh is a stone’s throw down the road.
A Chinese Restaurant for a Special Occasion
The exterior of the new restaurant is rather plain. But things brighten up inside. The most impressive part being the large Teochew opera mural mounted on a small stage at the deep end of the restaurant. This will serve as a backdrop for special events that may be held there. Being a small restaurant, we can see imagine reserving the whole restaurant for a special occasion.
The rest of the restaurant has a more contemporary feel. In fact the calm furniture style and the dim lighting provide a balance to the ornateness of the Chinese wayang mural.
SHAO Rangoon Road Menu
The restaurant’s name “SHAO” comes from the Chinese word 烧. The word is formed by the components 火 and 尧 which are said to represent fire used in cooking and a meeting place. A meaningful choice of restaurant name for a place where people can meet to enjoy good food. Here are pictures of some pages of the menu. You can view the full menu online (link at the end of this post).
Lunch at the new SHAO Rangoon Road Teochew Restaurant
Our lunch at Shao started with some tea served in an attractive teapot and cups and a couple of light dishes.
The Pan Fried Shrimp Pancake (picture above) had shrimp paste coated with batter and deep fried. A nice appetiser sort of dish that tasted like seafood tempura. Preserved radish omelette (chai poh nerng) was a more common Teochew restaurant dish. This one was well executed – perfectly cooked and a good balance of the chai poh – not too much to be over salty but enough to provide fragrance and the occasional crunch.
Our vegetable dish of the day was Stir-Fried HK Kailan with Dried Flatfish ($16), mainly because we like the flavour of the dried fish (大地鱼 in Chinese and tee poh in Teochew I think). The kai lan was good but the flat fish was out-numbered. We prefer a heavier dose of dried fish flavour to enhance the ‘Teochewness’ of this dish.
Seafood Pao Fan 海鲜贵妃泡饭
Porridge and fish dishes are usually nicely prepared comfort food at Teochew restaurants. That was why we ordered the Poached Seafood Crispy Rice with Seafood Stocks Pao Fan ($40 for small portion). The small portion was big enough to be shared by four diners.
A rich seafood broth was what we looked forward to. But the pao fun at SHAO Rangoon Road was not as rich as we had anticipated. However, we were pleased with the rather generous amount of mixed seafood items hidden inside the soup.
Best Dish of the Day
We thought that the best dish of the day was the Braised Combination Platter (Duck,Pig Trotter and Tau Kwa) 卤水拼盘 $28 (Small). This is a classic Teochew restaurant dish we can eat on every visit. All three components were very good. Aromatic braised duck, chewy and fatty trotter and smooth tau kwa – all cooked till the dark gravy had been absorbed.
Overall, an enjoyable lunch at the new SHAO Rangoon Road Teochew restaurant. It is a welcome addition to the food options in the Farrer Park / Serangoon part of Singapore.
Ratings:
Food: 4
Service: 3
Value: 4
Atmosphere: 4
Overall Rating: 4 TOPs 
SHAO Teochew Restaurant
223 Rangoon Road, #01-01/02
Singapore 218460
Tel: +65 69932223
Opening Hours: 11.30 am – 11 pm
Nearby MRT Station: Farrer Park (NE8)
The Ordinary Patrons | Real Dining Experience of Ordinary People
an independent Singapore food blog
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