Food Picks: Restaurant-quality dimsum at Potong Pasir coffee shop; tasty Japanese fare at Hachi Cafe

Housemade dimsum

For freshly made restaurant-quality dimsum and buns that will not cost an arm and leg, head to 146 Dim Sum Handmade Bao in Potong Pasir.

Housed in a clean and airy coffee shop, the stall offers a dimsum experience for a steal, considering the back-breaking labour put into the food.

Chef Siah Ming Shoon, 50, helms the kitchen, while his wife, Madam Lee Yian Ching, 48, helps with food preparation and operations. They are from Sitiawan in Perak, Malaysia.

Go for the Pork Ribs Chee Cheong Fun ($4.50), which Madam Lee introduced as she prefers savoury chee cheong fun. The steamed pork ribs with black fermented beans are placed on top of the chee cheong fun, which is drizzled in a house blend of light soya sauce cooked with five other ingredients such as rock sugar.

The sauce is similar to the type used for Hong Kong steamed fish. The chee cheong fun, though factory-made, is silky and slightly springy. I like how the pork ribs are fall-off-the-bone tender and tasty.

The housemade bao are worth eating for their soft, fluffy skin. Mr Siah reduces sugar in the dough and salt in the filling where possible. His skill in bao-making is evident when you tear off the piece of paper at the base of each bun – it comes off easily instead of sticking to the skin.

The Big Bao ($2) has a pork filling made with lean hind trotter meat and a wedge of hard-boiled egg. The meat, cooked with red onion, bangkwang and spring onion, is deliciously juicy.

Smaller bao worth trying are the Char Siew Bao ($1), which has a char siew filling that is more savoury than sweet, and the Coffee Bao ($1), which has an aromatic, coffee-infused lotus seed paste filling that is not overly sweet.

The Egg Custard Bao ($3.80 for a basket of three) has a delightful, oozy salted egg yolk filling that stays molten even when the buns cool down. But the salted egg yolk powder that is used lacks punch and the filling is a tad too buttery.

Madam Lee also came up with the chicken Hotdog Bao ($1) upon the request of her daughter, who loves hot dogs.

I am in love with the Honey Chicken Feet ($2.80) – braised chicken feet that do not contain honey. The sweetness comes from maltose in the marinade.

While many stalls resort to ready-to-use deep-fried chicken feet, Madam Lee prepares them from scratch, starting with the unenviable task of cleaning them and trimming off the claws. The chicken feet are marinated, deep-fried, then braised in a sticky sauce that derives deep flavour from fermented bean sauce.

My favourite dumpling is the Century Egg Dumpling ($2.50), which has century egg and a pork filling with crunch from diced water chestnuts, all wrapped in wonton skin.

The Siew Mai ($2.50) are bouncy in texture too, with fish paste and diced water chestnuts in the filling.

A must-try is the slurp-worthy Century Egg Porridge ($3.80), which is ultra silky in texture and available only on weekends. Eat it while it is hot as it turns watery quickly.

Fried items like the Fried Prawn Roll ($1.30 a piece) and Fried Yam Ball ($1.30 a piece) are also worth blowing calories on. The Fried Yam Ball, also known as wu gok in Cantonese, has a crisp, lacy exterior with melt-in-the-mouth yam encasing a char siew filling.

Where: 146 Dim Sum Handmade Bao, 01-127, Block 146 Potong Pasir Avenue 1
MRT: Potong Pasir
Open: Tuesdays to Sundays, 7am to 9pm; closed on Mondays

Food made with heart

Sip on ceremonial-grade matcha and savour Japanese food with European influences at Hachi Cafe in North Canal Road.

The jade-green Iced Okumidori Matcha ($8++) is frothy, smooth and creamy without a trace of bitterness.

Owner-chef Kyota Ishida, 55, who is from Hakata city in Fukuoka, throws his heart and soul into cooking.

He took over a space previously occupied by an Italian restaurant and opened Hachi Cafe in June 2022.

It is the first overseas outpost of four Hachi Cafe outlets that Mr Ishida operates in Fukuoka. He opened the first outlet in 2015.

He cooks with accuracy and flair. His timing is impeccable, especially for grilled food cooked over binchotan in his Josper oven.

The presentation is simple but tasteful.

The Charcoal-grilled Spanish Iberico Pork Loin ($36++) is cooked to perfect pinkness, the leaner slices remaining juicy. The overlapping slices of pork are arranged in a circular fashion such that the most marbled pieces are in the centre, saving the best for last.

The pork loin comes with a housemade black pepper sauce that is lusciously aromatic.

Another grilled item to order is the Octopus Galician Style ($26++). The tender octopus is savoury on its own with the smoky fragrance of charcoal, but try it with the housemade basil pesto on the plate. It is a sign of the attention to detail that Mr Ishida pays to his cooking. There is also half a grilled lemon, tender potato cubes and a generous sprinkle of smoked paprika.

No effort is spared even for the salads. The crispy lettuce and sweet, juicy cherry tomatoes are imported from Japan. The Hachi Salad ($20++) is a visual feast, with bright pops of colour from the pickled purple cabbage and pickled radish. Quinoa and Japanese multi-grain, which comprises 16 types of grains including barley and black rice, lend texture. The salad comes with flavoursome and juicy slices of chicken breast. The meat is marinated in sake and mirin before being steamed until tender. Even the hard-boiled egg is perfectly cooked with a cheerful yellow yolk.

A must-order is the Homemade Crab Cream Croquette ($13++). Mr Ishida uses Zuwai crab from Hokkaido and Alaskan king crab, which result in sweet meatiness in the creamy filling. It is no surprise that the tartar sauce is made in-house using pickled cucumber and pickled onion.

I usually avoid gyoza as many eateries use factory-produced ones, but Hachi Cafe makes its own from scratch, right down to the dough for the gyoza wrappers, which are painstakingly rolled out by hand.

The Deep Fried Gyoza ($18++ for a plate of six pieces) comes with a dollop of yuzu chilli paste, which Mr Ishida is particularly fond of. It is imported from Japan.

The addictive paste is like a tasty sambal belacan with a citrusy edge and packs a spicy punch.

Hakata Mentaiko Pasta ($22++) is served in a hot cast-iron pan, but the noodles remain springy in the residual heat. The jyukusei pasta (aged pasta) is sourced from Shikoku – famed for its udon – and holds up well to cooking.

Even the shiso leaves used in the dish are from Japan.

Mr Ishida, who owns two other eateries here – Torikin, a Japanese hot-pot eatery at UE Square, and Teppan Bar Q, a teppanyaki eatery in Robertson Walk – splits his time between Teppan Bar Q and Hachi Cafe.

But due to a shortage of manpower and difficulty in finding the right person to take over his duties at Hachi Cafe, he has decided to close it, possibly in a few months.

He does not have a set date as he came to the painful decision just last week.

To cope with the lack of manpower, Hachi Cafe recently reduced operating hours on weekends.

In the meantime, have a taste of the food and matcha while it is still in operation.

Where: Hachi Cafe, 01-01, 35 North Canal Road
MRT: Clarke Quay
Open: Mondays and Wednesdays to Fridays, 5 to 11pm; weekends, noon to 11pm; closed on Tuesdays