Recently I visited Bee Cheng Hiang at its new flagship store at 1359 Serangoon Road. Other than its quite way out location, I am pretty impressed at this new outlet, or rather I probably shouldn’t say new, but an impressive re-furbished 2,000 square feet store and how this very perceived local brand manage to come off its way at incorporating a bistro and wine cellar alongside with its famous pork jerky.
I haven’t been going for media tasting for liked donkey years and so, what makes me jump on the bandwagon for this particular one, was that it’s pretty much #supportinglocal brand, and for the fact that I am really curious on how our local bakkwa can incorporate itself into the bigger foodie scene with a fusion tapas menu that comprises of delights from both the French and Spanish cuisine.
Unliked the usual BCH store which tends to be small, cramp and having your pork jerky grilled on electric stoves, this particular one actually have all our bakkwa delights grilled on the traditional charcoal stoves. The entire place is very spacious, neat and elegantly decorated.
The charcoal station enables you to have your own go at grilling your own pork jerky, which is pretty interesting. And a knowledge of fact that I’ve learnt, it take around 1.5 minutes to completely grill one slice of bak kwa. The charcoal grill gives a very nice aroma to the pork jerky which is completely different from those grilling on electric stoves and it has that slight charred aftertaste which made it very very delightful too.
A pity I wasn’t a person who knows how to appreciate wine, but the outlook of the wine cellar itself is enough to determine how much effort BCH has taken to incorporate the wine concept into their signature product. There were even recommendations on which kind of wine goes well with what kind of pork jerky.
The Bistro that conceptualizes on a menu that comprises of their signature bak kwa in every dish is probably the most innovative in this new venture of theirs. Took me awhile to figure out where’s their kitchen which was well incorporated behind the feature wall of the big screen TV. And going on a pretty much tapas style menu, each dish comes out with some kind of hideous fusion which I deem it as pretty interesting.
Apologies if the pictures aren’t as desiring as they should be because of the poor night lighting but in all, the food was generally good and which could be even better with a tad further fine tuning. :)
The Mozzarella Katsu comes off with an entire slice of Gourmet Fusion bak kwa sandwiched with cheesey mozzarella and breaded with panko, deep fried to crispiness and served with homemade mayonnaise.
The Gourmet Enoki Roll is a bacon-wrapped enoki but comes with with an extra premium by upgrading the bacon to the signature gourmet bak kwa and carefully grilled to tenderness.
The most presentable dish would probably be the DIY sliders which you are able to create your own sliders with the Golden coin jerky, which will be sandwiched between mini buns, caramelised onions, quail eggs, cherry tomatoes, lettuce and homemade sambal mayonnaise. In fact I think the sambal mayonnaise was quite a match with the sliders, incorporating a very local traditional flavour into a modernized food.
There was a free sampler of mooncakes too ! To be honest, I didn’t even know BCH actually do makes mooncakes too !
Termed as the flagship store of the local brand, this particular outlet also comprises of literally all the products that Bee Cheng Hiang carries, with further more varieties for touristy packaging and hampers and made absolutely easy and fuss free for travel purposes. Even to very strict countries like Australia, you have no qualms about bring these well-packaged pork jerky into the country.
So here’s to BCH and its new outlet at 1359 Serangoon Road !! Hopefully the business will prosper and may this local brand bring us more delightful ideas and food products in the near future !!
