Thursday 10 December 2015

Joyden Treasures – Joyden Heritage Restaurant [MEDIA INVITE]


Joyden Treasures ('JT') is the third eatery opened under Joyden Concepts. While this group has been in the F&B industries for more than 20 years, the Joyden Concepts was launched by the second generation in 2013. It started with the transformation of their seafood restaurant from West Coast Seafood to Joyden Seafood. Followed with the opening of Joyden Canton Kitchen in 2014 at HillV2 and Joyden Treasures at Leisure Park Kallang in October 2015.

Part of the dining area with outdoor view

Each of the establishments has different focus, while JT aim to bring back the nostalgic taste of classic Singapore cuisines. These dishes were long lost either due to the complex and time consuming preparation needed. Besides that, the owners of Joyden also include a selection of their family recipe with a refine touch.


We started the tasting with Double-Boiled Seafood Soup in Old Cucumber ($14). This traditional Cantonese soup dish definitely bring back some memories during my time in Melbourne. One of the soup dish that my wife will order to wet our appetite. Ingredients include fish maw, mushroom, scallops, abalone and prawn dumpling. Though the broth is robust, I find it a bit wanting. It is missing the sweetness of from the seafood in the broth and the sliced abalone was still hard. I think the broth need to be cook longer before it is steam with the old cucumber, so the essence of the seafood can be extracted.

Double-Boiled Seafood Soup in Old Cucumber

Phoenix Beancurd Skin Prawn Roll ($16/22/30). A unique presentation of prawn wrapped in beancurd skin. The combination of prawns, salted eggs, century eggs work well with the crispy beancurd skin. It is crunchy and springy. Best of all they use real salted eggs instead of the powder version going around nowadays. Definitely deliver on the taste and texture. YUM.

Phoenix Beancurd Skin Prawn Roll 

Phoenix Beancurd Skin Prawn Roll - The fillings

Original Steamed Red Grouper in Homemade Soy Bean Broth (market price). Ok, this is the first time I see or even try steam fish with soy bean broth. It looks like the fish is having a soya milk bath. The grouper was fresh, firm texture, while light in flavour which can be misinterpreted as bland. You must eat the fish together with the soy bean broth and fried enoki mushroom for the intended taste and texture. What I can say that it will remind you of milky fish head soup broth. As the dish uses made-from-scratch soya milk, there are some earthy taste in the broth. A unique steam fish dish, but I am not sure if my taste buds are agreeable with it.

Original Steamed Red Grouper in Homemade Soy Bean Broth

Crispy Fragrant Duck with Petite Lotus Buns ($58). While other restaurant will serve you Peking Duck or Roast Duck, JT come out with a Deep Fried Duck. It is similar to the dish popular in Sichuan. The whole duck was gently simmer with herbs and spices, before being deep fried to produce crispy skin and seal the juice in the duck. The service staff will bring the duck to the table and skilfully shredded the duck in full view of the customers.

Crispy Fragrant Duck with Petite Lotus Buns

To eat this, you need to make yourself a “duck bao”. Put the combination of meat and skin in between the lotus bun, add a dollop of sambal orange sauce and topped with the sliced pickled papaya and fresh cucumber. The duck thigh meat was succulent, infused with the fragrant herbs and spices. The duck skin is crispy like crackling, binded with sweet and spicy orange sauce. The pickled papaya provided a nice balance to offset any jelakness (overwhelming flavour) from too much meat. Yum Yum!!

My "Duck Bao" creation with crispy skin

On the side note, I actually added the achar into my “duck bao” and it was just delish. The breast meat was a tad dry for my liking though.

Achar

Jumbo Prawns in Traditional Dark Sauce ($26/36/52). From the offset, this dish remind me of Indonesian style of BBQ prawns. At JT, the jumbo prawns was deep fried, then tossed with fragrant sesame base dark soya sauce. The prawn is fresh, crunchy with crispy skin. The sauce was so good, you will need some steam rice to polish it up. I will call this a “rice thief” dish at JT.

Jumbo Prawns in Traditional Dark Sauce

Drawing from the expertise of Joyden Seafood, come the dish of Traditional Salt Baked Crab (market price). Different type of salt was wok fried with spices before the mix pored and cover the whole Sri Lankan Crab. It is then baked at low heat for half an hour. The thickness of the crab exoskeleton provide a good buffer between the salt and the flesh. You can still taste the fresh, silky and sweet flavour of the crab meat. The downside of baking it in salt is the meat in the body of the crab was a touch dry. Any accidental touch of the salt on the exoskeleton, will send you grabbing for your drinks.

Traditional Salt Baked Crab

Surprisingly, one of the most memorable dish during the tasting is JT Brown Sugar Ma-La-Gao ($4.20) The malagao was light and fluffy, with the hint of sweetness from the brown sugar. It was such a irresistible dish, I almost polish off one serving on my own.

Brown Sugar Ma-La-Gao

Of course traditional desserts won't be complete without Traditional Yam Puree with Pumpkin and Gingko ($16/26/36, $6 per bowl), also known as Orh Nee. The orh nee was fragrant of smooth. Spring onion oil and lard was lightly added to the dish. For texture, chopped water chestnuts, steam pumpkin slices and ginko nuts was added. There is no coconut milk in JT version of orh nee, only sugary syrup. It was pretty good and I will probably enjoy it more if I was not so stuffed.

Traditional Yam Puree with Pumpkin and Gingko

During the desserts, the service staff also change our tea from pu-er to jasmine. The jasmine tea added an extra fragrance to the desserts served.

Located on the second floor of Kallang Leisure Park, JT is the largest Joyden Concepts outlet to date. It is airy and bright, and uses light pine wood to spruce up the environment. There is also aquarium for live seafood, so you know the seafood served here are fresh.

Part of Dining Area with Aquarium for live seafood

Overall, The Malagao, Jumbo Prawns in Traditional Dark Sauce and Crispy Fragrant Duck with Petite Lotus Buns definitely got my vote this time around. I am sure I will be back to try their dim sum and the rest of the dishes on offer here. So if you are looking for something new, give Joyden Treasures a try. Cheers!!

Thank you very much to Joyden Treasure Team, Cheryl (Sixth Sense PR) and Jennifer (JellyLovesFood) for the tasting invitation.

Food & Drink: 7.5/10
Value: 6.5/10
Service: N/A (Tasting Invitation)
Ambiance: 7.5/10
Budget per Person: $26 - $50; $51 - $80

Joyden Treasures (欣藝匊)
5 Stadium Walk
#02-42, Leisure Park Kallang
Singapore 397693

T: +65 6446 8488
OH:
Mon – Fri: 11.30 – 15.00, 18.00 – 22.00
Sat – Sun / PH: 10.30 – 15.00, 17.30 – 22.00


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