CaiGenXiang Northern Seafood Tavern

Address 666, Geylang Road (nx to Lor 40)

Opening Hours 11.30am – 4am (next day) daily

Telephone Tel: 67477350

Today, more so than ever, a new Chinese food culture is emerging alongside the good old, well loved and by now, predictable south Chinese makan we always had. Today, our new makan landscape is already dotted with the ridiculously fiery Szechuan cuisine and their infamous Mala hotpots sprouting like toadstools all over the Beach Road, Chinatown and Geylang area after a wet spell. Then there’s a very eager beaver set of “new” Chinese no-frills makan business hawks planting their food shops all around us. Now very easily, you can find skilled mainland chefs pulling, slicing or tearing special noodles and tossing them in all kinds of sauces and soups. And if you think sitting down over a three version Beijing duck meal can only be done in fancy eateries replete with silver chopsticks and fine bone china, then I think you really haven’t been out sunning for a while, especially in the Geylang area (but then, that’s one area you don’t go to sun as many folks are there to moonlight!).

Long on taste: Chef Wang stretching out his specialty dish - metre long knife-cut noodles tossed in chilli oil. With him is his boss, Mr Tan.

At the edge of Geylang (I think this is our new Chinatown), sits a little nondescript air-conditioned (barely cold) eatery that has been quietly drawing in a professional mainland northern Chinese clientele. “I know it’s Geylang, and surrounded by dark and noisy pubs, but it’s the kind of mainland professionals that come with their families and children.”, clarifies boss Mr Alfa Tan as he points to a children’s play table complete with plastic Lego like bricks tucked at the corner of his CaiGenXiang Northern Seafood Tavern Restaurant, “I placed it there for my kids but the children of some customers joined them so now parents eat and leave their kids to play there under our watchful eyes.”.

One of the signatures they tout is a five version Beijing duck meal offered at $58. Most offer only two or three versions. They turn what’s left of the duck after the skin is devoured as pancakes, into a soup, duck meat fried with vegetables, tossed with noodles or rice and finished as shredded meat pancakes. That’s easily a meal for three (people like me!) They even have a half duck version at $38. It’s comfortable but that’s not quite what you should come here for. At a whim, based on gut feel, I walked in one evening and ordered what I rarely see in such menus. Out came a peasant looking plate of garlic stems tossed in black woodear fungus. Crunch, crunch, it was noisy and very soulful- stuff mummies on a budget would whip up for hungry families without spoiling their appetite. Then some stir fried large intestines appeared. The brown mess was visually enlivened with green and red capsicums but it was really a time wasting yellow card offence. They offal was cut small and done softly crunchy and had just enough of that offal sensation sans the awful flavour.

CaiGenXiang Northern Seafood Tavern offers the kind of chinese village dishes which the majority of mainland customers here are familiar with.

“We offer the kind of jia xiang (China kampong) dishes that the majority mainland Chinese customers here are familiar with” explains Alfa, who runs the place with his Beijing wife Judy who has been here for over a decade. Which explains just how hearty their baked eggplant was - sliced like thin dominoes and spread over the plate with a simple sauce. It had that childhood like appeal (the same appeal that made Anton Ego cry when he thought of his mother as he ate ratatouille in the movie Ratatouille). The skin was firm and the soft mushy insides was endearing.

The place opens everyday from lunch and it shutters down only at the ungodly hour of 4am, which means they have two teams in the kitchen running on split shifts. “To be honest, the day chef is a noodle master and the night chef is the wok master, both from Henan in China”, confesses Alfa. Both does the basic dishes well (noted on both the occasions I was there over lunch and dinner) but their signature fried fish in triple flavour sauce (which gives you a sweet first, then salty, then spicy sensation, in that order) is done better at dinner. But what I very easily came to like was the knife cut noodles tossed in hot chilli oil (you puo la che zha mian??????). Lunch chef Wang Da Shan will artfully slice thin strips from a long slab of pasta dough to “fly” into a pot of boiling water. The strips expands into metre long noodles and he tops it with chilli powder, chopped garlic, vegetable, bean sprouts laced with a spoon of black vinegar and soy. Then three spoonful of hot oil is poured in to “cook” and sizzle it en route to the customer. It looks like kway teow but has that perfect pasta appeal (it was still al dente and smooth after 45 minutes). This beats kway teow dry by a mile. And it was heartening to know that it’s only $4.50 for the huge portion. For 50 cents more, they’ll add prawns and fishballs, if you like.

I was full and at this stage, I realized that I’ve only combed a fraction of their menu, some of which, I could hardly pronounce or have seen before. I know I’ll be back soon.