Fragrant Garden

Authentic Teochew cuisine that never fails to be the place to go to for parents’ birthday or just to savour some heartwarming dishes. The owner does his own sweet BBQ meat (bak kwa) for CNY, which i find it absolutely delicious, and I’m not usually a fan.
If I feel under the weather, or just want some soul-​food, i will just order the pomfret fish soup with a bowl of rice. It’s too much for 1 person, so it’s good to share!

Getting authentic and delicious teochew food these days is quite a challenge. Most of the existing teochew restaurants have lost their traditional flavour. I am not sure why, but my impression of teochew food was pretty bad and when my dad told me that he made a reservation for dinner at a teochew restaurant, I was expecting a pretty blend dinner with lots of steamed and mushy food.
I could not have been more wrong. Located in an otherwise deserted building known as Upper Serangoon Shopping Centre, Fragrant Garden with its bright green sign is the only sign of life in the shopping centre on a Saturday evening. The boss of the restaurant came to chat with us while we were deciding what to order and helped us by recommending the dishes we should get. While most stall owners tend to push their most expensive dish and try to sell you the biggest serving of each dish, the boss was very considerate towards our personal taste preference and took the effort to recommend how much of each dish to order so that we would have just the right amount of food. His estimation was brilliant, as we were full and satisfied as we finished all the food on the table. The food is also very reasonably priced and definitely a lot more worth than most fancy teochew restaurants located in posh places.
Their steamed fish in soup was fantastic as the fish was very fresh and the soup was flavourful. We also had pork cutlet, fried oyster omelette, braised duck, sambal asparagus and fried kailan. All the dishes were delicious but the one that stood out the most was the oyster omelette. The starch was just chewy enough without being tough, with the egg fried well and crisp and the oysters being big and fresh.
I had a great dinner and my impression of teochew cuisine has officially changed for the better.