Life is such that some of the best meal surprises come when you least expect them at all.
We had not thought of having a meal here- not once- in the course of these two years.
It wasn't that we didn't like Northern cuisine, or what we locals sometimes like to call Mainland food.
Just that we always seemed to go for other options at Bedok Mall, and so never thought of dining here at Oriental Food located right outside the side entrance of the mall in between the town center and the atrium of the hawker center.
But we have since placed Oriental Food as one of the places we want to eat at, not so much of a reason other than the fact that their food is, in fact, really good.
There are a good number of attractive dishes here at this diner-restaurant.
Beef, pork, poultry, vegetables, small bites, skewers, you've got them all.
We found ourselves drawn by the pictures of skewers in the menu this afternoon. Indeed, it was at the top of our head to try, but then whilst flipping through the menu we came upon the sight of Mapo Tofu, and since it being a favorite dish of my friend- who was dining with me today- we ordered one.
Then I spotted a dish which at other Mainland restaurants I had never seen before.
Golden fried pumpkin with Salted Egg Sauce.
So no skewers it was this afternoon, and we got these two instead.
In recent months we have had been trying a couple of Mapo Tofu dishes here and there- including this place on the ground floor of Bugis+ of which I don't know the diner's name.
But none of it thus far come close to this one here at Oriental Food.
I don't know whether it is their cooking method, whether it is the way they've handled their proportion of spice to gravy, whether it is the way they've prepared their tofu, such that not a single cube is overcooked or dry, and is just perfect to eat on its own, or with rice.
It might have been that we were in need of some tongue-blasting, mouth-numbing food that day, but the very first spoon we took of this dish was the gravy, and it did not disappoint.
So many places tend to serve up their food in gravies and sauces that are watery, unappetizing, and extreme on the tongue. Either they be too salty or too much of a distinctive flavor, or unbalanced in one way or another.
Not so this dish.
So good was it that I ladled as much of the gravy as I wanted over my rice, ate it plain first, then scooped up three, four pieces of the tofu over my rice inside my bowl. My friend had suggested that I mash and mush them up to eat together with the rice, so I did just that.
It felt the right thing to do.
What made this Mapo Tofu so delightful was that it not only served as a main dish, it opened the palate, stimulated the senses, made one feel alive, and even added a spicy, slightly numbing zhng to that particular day.
Yet it didn't take away one's desire for anything other, either.
Not only did I have enough stomach to eat up the other dish, it gave me an appetite to do so.
The Golden Deep Fried Salted Pumpkin has to be one of the signature dishes when it comes to this place.
Maybe there're variations of it elsewhere.
Maybe different people will prepare it different ways.
For me, however, this dish here was good enough.
They had cut the pumpkin into thick strips, a bit like fries, so even if you didn't want to use chopsticks, you could still pick it up with your hands.
What's more, the dish didn't come slathered in salted egg sauce the way I had at first assumed- like many other dishes of the salted egg kind- it would. This one here felt more like seasoning that they scattered over the battered pumpkin and deep fried.
This dish wasn't oily either.
Yes, no doubt, you felt that little burst of oil coming out from the pumpkin when you first bit into it, but then it disappeared, and the natural sweetness of the vegetable itself took over.
I took a liking to the crunch of the pumpkin batter.
I also took a liking as to how each bite was both crisp and crunchy at the same time yet not so dry that the dish became difficult to eat.
Not to mention, of course, the presence of bright, cheerful color, and the pleasant contrast of taste, both sweet and salty, at the same time.