This Mainland-Chinese franchise has to be one of the best food discoveries I have had in the last one year or so.
There are a few outlets distributed across the island, but offhand I only know of three: one at Liang Seah Street near Bugis, one at Chinatown near Temple Street, and one at Bedok Central right outside Bedok Mall somewhere close to the hawker center.
All three have the same menu.
All three also have the same pricing.
This afternoon we were here at Bedok Central looking through the hard cover menu of Oriental Food.
A part of me wondered whether we would be trying anything new.
But a part of me also wanted to have back our familiar, favorite dishes that we had always ordered every single time.
As it happened, we did the latter.
So on the table today there was a hotplate of Mapo tofu, there was a plate of sweet and sour pork, and there were lamb skewers nicely grilled all sitting in their tray.
I love all three, but may I just say that it is the sweet and sour pork that makes me miss this meal most of all?
If you're wondering why, well, it is simply because theirs is a tad different from the others I have had at cai fan stalls and zichar stalls.
Let's just say first bite first time gave me a Ratatouille moment, and I haven't forgotten it.
This is the one dish that can bring me back to the very first time I had sweet and sour pork at the then Sin Leong Restaurant when I was five years old.
That had been my birthday.
And I haven't had the exact same taste of sweet and sour pork ever since.
How Oriental Food does theirs till it brings back a 40 year old memory, I don't know, but they have somehow managed to balance the proportion of meat with the batter, they have somehow managed to balance the equilibrium between sweet and sour, and they have somehow managed to make it such that the sauce of this dish covers every piece perfectly without having an ocean of bright red gravy on the plate.
Every piece of meat here is not only crispy at the edges, it is also firm on the inside, with just that little bit of fat. The sauce over each piece isn't dry, the meat isn't hard, and you don't get parts that taste funny either.
The flavors aren't compromised.
There is sweetness, there is sourness, but none of it overwhelms.
So moreish is this dish that we continue reaching for the dish's pineapple and green peppers even though it is finished and we're full.
Same goes for the Mapo Tofu as well.
If this dish brings me back a memory, Mapo Tofu creates a new one.
This hotplate of tofu is another one of our favorite dishes whenever we come here.
At first glance it might seem like another commonplace dish that you can find anywhere on this island, in nearly every Mainland Chinese restaurant or even any zichar stall, but where standards vary, here the tofu here is smooth, silky, and is cut into huge rectangular pieces that are firm on the chopsticks yet soft and mushy on the tongue.
For someone like me who isn't always fond of tofu, I quite like this one especially when eaten mushed up with rice.
What makes it better is that the spice has been modulated for the local palate. No doubt, the first bite that kicks in is numbing, yes, but the tongue adjusts after a while and the palate mellows down after.
I like it that the spice didn't overwhelm any of the other foods we had on the table.
I mean, the sweet sour pork didn't taste spicy.
Neither did the lamb skewers.
We tasted however the lamb skewers were supposed to taste- well seasoned, well-grilled, tender and fun to eat, all at the same time.
You know, our meal here today was one of the more fulfilling ones which we'd had in a good while.
Perhaps it would be nice to go have it back more frequently again.
Either Bedok Central here, or Bugis, maybe.