Address: 134 Telok Ayer Street, Singapore 068600
Tel: +65 62229074

A group of my old (as the years pass us by, this word takes on more meaning…) friends from my time spent in the university hostel made plans for us to meet for dinner. The plans were put into place one month ago. On numerous occasions, the dinner was postponed due to our busy schedule.

Overcoming laziness and inertia, we finally got down to meeting. The venue of our choice was a Hokkien Restaurant - Bee Heong Palace. I was slightly apprehensive about having Hokkien food. Being Hokkien myself, I was technically having Hokkien food when I have my home cooked food. Going by this line of reasoning, I was about to pay for food which was most likely going to be cooked in a similarly way to that by my mum - not a very appertising thought.

The restaurant looked very new and decidely non-hokkien. I know Hokkien - where people of this dialect group congregate, the noise level is raised till just below ear drum bursting point..there will be an air of chaos. A stranger to the group would think that some blood feud was being played out right in front of him, such is the aggressive nature of the Hokkien people’s speech.

However, the setting was modern, clean and orderly. The waitresses were soft spoken and spoke very good chinese and also chinese-accented english - no shouting was involved. It was peaceful and conducive to us building an appetite.

The four of us took turns to order dishes from the menu. I detected a certain level of competition when we began to lobby the others to get confirmation that the dishes we chose met some undefined taste standard.

The fried Ngoh Hiang and Prawn Crackers was good. There was unanimous confirmation from the group that the dish exceeded our expectations.

Next came the Pork marinated with Orange Sauce. I remember my mum attempting this dish a very long time ago. This was when I was still in Primary School. When I first tasted her creation, I made so much protest (augmented with choking noises and cries of food poisoning) that my mum testily cleared the offending dish as well as the rest of the dishes. Thus I was subjected me to a meal that consisted of only plain rice. We never spoke much of that incident thereafter.

The version served here was much better. However, I was a bit traumatised by my childhood incident, so I did not really take to it.

The Sichuan Sweet & Sour Soup was good stuff. It was packed with enough spice to make a slight tinger in my taste buds but not too extreme as to render the soup undrinkable.

The Claypot Tofu was my order. It won total agreement from the table (including myself) that it was the worst dish. Sigh. The tofu pieces came in a peanut-based gravy. There was a sweet aftertaste to the gravy. It was like having a main course and dessert at the same time.

The Tofu was so bad that I had to clean my palates with the Pepper Prawns and the Kailan with Garlic. Imagine that, I had to get rid of the peanut-based gravy with vegetables…unprecedented. The cost of the whole dinner came to S$56.70. Rather affordable.

The remaining time at dinner was spent to catch up on each other’s lifes and happenings. And as always, talk will always turn to the relativeness of our peers’ earning powers - like how a certain person is making big bucks…and how another of our schoolmate was earning even more big bucks.

I guess the activity of earning money has become a huge part of what defines us. A person is somehow judged on the amount of money he earns. I recognise that this shallow evaluation process is unhealthy. However, I cannot help but be sucked into this trend…(sigh…why can’t I strike lottery…).