Sun Lok Restaurant

Sun Lok Restaurant at Taman Jurong

Nothing like Tung Lok. In fact, not as great as some of the hawker food stalls.

Here's the scoop.

Service

Generally slow. Maybe the motivation isn't there as the outlet was giving a 10% discount for its opening promotion. But still, this is no excuse.

Food

We weren't hungry, especially after having had some vegetarian food at Bo Tien Temple before going there. One thing to note: If food tastes good when you are half-full, the food will taste really good. Otherwise, forgettable. Which was what happened at Sun Lok.

Wantan Noodles - stringy, hard noodles without sufficient sauce to cover the noodles. Old stringy chye sim (mustard greens) and wantons which leave their skirts stuck to the plate when their breasts are picked up. Salty wanton filling, thinly veiled attempt to blend in the flat fish meant to flavour the prawns - the flat fish ended up causing the wantons to taste very sandy.

Har kow (prawn dumplings) - one of the typical dishes to grade any tim sum outlet. The skin was good, chewing, translucent and doesn't stick to the teeth or hard palatte, but the filling needs work.

Siew mai (meat dumplings) - the second definitive dish. The mushroom was not sufficiently drained of its soaking liquids, causing an extremely woody watery taste to the siew mais.

Fried carrot cake - bits of bacon and strips of radishes are found within the pieces served. Reasonably soft and savoury, but the pieces became crumbly when cold. Someone needs to teach them to use better gelling flour. And unfortunately, when I asked for black sweet sauce which typically goes with this dish, I was told they were out of it. Hello, Sheng Siong the sell-all supermarket is JUST next door. Is it too much to run over and buy?

Fried vegetarian spring rolls - run-of-the-mill. I've had better.

Char siew bao (meat buns) - good skin let down by poor filling again. Why is it that these people don't understand that a bit of sesame seeds in the filling makes it wonderful tasting? Pure meat and sweet sauce do nothing for me.

Condiments

New category. Well, some deserve special mention, others need special condemnation. Here, the vinegared green chillis were badly cut and overly sour. The red shrimp chilli paste was too salty.

Drinks

The Chinese tea came in a humongous cup and was hard to drink from as it was too hot. The soya bean drink my friend had must have been just ok, since he was quiet throughout.

Overall grades

Service C
Food C
Condiments D
Drinks C
Ambience D (Screaming kids and tim sum places don't go together)
Price D (Well, you cannot expect to charge Crystal Jade prices when you are just a wannabe)