Zhuge Liang Restaurant

The influx of Chinese immigrants here in recent years has brought along with it some new culinary pleasures. Many of the newcomers hail from the northern provinces, where the cuisine is very different from the food of Chinese Singaporeans, whose roots are in southern China.

Meanwhile, Singaporeans who have travelled to China have also come back with new ideas for restaurants after tasting food not common here. The many Sichuan ma la (spicy and numbing) hotpot eateries that have opened in the past few years are evidence of this. Chong Qing is a municipality in western China that was once a city in Sichuan province and the cooking is spicy with lots of chilli and herbal powder with Sichuan pepper.

The grilled fish recipe is apparently more than 1000 years old and the dish was reputedly a favourite with Zhuge Liang, a famous counsellor from the Three Kingdoms period whom some may recognise as a main character in the John Woo movie Red Cliff (2008). But despite the dish’s long history, it has yet to make an impact here and the only other place that serves it is Zhuge Liang Restaurant in Foch Road.