Unlike the air conditioned premises at Skudai, here at Gelang Patah, Star Chef is an open concept restaurant, airy and more spacious. The ambiance is informal, relaxed and comfortable - the perfect setting for easy, casual dining with buddies and family.
Locating Restaurant Star Chef was a breeze as it is along the same stretch of road with many seafood restaurants. Restaurant Star Chef is highly accessible from Singapore via the Second Link at Tuas/ Gelang Patah. As good foodies, once we arrived, we quickly got down to the serious business of eating without much ado :)
When at Restaurant Star Chef, I always have their braised duck and roast duck as Star Chef is one of the few places that still uses live ducks for cooking. And, as always, Star Chef's ducks always pleases. The braised duck was tender, savoury and naturally sweet. The roasted duck had that herbal taste and flavour, was tender and the skin was nicely crispy.
Plate of braised duck, roast duck and char siew RM15
Today, Alex also wanted us to try his char siew. I purposely indulged in a couple of slices of the fatty pieces and they were well worth the cholesterol. Soft and luscious with BBQ pork flavour.
When ordering crabs, we decided to be adventurous - rather than the usual safe choices of chili crab, black pepper crab, and crab cooked with salted egg yolks we tried two styles that we never had before. These were Restaurant Star Chef's signature crabs.
This was on the menu as the King of Crab - well, with a delicious name like this, we just got to put it to the (taste) test :P The crab arrived in a puffy bag made with aluminium foil.
The staff carefully slit the bag open with a pair of scissors and tah... dah.... there was.... another bag. This time made with a large dried lotus leaf.
Alex then personally cut open the lotus leaf bag, and inside was the large crab baked with a spicy, tangy sauce and lots of pepper corns, onions and a bit of chili. Most of us liked the spicy, tangy taste with the juicy crab meat though one of us felt it might be an acquired taste.
This was the Butter Cream Crab with Coconut Milk. The taste and flavour was similar to butter crabs and with the twist of fragrant touches of fresh coconut milk and shredded coconut flesh. The butter and coconut based gravy was creamy, tacky and sweet. We all liked this as it went very well with the thick and juicy crab meat.
Crab prices are, of course, seasonal. For today, it's RM68/ kg for the medium sized ones.
Tong Po Pork RM13
One of us had a craving for classic Tong Po pork and ordered it immediately on seeing it on the menu. When the Tong Po pork arrived, I was thrilled by the glazed and giggly tender look of the braised pork. We were all mouth watering but everyone had to indulge me as I took my usual amount of time to get my best pictures. Sorry guys, I know, I am slow :P
When we finally got the chance to sink our teeth into the Tong Po pork, we were all well rewarded by the savoury soft meat.
Alex offered us this Seafood in Pumpkin soup which was an off menu item at RM36 (for 4 to 5 persons). It's savoury creamy pumpkin soup with chunky pieces of button mushrooms, grouper fish meat, scallops and fish maw. It's like seafood chowder with cream of pumpkin soup.
Fried Yee Mee RM12
To round up our meal, we had an obligatory carbo dish - a simple Fried Yee Mee cooked with seafood broth. I liked this el dente noodles so much that I unknowingly ate more than what was necessary and polite :P
Our meal came with this complimentary herbal broth. I was not crazy about this, though the ladies were full of praise for it. They loved the dang gui 當歸 flavour in the soup.
Gelang Patah is a very crowded field with more than a dozen seafood restaurants established in the area. Now, lucky foodies from Johor and Singapore are further spoilt with another attractive choice with the entrance of Restaurant Star Chef.
Click on the pictures to view my earlier posts on Star Chef Restaurant (when they were located in Skudai).
Click on the map to see my earlier posts when Star Chef Restaurant was in Skudai
Restaurant name: Restaurant Star Chef 星名廚
Address: 51, Jalan Gelang Emas 1, Taman Gelang Emas, Gelang Patah, Johor Bahru
Map: http://goo.gl/maps/qTJV6
GPS: 1.450726,103.585367
Hours: 09:30am to 10:30pm (Closed on alternate Thursdays)
Non Halal
Date visited: 28 Oct 2012
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