Ju Xing Home Review: Famous Hong Kong Zi Char Restaurant Opens In Orchard

Ju Xing Home opens in Singapore

Michelin Bib Gourmand awardee, Michelin-awarded chefs’ favourite, celebrity-frequented—if those aren’t solid enough credentials, I don’t know what is. Walk into Ju Xing Home, the famous Hong Kong zi char eatery that’s finally opening here tomorrow, 1 December 2023, and you’ll find a wall of who’s who that’s dined at their original Mong Kok location. Now you don’t have to fly to Hong Kong and try to get a reservation there, because all you gotta do is head to Takashimaya Shopping Centre where Chef Ng Kong Kiu has set up shop, with largely the same menu as in Hong Kong. Best of all, he’ll be shuttling between both restaurants, so you can be assured of the standards!

Food at Ju Xing Home

We started with Double-boiled Clam Soup with Mountain Pepper (from $25.80++), a stomach-warming, peppery soup that’s loaded with wild Sarawak Mountain white pepper, fresh flower clams, enoki mushrooms, tung hoon, and luffa. There are also bits of marinated minced pork that add extra tastiness.

We loved how the milky white broth was just the right touch of spicy, with the subtle sweetness of clams and luffa balancing it out—perfect, honestly, with a bowl of white rice for a cold, wet day.

One of the star dishes at Ju Xing Home is Australian Lobster with Crispy Vermicelli and Signature Sauce (seasonal price), which we got instead with Tiger Prawn (from $35.80++).

As typical of Chinese restaurants, there are tanks of live fish visible from the dining area, but the prawns in this dish aren’t caught fresh to order per se. They’re delivered daily to the restaurant, but we had one or two on our plate that were slightly powdery and mushy.

The highlight here was undoubtedly the deep-fried bee hoon crackers, which retained their crunch even after sitting out. We hear that they are just as crisp even after being dabao-ed and reheated in an air fryer!

Served on the side is a bowl of Chef Ng’s signature sauce: a superior stock-based gravy that’s simmered with fried lobster and prawns, and thickened. I personally felt this was too starchy, though the flavour was spot on with the sweetness of the shellfish, plus the clean taste of the underlying chicken base.

Another dish that had us wishing for a bowl of rice was Poached Fish in Sichuan Chilli Oil (from $45.80++). Not being a fan of mala, I was apprehensive about the Sichuan influences on the menu, but my worries were unfounded: Chef Ng has quite deftly woven them into his dishes so they’re just subtly there, accompanying but not overpowering everything else on the palate.

If I’m being honest, this would be my favourite dish of whatever we tried, simply for the broth it comes with. This stars a soup enriched with fish, chicken and bones, and has a thicker consistency that’s more akin to stew than soup.

Of course, there’s the unmissable aroma of green peppercorn, dried chilli, coriander, and earthy shrooms, but you also get pickled mustard and tofu, which lends some clean flavour to the tasty dish.

My biggest gripe with the meal was the 鯇魚 (huàn yú), or grass carp, which is the default fish you’re served. I didn’t like and couldn’t deal with the crunchy finish, though it was smooth and not fishy in flavour. I would much rather come back for either the Tiger Garoupa ($9.80++/100g) or Marble Goby ($11.80++/100g) versions, prepared with live fish from the tanks.

I would do the same with Sichuan Fish with Pickled Mustard (from $45.80++), though I would not suggest ordering both of these fish dishes at the same time. If you do, I’d recommend having this before the Poached Fish in Sichuan Chilli Oil, as this is much lighter and cleaner in flavour, and hence would taste underwhelming if you had it after. Also known as 酸菜鱼 (suān cài yú), this version of the popular Sichuan dish is less oily than your usual, with a more pronounced tangy flavour. It’s also prepared with a chicken broth, with the fish and fresh pickled mustard only added in at the end.

Another dish that surprised me was Sweet and Sour Pork (from $16.80++). I, as a rule, simply do not like sweet and sour anything, because it’s always cloyingly sweet.

I took a bite, and the rest, as they say, is history. The sticky-sweet pieces of deep-fried, boneless prime ribs were the perfect balance of savoury and tangy-with-a-touch-of-sweet, glazed in a house-made, hawthorn-based sauce. If you prefer, there’s a Sweet and Sour Pork Rib (from $18.80++) version, for those who think bone-in is more flavourful.

Don’t miss their Sichuan Mala Sliced Beef ($32.80++): ultra-tender slices of beef in a fiery-looking broth that looks spicier than it is.

It’s perhaps not the best idea for a first date kind of meal, though, because it’s also laden with copious amounts of fresh chopped garlic. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, my colleague, again, wished for a bowl of rice. to accompany this.

I have fond memories of my yeye sending us off at the airport with huge bags of kai lan whenever we were flying home to Singapore—if he had his way, we’d be carrying fish, chicken, and pork too. “You’ve got no proper kai lan in Singapore,” he would say. So I was looking forward to the Stir-Fried Kai Lan in Claypot ($16.80++), which arrived sizzling hot, with properly fat kai lan stems, cooked 啫啫 (zhě zhě)-style: a Cantonese cooking method which typically sees the use of onions, ginger and scallions added to a very hot claypot.

The thick-stemmed kai lan were perfectly tender and sweet, accentuated by the fragrance of dried shrimp, salted fish, aromatics and bits of minced meat in the claypot. It was simple, but the execution of this dish was key to its success. My colleague, who’s never had HK kai lan, was impressed. Ju Xing Home doesn’t import the kai lan from Hong Kong, but sources them locally.

Supreme Soy Sauce Fried Noodles (from $18.80++) was yet another blast from the past for me, for how it was just something that everyone orders at dim sum. Smoky and full of wok hei, it was almost always too greasy, full of bean sprouts, and mild-tasting in my memories. Ju Xing Home’s rendition checked all those boxes, except for the greasy part.

What I did like was how the noodles were springy. Another definite plus was how the bean sprouts and yellow chives were still crunchy, without tasting raw.

I also enjoyed the Almond Paste with Egg White ($6.80++), made with house-ground, whole premium almonds—you can taste the difference.

Ambience at Ju Xing Home

Designed to resemble an old-school HK-style eatery, the booth seats are pretty cramped if you seat two a side; it doesn’t get more Hong Kong style than that, when you’re dining elbow to elbow with the person next to you. The good thing is that the seats are all moveable, so the configurations are customisable according to the size of your dining party.

Located in Basement Two of Takashimaya Shopping Centre, Ju Xing Home is as accessible as it gets, being just a short walk away from Orchard MRT Station.

The verdict

I love that Ju Xing Home lives up to its reputation of serving Sichuan-inflected Cantonese cuisine, with all the strong flavours of the latter, and the supporting notes of the former. I’m coming back for sure to have more of my favourite dishes and to try others that I’ve spied on the menu. It will get pricey, especially if you order the live fish, but if you’re comparing it with similar Chinese restaurants, I’d say the prices are around the same.

If you like Sichuan food, Hunan eatery Nong Geng Ji has opened at VivoCity, and they’re running a 50% off promo this weekend! Otherwise, YAO YAO Sauerkraut Fish has legit suan cai yu with XXL you tiao!

Address: 391 Orchard Road, B2-36A, Takashimaya Shopping Centre, Singapore 238872
Opening hours: Daily 11am to 10pm
Tel: 9666 1357
Website
Ju Xing Home is not a halal-certified eatery

Photos taken by Melvin Mak.
This was a media tasting at Ju Xing Home.