Tea Valley (茶食坊) - Authentic Taiwanese cuisine? Far from it!

• Operating Hours: 11 AM to 10 PM
• Operating Days: Daily
• Address: Tiong Bahru Plaza, 302 Tiong Bahru Road #02-110, S168732
• Food I had: Honey Milk Tea, Minced Pork Noodle (炸醬麵), Honey Chicken Rice (蜜汁雞扒飯), Crispy Chicken Wrap (鹽酥雞蔥抓餅)

Was recommended to try out this restaurant as they house food that you will usually see in Taiwan like the oyster mee sua (蠔仔麵線), braised pork rice (滷肉飯), fried chicken chop (雞扒), and bubble tea (泡泡茶). This got me interested in trying it out.

We arrived during weekday dinner hours and the crowd was acceptable. We need not wait for seats as the waiter immediately offered a table for us.

These are the items that we ordered, we were told to pay for the items over the cashier first.

The honey milk tea was very unique but not in a good way, as I feel that the taste of the honey and milk tea did not blend together. I even tried to mix it up on my own again; but somehow, the taste was so separate that honey is honey, milk tea is milk tea, the taste just does not blend together, so do not compare this to any Milk Tea that is sold at other places.

The first dish that came was this honey roasted chicken chop rice (蜜汁雞扒飯). The rice was put on with some sauce, similar to eating braised pork rice. My first bite was totally not pleasant, the braised pork had that strong porky taste which I dislike very much. It was not sweet nor salty in any way, it was just plain pork taste rushed up to your taste bud. And the rice was not well cooked as it was mushy and sticky. Next is this honey roasted chicken: when I used a fork to pick a piece, I knew that it won't be nice. One look on the chicken, I realized that it was glazed more with oil rather than honey itself, and it was not crispy at all. This whole dish is totally not a Taiwanese dish.

Next dish is minced pork noodle (炸醬麵). First look at it, i see that braised pork sauce, on top of the noodles and thin slices vegetables. Somehow, there wasn't any porky taste 

, but still, overall the taste was just plain, it does not have any of the 炸醬 sauce taste at all. The noodle they used was the kuay tiao (粿條) commonly used in instant noodle. This dish overall does not fare well, not any better than the honey chicken chop rice.

The last dish that came was the salted fried chicken wrap (鹽酥雞蔥抓餅). The first bite of it was still alright as the wrap was cripsy. It tasted almost like our roti prata added with spring onion (葱).

As for the chicken, it was cripsy on outside but dry on the inside. They had used chicken breast meat for every piece of chicken in the wrap, which I felt that it was abit tough for me. This taste of this dish overall was still acceptable, but it is something different from taiwan; as usually for taiwan version, they would spread this dish with sweet sauce which will definitely improve this dish.

Overall if you have not been to taiwan before and after trying all these dishes, you might think taiwan cuisine are not nice. The food they serve here totally does not do any justice for the real taiwan cuisine.

I will probably not return anymore; or rather, I will return only if anyone said that they have improved on their food quality.