Last weekend, we popped by Lu Ding Ji for affordable taiwanese food. Lu Ding Ji is located at Viva Business Park, right next to Decathlon. For those of you readers who live in the East, it is an extremely convenient place for you to grab a bite after you get some of your sports gears.
You will be happy to note that despite its restaurant setting, the food at Lu Ding Ji is kind to your pockets. You can get a main below S$10 and the portion is very generous. There is a variety of food to choose from, so you will be sure to find something that suit your palette. On an unrelated note, do give a second glance to their porcelain bowls cos they are gorgeous, makes me really want to have something like this at home next time to serve my guest!
Lu Ding Ji adds a local flavor to the food, so the food is not exactly the taste you could get at the Shilin Market in Taiwan. Of the food who tried, 3 of its mains/ snacks left a deep and very positive impression! From left to right:
- Pork Rice Bowl ($9.50) - Very yummy and homey. It is not the Ru Rou Fan you will get in Taiwan. But the braised pork was soft and easy to chew. And it comes with a lava egg too!
- Crispy Chawanmushi ($8) - This is exclusive to Lu Ding Ji and I have never tasted anything similar elsewhere. It is my favorite and I would come again just to have this. If you love eggs, you are bound to love this dish.
- Intestine Meesua ($10.50) - The braised intestine is soft enough for my liking and the intestine did not come with a smell. It is quite hard to find well-cooked meesua in Singapore. I would really recommend this if you have cravings for meesua.
If you are coming in a group, you might want to try its claypot series. From top left to bottom left:
- Tau Kee and Tau Pok Clapot ($4) - Value for money purchase and the gravy is good.
- Pig Large Intestine and Stomach Claypot ($12) - My favorite gravy. It has a tinge of vinegar. I could just eat this with plain rice everyday!
- Mushroom Noodle Bowl ($8.50) - This might be an acquired taste. Personally, I enjoyed the strong herbal, mushroomy taste of this dish. But not everyone at the table liked it as much as I did. I guess it really depends how "real" a fan of mushrooms you are :P You can also change the noodles to meesua, depending on your preference for your noodles!
- Beef Rice Bowl ($10) - My least favorite among the dishes, maybe because I am more particular about my beef?
- Chicken Noodle Bowl ($8.50) - This is the healthy version for those of you who wants to avoid the fatty bits of the pork in the braised pork. Personally, I would think the fatty bits are the nice parts, hahaha, but my Bro would think otherwise. Hehe.
Please also remember to save some tummy for the drinks and desserts!!! Psss, you get to customise your own bubble tea. For us, we chose a Bubblegum Mile Tea with Lychee Popball ($3.50) because it seemed novel. Didn't expect it to end up tasting so incredibly good. For our other drink, we went on the safe route cos we thought the novel drink may end up weird. We picked the Peach Green Tea with Aloe Vera ($3.50). Although it was good, it lacked the surprise factor for me. So try something different when mixing your bubbletea to fully utlise the customise experience.
Even for desserts, you can customise it too! The shaved ice ran out. So we got the customised desserts too. We were a bit bumped that the aiyu and grass jelly base ran out. So we had the tau huay base instead. First of all, I was amazed by the portion!! Good enough for 5 to share!) After adding on all the the toppings, this bowl would cost $6 max. I was also quite impressed with the tau huay cos it tasted different (more milky) than the other tau huay we will have outside. It would be great if they can set up drinks/ desserts store around Singapore. HAHAHA, so that I don't have to go all the way to the East just to have this. HAHAHA!