A Wonder Bowl – It’s No Wonder It Tastes So Good!

A Wonder Bowl was born with the intention of bringing interesting food targetted at Millennials. The stall is started by a few professional chefs who strive to create unique dishes that are not commonly found elsewhere.

A Wonder Bowl is situated in the Commonwealth Crescent Market and Food Centre. The chefs created these dishes by drawing inspirations from different cuisines.

Salted egg dishes have been gaining popularity in recent years. Their rendition of Salted Egg Fried Rice ($3.50) was quite an interesting take. Firstly, they fry up half a salted egg in the pan. Next, turmeric rice is added and mixed well with the salted egg. Thirdly, the chef leaves this rice aside and pan-fry the luncheon meat. Lastly, this dish is assembled with a fried egg, some corn and some fried shallots.

While the rice was very fragrant, I felt that the turmeric taste was much stronger than the salted egg. It is not like the typical salted egg dishes you have that are usually cooked with some milk to give it a creamy texture. This Salted Egg Fried Rice had a more powdery texture due to the salted egg yolk,  and you can find bits of the egg yolk studded through the rice! The luncheon meat gave the dish its saltiness, and the sweet corn gave the dish some sweetness. I felt that this rice was a little too dry for my liking though.

The Lu Rou Fan (Braised Meat Rice) was my favourite! For $5.50 a bowl, you get a huge piece of braised meat, some braised minced pork, salted vegetables and a hardboiled egg. Chef See told us that Lu Rou Fan originated in Taiwan, and is usually served in a smaller portion. Rather than being a snack, they wanted to make this a proper meal, so they decided to make it into a bigger and less salty bowl. It is supposed to be eaten like a Korean Bimbimbap, where you mix all the ingredients together. I really liked how the flavours came together!

The meat is braised for 24 hours using the Sous Vide method. The recipe is not quite the same as what’s commonly used in Taiwan. They tried to adapt it to have a more local flavour. It has a very interesting taste which I figured might also be an acquired taste. It was really easy to eat, and the chilli was not overwhelmingly spicy. I think the star has got to be the piece of braised meat which was so tender and flavourful.

We were so impressed by the Chicken Broth-Crab Meat Spring Onion Egg Rice Bowl ($5). Having a very traditional Teochew flavour, the Chicken Broth is made from scratch together with crab meat and tee po (Sun Dried Flat Fish Bones). The broth was very fragrant and light, and the tee po gave it a very unique flavour. It really reminded me of some good home-cooked food! The meat was a mixture of crab meat and minced pork, and its texture was like tofu.

Falling within the Millennials age group, I must say I was quite impressed with the food that A Wonder Bowl offers. It is indeed quite different from what you would get in a hawker centre. I vote for the Lu Rou Fan if you cannot decide what to get!

MissTamChiak.com made anonymous visit and paid its own meal at the stall featured here.