(Closed) Seng Kee The Black Seed by Chef Benny

Chef Benny Se Teo of Eighteen Chefs has opened a new kopitiam in Bugis Junction – Seng Kee The Black Seed. This modern coffee house is going to be halal-certified so our Muslim friends can also enjoy kaya toast and nanyang coffee together.

The ordering system is quite straightforward. You order and pay at the cashier. When the number on your receipt shows on the screen, collect your food.

One drink the menu that they speak strongly about is the Bullet ($1.90 for 8 oz) which is made from concentrated black coffee with a slice of butter. It packs a punch!

Their 63°C soft boil eggs ($2.20 for 2) is super power lah! The sous-vide egg is a thing of beauty. The yolks are runny and surrounded by tender white that’s so silky smooth. Totally can’t bear to eat them. That reminds me, that I haven’t touch my sous-vide machine for a long time…

Their menu is quite different from our other coffee joints like Toast Box or Ya Kun. Yes they have the usual suspects but on top of it, Chef Benny has given a clever twist on our local dishes to cater to all.

For example, the chee cheong fun is not served in the black sauce. Instead, you can have them in sambal belacan ($3), peanut & chilli sauce ($3), beef rendang ($6.50), sambal sotong ($6.50), devil’s curry chicken ($5.50), local curry chicken ($5.50) or japanese curry (vegetarian, $4.50). So many different ways! I was recommended by the cashier to try the sambal sotong version. The chewy sotong is drenched with a thick and spicy sambal sauce that is so fragrant and tasty. Because of such intensity, I love this so much that I ordered again during my second visit.

Our national dish Hainanese Chicken Rice is given a gourmet twist as Chef Benny came up with Hainanese Chicken Sandwich ($3.20 for 4″, $6 for 8″). Choose from ciabatta or focaccia as slices of chicken, ginger sauce, chilli sauce, lettuce, cucumber and tomatoes are sandwiched in between the bread. It’s a little hard to eat them as a whole because of the thick layers of lettuce, making it easily dismantled. But if you successfully put them all in your mouth, you can an explosion in taste as if you are having a plate of comforting chicken rice. Other options include beef rendang sandwich that is stewed for at least 3 hours till it is tender; hae bee hiam with wild rocks, tomato with cheddar, roast duck or sambal sotong.

Devil’s Curry is a fiery red curry made with a different style of spice paste namely dried chilies, shallots, ginger, vinegar, yellow mustards, sausages, potatoes, carrots, chicken/duck etc. The end result is a complex flavour that is tantalising to the taste buds. Here, you can pair it with bread bowls ($5) or rice ($5.40 for nasi lemak, $4.50 for plain rice). It’s thick and sedap but needs a little more kick for me.

Breakfast is perhaps the best excuse to dive into supremely delicious nasi lemak, as New York-based Time magazine listed it to be the 10 most healthy breakfasts in the world (really?!?!). Nasi Lemak here uses basmati rice and starts from $2.40. We included a chicken wing and costs $3.80 in total. The chicken rests on a pile of coconut-scented basmatic rice studded by 1/2 boiled egg, ikan bilis, cucumbers and a fiery sambal.

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