Background - Lee's Taiwanese at The Star Vista

Background : Lee's Taiwanese is owned & operated by Fiona Lee and her husband Sarge Sargeant under the company Tai Thai Pte Ltd. 

Taiwan born Singaporean Fiona Lee (above) married Canadian Sarge Sargeant, but both decide to set up home and business here in Singapore seeing there is a market for Canadian Cuisine in a rustic laid back setting. 

They started with the opening of BLooiE's Roadhouse 11 years ago, and grew the BLooiE's brand to total 4 outlets : 

1. 21 Science Park Road #01-01 The Aquarius (Science Park II), S(117628) 
2. 49, Jalan Tua Kong (Upp East Coast) Siglap, S(457249)
3. Rail Mall, 426/428 Upp Bukit Timah Road, S(678053)
4. 100 Faber Drive, Faber Hills, S(129406)

With the success in BLooiE's in Singapore, this enterprising husband and wife team decided to introduce Taiwanese Cuisine to the local diners here. 

Fiona Lee hails from Keelung, north eastern tip of Taiwan where it is famous for its Keelung Miaokou (Temple Street) snacks and delicacies, hence the development of the Lee's Taiwanese Brand and the introduction of these delicacies to the diners here in Singapore.

Lee's Taiwanese opens its first outlet at The Star Vista, #02-08, with plans to open a second outlet at JEM, #03-05/06 in 29 May 2013. 

The restaurant is named Lee's Taiwanese to take after Fiona's maiden Surname. She personally designed the logo with the Lee in Chinese. Fiona is a qualified Master in Feng Shui and has a keen interest in Feng Shui.

Meaning of the Lee's Taiwanese Logo :

• heart inside the circle=doing things with the heart 
• Word吉 in orange =meaning "lucky" in Feng Shui, 
• Number 8 inside the circle = 八 sounds like 發 "Fa" meaning prosper 
• circle = meaning 團圓 "unity, togetherness"

The Sauces, Marinates & Ingredients : Fiona noticed that some Singapore eateries serving Taiwanese Cuisine do not necessarily use marinates, sauces and ingredients imported from Taiwan but use local produced sauces, marinates in order to suit the local palates. As such the Taiwanese Cuisine they served may not necessarily taste exactly authentic like those served in Taiwan. 

At Lee's Taiwanese, Fiona Lee uses authentic sauces, marinates and ingredient (e.g.  Mee Sua, Soy Sauces, Vinegar) imported from Taiwan for use in her recipes. Fiona maintains the food prepared at Lee's Taiwanese retains the original authentic Taiwanese Cuisine recipes as used in Taiwan. 

She takes conscious effort to maintain the quality of each dish on the menu.  Fiona believes in making everything from fresh ingredients without using preservatives : the dumpling skin for the Guo Tie, and noodles are made in house at the Central kitchen and delivered to the outlet's kitchen daily to ensure diners enjoy food made without preservatives. She uses flour from local suppliers such as Prima Deli as the quality is consistent and good. 

According to Fiona, authentic Taiwanese Cuisine  are generally sweet, sour, spicy, and intensely strong in flavor (such as in signature Taiwanese Beef Noodle) or are lightly flavored such as in their soups and seafood.  

At Lee's Taiwanese, the Taiwanese Braised Beef Noodle soup broth are boiled daily for at least half a day, minimum 8 hours, for use the following day. It is this strict adherence to quality control that explains the key reason why the Taiwanese Braised Beef Noodle is served with a strict controlled amount of soup to maintain the quality. Fiona explains that she does not believe in diluting the soup to give the noodles more volume as it will compromise the taste of the original soup broth.

In Taiwan, the Beef Noodles are called Herbal Beef Noodles because they use a lot of herbs in the cooking process. Over here at Lee's Taiwanese, they used too a lot of herbs & spices in the cooking process, but renamed the Beef Noodles as Taiwanese Braised Beef Noodles. 

Though some diners have requested for the Taiwanese Braised Beef Noodles to be made not spicy, Fiona has to politely declined as the chili oil is one important ingredient used in the preparation of the Beef Soup Broth, without which it can not be named as Taiwanese Braised Beef Noodles. Fiona lets me in that the chili in the beef soup broth serves to provide that appetizing kick to the noodles. 

The noodles at Lee's Taiwanese are made in house at the Central kitchen without any preservatives, and undergoes much kneading, knocking of the dough to give it that springy and Q texture. Currently Fiona is in the process of developing a thinner noodle to cater to busy diners who prefers noodles to be cooked in a shorter time. 

Fiona believes that authentic Taiwanese Cuisine should not be salty, oily, but fragrant, sweet, aromatic, flavorful and appetizing such that the diners cannot resist taking a second bite of the dish once they have taste it. 

Fiona pointed out that at Lee's Taiwanese, the buns for the Pork Belly Buns Set is steamed, not microwaved, unlike other restaurants, as such the buns are able to retain its moisture even if it was served and left sitting at the table for 10 mins. The pork belly are marinated, braised and stewed in stainless steel pots, for about 1-3 hours at the central kitchen, then delivered fresh to the outlets daily, where they are kept in warmers. The pork belly should not be stewed too long as the meat might simply dissolve into the soup broth. 

Fiona shared that in general Taiwanese Cuisine are rather well received among the foodies here, in fact some expats adore her Taiwanese Burger - Pork Belly Buns as the savory taste of the braised pork belly is balanced by the sweet sourly pickled vegetables and the sweet ground peanuts added to the buns. 

Fiona maintained that the Chicken chop used at Lee's Taiwanese are not flattened to enlarge its surface area but retains its original thickness and surface area, and are only lightly coated with flour. Fiona shared that the chicken chop served in Taiwan are usually served in whole piece, without any carving on the chicken chop in order to retain the meat juice from the chicken chop. 

The Chicken Chop at Lee's Taiwanese are served whole. She pointed out the outlet kitchen changes the deep frying vegetable oil daily to ensure each pork or chicken chop served daily does not have the rancid  taste from used oil.

The kitchen used dried chili which is fried in oil to bring out the aroma of the dried chili. Fiona shared that the chili paste used in the kitchen has a slight tinge of XO flavor to it as they use unique sauce from Taiwan to make this chili. She pointed out some eateries in Singapore serving Taiwanese Cuisine uses belachan chili which may not pair too well with authentic Taiwanese Cuisine. At Lee's Taiwanese she uses original authentic recipe to prepare the chili paste commonly found in Taiwan. 

Fiona used to made yam balls which are very springy like those she used to eat in Taiwan but some diners find it too springy. 

The Menu : Menu planning is handled personally by Fiona who is the brainchild behind every recipe at Lee's Taiwanese. She has a keen interest in developing the menu. Many of the dishes presented in the menu are from recipes either she has perfected based on her childhood memories and culinary experience or from recipes revised from her hometown Keelung, north-eastern tip of Taiwan.

She personally perfected the recipe for the Guo Tie Dumplings through much research and development. Many diners especially love the Guo Tie dumplings. The ingredients used are fresh and the dumplings are made fresh daily at the central kitchen. 

There is only one dish in the menu that may not be an authentic Taiwan dish - Spicy Minced Pork Rice. Sarge Sargeant loves the spicy, sourly, sweetness of the Minced Pork Rice which used to be on the menu of Tai Thai - a Thai Taiwanese Restaurant Fiona used to run before the Tai Thai concept morphed into Lee's Taiwanese. For that special request Fiona added Spicy Minced Pork Rice to the Lee's Taiwanese menu. 

There will be major changes to the menu coming April end 2013, Fiona will be adding :

1. expansion of the current Pork Belly rice to offer diners choice of having Pork Belly noodles, 
2. Dan Zai Mian 
3. Chicken Chop, Pork Chop with Noodles
4. Braised Chicken/ Braised Pork Noodles 
5. Braised / Stewed Pork Chop
6. Taiwan Fried Oyster (provided reliable oyster can be confirmed)
7. Set Meals

Fiona shared oysters used in Fried Oyster Omelette  in Taiwan are fresh, sweet and moist unlike oysters used in Oyster Omelette in Singapore where they are dry and not so sweet. 

She has R & D plans to make :

1. Taiwan meat balls which has minced meat and bamboo strips embedded in the meat balls. 
2. "Small sausage wrapped in large sausage - 小腸灌大腸" delicacy - consist of glutinous rice wrapped in sausage skin, with fillings. 
3. Milk Fish porridge which is commonly consumed among the Taiwanese.  

Since Japan occupied Taiwan for a period during the World War II, there are significant cultural influences. Many Taiwanese love Japanese Cuisine : such as eel rice, tempura. Fiona shared it is not easy to find good fish paste for making fish cake, the Singapore fish fat content is low not so good texture - not so springy. 

In Taiwan there are restaurants that serve yam strips coated with salted egg and deep fried. Tou Fu Loo   (豆腐乳fermented tou fu) and red yeast paste 紅醩露are two other types of ingredients commonly used in Taiwanese kitchen. 

Signatures at Lee's Taiwanese include : 

1. Taiwanese Beef Noodles 
2. Pig Intestines Mee Sua 
3. Pork Chop 
4. Chicken Chop 
5. Pork Belly Rice
6. Pork Belly Buns 
7. Salt & Pepper Chicken 
8. Pan Fried Dumpling
9. Spicy Minced Pork Rice

New Menu: