Drool Blog: The Fungus Feast

Yin insisted that I must blog the Fungus feast aka Health Set hotpot, purportedly anti-oxident, anti-ageing & anti-toxic.... I have never been a foodie, so do bear with the greenie.


Since it was under the insistence of Yin that this first food blog entry was conceived, the story should thus start from her.... and her decision to go vegetarian for the day 'cos of her new resolution to go veg-one-day-and-meat-the-next-and-so-on-and-so-forth. Since she already had meat the day before, it is veg day on 01-May.

Well, mum thinks she really can be flexible and do meat-meat-veg-veg instead of keeping the boring rhythm of meat-veg-meat-veg. Anyway... in support of her quest to abide by her resolution, I combed the Serangoon Gardens area and chanced upon a quiet little corner restaurant called Mushroom Park, nestled in the busy Serangoon Gardens.

It sounds amusing, but the thought of a fungus feast seemed to excite her much. While I'd thought I would enter to do a 9.8 set meal (meaning set lunch meal costing $9.80+++) as advertised on the bill-board, and resoluted not to over-eat, we ended up succumbing to the lead's recommendation for a hotpot set, said to be their best known.

We started the meal off sipping mug of tea whilst waiting for the soup to simmer...

Tea was no normal chinese tea, but one that packed the mug with lotsa ingredients. The trick, I have learnt from Yin, was to keep the lid closed. This is to allow the aroma of the ingredients to be totally infused within the mug.

First dish on the set is MUSHROOM SASHIMI. Never thought mushrooms can also be made into sashimi. They looked like abalone cubed and its texture chewy, the perfect abalone counterfeit.

As we chatted & the soup on the hot pot starts to boil, the waitress came with the assortment of fungii - the main show of the meal:

There's from the top right, the flimsy black-fungus looking (ermm.. yah hor.. they are fungii to start with... but I am not food blogger... not too sure how to describe that....), the "oyster mushroom", the liver looking mushroom (that makes me wonder if Audrey II in little shop of horror will look like that if cut up), and the left overs of the heavenly mushroom sashimi (that's probably too saintly, they reflected all the light).

On the same tray was a stop watch that will do a 7-minutes count down as the dishes are thrown one after another into the hotpot. As this is being done, the waitress explained that the fungus have to be thoroughly cooked before they can be eaten. I reckoned so too. Leaving spores to germinate in the body sure is not right.

It's not all greens & browns though. There's also protein supplement in some thinly sliced beef and chicken. Overall, the meal seemed pretty wholesome. There's no feeling of having sinned in gluttony even after cleaning off the whole big pot, and that is without sparing a pretty little dessert to end off the meal.

We sat through till the shop closes for the afternoon at 3pm. That's when we realised we were the only customers left, and the lead politely asked if we'd want the bill.

The Bill:

$26.80 per pax (cheapest of the three sets they have on the menu). However, there was a 10% discount stated on the bill (S said it might be cos of some HSBC dining privileges, but I think it is cos the lead knows that was our first visit. In any case, a discount is always good news.) There's 10% + 5% charge & tax for the meal.

The Ambience:

Chinese restaurant with tasteful Family setting. Can be good for business too.

The Service:

The lead was pretty chatty, and has got this pair of electrifying eyes. The other waitress and waiters are mainlanders who are pretty obliging to our multiple curious questions.

Address: 87 Serangoon Garden Way S(555983)

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