Visited Tun Xiang 豚香南洋馆after coming across the place on social media recently; a new F&B establishment which had recently opened its doors within Bedok Mall, taking over the former premises of the now-defunct Streats outlet there. The establishment focuses on serving up roast meats with the use of Iberico Pork, whilst also serving up a variety of sides featuring the same; beverage options are very much limited to local drinks such as Nanyang Coffee/Milk Tea, Milo, Barley, Luo Han Guo, soft drinks etc.
Wanting to try the best of both worlds, my choice of main was the Signature Iberico Pork Belly Char Siew + Roasted Chestnut Pork Noodle; the same is also available being served with rice at the same price, and also available in two sized — Medium or Large, which I went for the former. Unlike the typical roast meat noodles around, the noodles here; whilst being the standard mee kia often found elsewhere, comes swimming in a dark sauce that is similar to that of Lor Mee — gloopy and dense. Not sure why they had decided to go for such a direction here, considering the noodles does become soggy given the heaviness of the sauce, whilst also not helping with the general feel of the dish considering its heavy notes of savouriness, though it does seem to mask quite a fair bit of the alkaline taste of the noodles and slightly more bearable when one mixes the sous-vide egg in. Otherwise, the meats were pretty decent; the Signature Iberico Pork Belly Char Siew and the Roast Chestnut Pork being both reasonable tender, not too dry and came void of any undesirable porky stench; the former being drenched in a sweet sauce for flavour and a good mix of fatty and lean parts to provide sufficient bite, whilst the latter came evidently savoury from the spice rub with fatty parts that carried a good bite, and a crackling layer of crispy skin over the top. Felt that the noodles could also come with some bak choy to strike a more wholesome balance, whilst also giving a textural contrast with its crunch that may make the dish slightly easier to finish.
Being an establishment which focuses on Iberico Pork, it seems that Tun Xiang 豚香南洋馆 has given the meat justice — the roast meats are actually of a rather decent quality and does seem like a fair attempt on putting a hipster touch on the typical roast meat that is usually found in coffee shops, food courts and hawker centres. That being said, there is certainly some room for improvement, and there are some things that do not seem to gel too well together here in the finer details — still a pretty decent option to go for within the mall, and somewhere that roast meat lovers should check out if they are into alternative variants of the classic dish for the experience.
