Ocean Curry Fish Head (Telok Ayer)

Tried their caifan once and wasn’t a fan, but I wanted to try again bc my colleagues seemed to like it, they said it was one of the better caifans around the area. Glad I tried it again, as I concluded my poor first experience was bc I didn’t try their better dishes. My usual caifan combi is gulurou, spinach, and egg/pumpkin. These are not their more outstanding dishes.

This time, we tried the:
- fried calamari (was v crisp with a thin batter and decent calamari texture)
- gulurou (affirmed that it’s ok at best, bc it’s not crunchy or particularly yummy, it’s p meaty, and came with lots of onion / tomato / pineapple / peppers)
- otah (slightly spicy and soft)
- french beans (crunchy and nicely stir fried with a garlicky flavour)
- tofu (also good, soft and fresh with minced meat and a tasty tomato based sauce).

The curry fish head was also not bad, it came bubbling in a large claypot! I can’t be objective bc it’s the first time I’ve had curry fish head :p Curry zhup was nice, giving some heat but not overly spicy for me, was aromatic and consistency was good too - not too thin and watery, but not sooo thicc and lemak either. There’s lots of veg in there - tomato, pineapple, eggplant, onion and lady’s finger, and the amount of fish meat was p generous. Fish was thick and meaty, was rather soft. The rice here is harder than usual, so u gotta eat it with the curry!

TLDR: wouldn’t mind coming again if in a large group for the curry fish head, and for dishes I would reco the french beans, fried calamari, and tofu.

Not one of the better caifans in cbd - rice wasn’t great, gulurou was kinda dry, egg was too salty, spinach was the best thing on the plate but still average. They sell curry fish head so you should probably go for that.

Disappointed that this is no longer my favorite place for curryfishhead
It is not using fresh fish anymore
The curry isn't as good
And the vegetables in it failed big time 😔

Ocean has to be hands down my favourite place to take guest from overseas whenever they request for a taste of the Singaporean cuisine. The curry fish head is the most iconic dish as the rich gravy goes really well with the vegetables and the soft and succulent fish meat. The otah and kang Kong are both dishes that I order frequently since no Singaporean meal will be complete without them. The only catch is that it's gets extremely crowded during lunch time so do make sure to get there early!

Not sure if it's due to the lunch time peak hour craze, the standard in the food seemed to be sub-par on the day of visit. Certainly did not live up to popularity and good reviews. Pork chop was hard and not well marinated. Just pieces of pretty tasteless, dry and tough meat....

Looks rather appealing - enveloped with generous coating of salted egg yolk sauce. yummmms! However, the prawns didnt taste that great. It was cooked to the right level of tenderness but certainly didnt taste fresh. It wasnt crunchy/juicy kinda tender, more of 'mushy' and dense kinda tender. Fresh prawns should feel plump and bouncy in taste!