Roast pork with Yorkshire pudding, potatoes, vegetables, gravy and apple sauce - this dish required advance booking, as it sells out pretty quickly each Sunday.
It’s easy to see why: perfectly-roasted pork with crackling.
Joel Goh is the current co-proprietor of Hillside Cafe, together with his wife, Ng Kim Tee. They’d bought over the cafe in Aug 2022 from his wife’s brother, Ng Kim Sneah @ Kim, who first started Hillside Cafe in 2013 with Kim’s then-wife, Elaine Stewart.
Address
Hillside Cafe
3, Jalan Sungai Kelian Tanjung Bungah, 11200 George Town, Penang
Tel: +604-899 8071
Operating hours: 9am to 9pm Mon, Wed to Sun. Closed on Tue.
Back to Hillside Cafe today, this time to explore its British-Chinese menu, courtesy of founder, Ng Kim Sneah @ Kim, who ran a Chinese restaurant for many years in London’s St Paul’s district before returning to Penang.
British-Chinese food has its own characteristics which set it apart from its American-Chinese counterpart. One do not find General Tso’s Chicken in Britain’s Chinatowns, but one can expect the ubiquitous crispy aromatic duck, served with pancakes & hoi sin sauce.
Generations of Singaporeans educated in the UK used to bemoan the absence of crispy aromatic duck from the local Chinese food scene once they come back to Singapore. There was a ripple of excitement back in the late-2000s when London-based Chinese restaurant, Royal China opened at outlet in Singapore, at no less than the grand old Raffles Hotel itself. Crispy aromatic duck was, of course, on its menu, and was the first thing most of us ordered when we flocked there.
The crispy aromatic duck served here was as good as any. Hillside Cafe served it already pre-shredded in the kitchen, whereas in the UK, it’ll be shredded tableside.
Sea-spiced aubergine - this dish was good: the aubergine pieces were pre-batter-fried, then smothered with an unctuous, tasty sauce with a hint of chili-spice.
