Bao Duo Duo Claypot Cuisine 煲多多

There is certainly a bit of a void when it comes to dining establishments in Singapore that focuses on serving up dishes in claypots — whilst there are a handful of establishments situated in hawker centres that serve up claypot rice dishes for quite some time, it does seem that establishments serving up dishes cooked in claypot have only started to become a little bit more common in recent times. Though not an entirely new idea, we do commend establishments like Bao Duo Duo 煲多多 that helps to add vibrancy in the local F&B scene. Bao Duo Duo is a new concept that focuses on claypot dishes that had recently just sprouted up along Foch Road — they had taken over the former premises of a now-defunct location of Ng Kuan Chilli Pan Mee at 36 Foch Road not too far from the Bistro 8 coffeeshop in the vicinity. Bao Duo Duo had did some work with the shop space; despite its fairly simple set-up, the establishment does come decked in a way that we found to be rather expected of a Malaysian-style dining establishment; functional furniture matched with walls that comes with posters depicting the food that they serve up; the use of orange paint for some walls helped to provide a visual contrast against the pastel yellow walls. The menu at Bao Duo Duo is segregated into categories comprising of Chicken, Meat, Seafood, Soup, Vegetable and Noodles; the list of beverages served up includes canned drinks and tea — just to name a few, with alcoholic options limited to Heineken, Asahi and Blanc 1664.

We found it difficult to resist ordering the Claypot Bee Tai Mak after spotting the dish being listed on the “Noodles” section of the menu. Bao Duo Duo does not describe the elements that come with their dishes on their menu; that being said, it can be observed from our order that the Claypot Bee Tai Mak does come with Mee Tai Mak seemingly doused in a dark sauce, prawns, minced meat and cabbage — all that with a raw egg cracked over it; in fact, it wouldn’t be too wrong to describe this as the KL-style Dai Loke Noodles that comes with Mee Tai Mak for its noodles, and served in a claypot. Mixing the raw egg into the entire dish provided a runny and silkier touch for the Mee Tai Mak. Considering the amount of dark sauce that the dish came with, the noodles did come with a slight savouriness and sweetness from molasses; all that whilst coming with a slurpy texture that also came with a bit of chew. The minced pork does add a meaty bite, while the cabbage provided a soft crunch that gave a slight contrast of textures as well; the prawns were pretty fresh and added a natural sweetness when had together with Mee Tai Mak. Yet another dish that we found ourselves enjoying during our visit to Bao Duo Duo would be their Herbal Chicken. Encased within a plastic bag and a tinfoil-lined bowl, the Herbal Chicken does come with the usual suspects such as ginseng, cordyceps and other herbs. The herbal broth is one which we find to be pretty refreshing and soothing; the chicken also seemingly having absorbed all of the herbal notes of the broth whilst being tender and juicy — the meat falling off the bones pretty easily. It was a pity that we did not go for an extra portion of rice to go along with our food; the herbal broth would definitely do well when drenched into white rice.

The Pork with Curry was one dish that we were looking forward to have but did end up feeling a little underwhelming nonetheless. Whilst we did enjoy seeing the curry gravy bubble up considering how the dish is being served in a hot claypot, one major factor which we found to be lacking with the Pork with Curry was how the pork didn’t seemed to have absorbed the flavours of curry gravy here — seemingly tuning the flavours down with the pork being a little bland for our preferences. With prices of its claypot dishes mostly priced below $10 with the exception of some of the dishes (i.e Sambal Petai with Prawns, Nonya Assam Prawns, Claypot Lala Soup and the Prawn Paste Chicken), Bao Duo Duo does seem like a rather accessible option for most to dine-in with its wallet-friendly prices — this is considering how the portioning of the food works, with two pax sharing two dishes being pretty manageable for standard appetites. No doubt that there is some room for improvement with some of the dishes like the Pork with Curry that could do with some extra oomph that would make it match that of what one would find at other zichar-style establishments all around the island serving the same, though they do present themselves as a decent dining option to go for whilst wanting to try something new in the Jalan Besar area.