[ Food Week — Heritage Restaurants ] Over these couple of years, I’ve been surprised time and time again by how different similar dishes can be when recreated by different dialect groups. And after tasting the variants, I’ve become even firmer a believer that we’ve to preserve these individual threads of heritage lest they become products of distant memory.

One of the dishes I tend to associate with the wrong dialect group is the quintessential fish (head) steamboat. It became one of my fav comfort foods as I was growing up, and whenever there were any signs of impending rain, I’d strongar-, suggest we get it for dinner.

So imagine my surprise when a certain someone’s fam decided to bring me to have fish head charcoal steamboat… in one of their fav Hainanese heritage restaurants, Jin Wee!

Located in Siglap in the unit next to the area’s Wine Connection stall (pst, you can cross-order from JW to there and vice versa btw!), as a testament to its reputation, meal times are characterised by extending to the far edge of its territory. Even then, you can still find hordes of eager patrons — families, couples, and friends alike — perched at its perimeter hawking for seats in eager anticipation.

As someone who never really had Hainanese food I was astounded by the restaurant’s popularity.

Oh, and they’ve these huge porcelain pots that sit amidst diners in the alfresco area as well. Housing both soups and pots of their renowned Jiao Hua Chicken, it’s very worth the order if you’ve the stomach space for it.

We ended up with an order of their Red Grouper Charcoal Steamboat, Hai Nan Pork Chop, Claypot Chicken, and Chap Chye.

The pork chops were as delightful as I’d expected them to be — the crunch they boasted under all the sauce would give even a good Korean fried chicken a run for its money! The fish steamboat had me ladling bowl after bowl because of how flavourful it was (defo on par, if not more, than the Teochew ver). The main difference was a subtle simmer of sweetness and the slightly thicker, almost milky texture courtesy of the sheer amount of yam present. The other two dishes were fab too: The veg was fresh and crisp, and the chicken was smooth and tender!