Found ourselves ending up within Suntec City Mall recently for lunch during the weekday — McDonald’s was originally on our lunch plan, though we wounded up at the not-so-new Big Appetite Food Court after a failed attempt to find empty tables that could accommodate for our group at the fast food establishment. The Big Appetite Food Court is the lesser-known food court at Suntec City Mall — located at level 3 of the mall, the food court is situated right beside the Burger King outlet there; Big Appetite had also recently expanded its operations in recent times, taking over the former premises of the now-defunct KOPItech at Funan as well. Big Appetite Food Courts are known to house at least an outlet of Tong Luck Economical Rice and Mei Heong Yuen Dessert within its premises. Putian Fusion 莆田乡味is one of those stalls that had been operating within the Big Appetite Food Court in Suntec City Mall since the start of the food court’s operations; it turns out that this is not the only outlet of Putian Fusion around however — there is also another outlet that is situated at Food City Eating House at 1550 Bedok North Avenue 4 as well. It isn’t difficult to make a guess on what Putian Fusion serves up on its menu — it’s primary focus would be on their Putian fare, which includes the likes of Heng Hwa Fried Bee Hoon and Putian Stir-Fried Yam. That being said, the menu also features some non Putien-style dishes – think the likes of a Singapore Fried Kway Teow and a Pan-fried Fried Carrot Cake (yes, its named this way in the menu).

One item that caught our attention in the “More Selection” menu whilst we are skimming through the offerings available at Putian Fusion was the Putian Lychee Pork Rice.

While the Putian Lychee Pork is something that most stalls serving up Putian-style cuisine would serve up, the item is usually being served up as a communal dish meant to be shared across the table — the individually-portioned rendition of the dish served with rice in a zichar-style format such as the one served up here at Putian Fusion is a rather atypical affair. It turns out that Putian Fusion does seem to be one of the more popular stalls at Big Appetite Food Court in Suntec City Mall, so do be prepared to wait around 20mins to be paged by the cashier through the electronic buzzer to collect the order. On first look, the Putian Lychee Pork Rice does look decently portioned; apart from how there was only one lychee that got served up with our order, the Putian Lychee Pork Rice actually looks rather well-portioned with generous amounts of pork served with a reasonable amount of rice. Digging into the Putian Lychee Pork Rice, the dish felt closer to the usual Sweet & Sour Pork Rice in terms of flavour — we though that the sauce did manage to achieve a balance of sweetness and with just a bit of tang to cut through. Somewhere in between, we did get another dimension of sweetness from lychee, though it only existed in a specific area of the dish. The chunks of pork were pretty well-sized; that being said, they do lack a bit of the crispness on the exterior that some other stalls would have served them up with, while the pork could have been a little bit more tender if we could have it the way that we would prefer it to be. The pork chunks also carried a light hint of ginger in its finish as well; not sure if this was intentional. Meanwhile, the other elements such as the capsicums provided a soft crunch — its flavour cleansing the tastebuds and helping to cut through all the carbs and meat that is going on in here. Overall, we wouldn’t say that it felt particularly exceptional; that being said, considering how Putian Lychee Pork Rice is a dish that isn’t typically sold usually and how this rendition seems to be decently executed with a generous ratio of meat to rice at $7.50, it does seem like an item worthy to give a try while at Big Appetite Food Court in Suntec City Mall.