K. K. Kitchen

Growing up, I was never a fan of bittergourd but have since gained a new found appreciation for it in recent years.

Goya Chanpuru is one of the representative dishes of Okinawan cuisine. It is a relatively simple dish which combines bittergourd, tofu and meat.

KK Kitchen serves their Goya Chanpuru with bittergourd, egg, tofu and pork. It's a tad bitter for my liking but I love that the bittergourd has a nice crunch and there is a nice wokhei to this dish.

KK Kitchen also serves a good pork katsu curry don. The pork katsu was quite crispy considering that it was 'trapped' in a bento box for nearly 30 mins and was juicy and tender. I also like that the curry was thick, rich and not too sweet!

I used to frequent Nirai-Kinai, an Okinawan diner at Liang Court which has since shifted to Great World City. Okinawan food is rather interesting as it differs greatly from Mainland Japanese cuisine and is greatly influenced by Chinese and Southeast Asian cuisines.

You will find saba shioyaki in most Japanese diners but I really enjoyed their flaky and boneless saba fillet and the lemon soy sauce dip on the side. The couple who runs KK Kitchen previously worked at Nirai-Kinai and has brought over some of these Okinawan dishes. For a $2 top up, you get to enjoy their kufa jushi or Okinawan seasoned mixed rice which is cooked with pork, carrots, seaweed, and Shiitake mushroom. The rice is full of umami and is to be honest great on its own.

Yes, it's a little pricey for a neighbourhood kopitiam setting but I really enjoyed KK Kitchens food which was homely, healthy tasting and tasty!

The dish has a nice sweet savoury taste, very homely tasting! Onions all perfectly soft and stewy, some of the veg (carrot & onions) even had some char to it. Rice was not bad, sticky and moist. Pork belly was shabu-shabu thin and was very soft, quite fatty so I had to remove a bit of fat. The set comes with half a ramen egg, crunchy pickles, some pork floss small side dish, and miso soup with tofu and seaweed.

Overall I enjoyed it and would be back to try the bittergourd, which was not avail when I went - they were super swamped with the long queue, so they hadn’t cut the bittergourd yet. Auntie was super nice and apologised, and recommended this as the waiting time would be shorter as her husband would be preparing the batch soon.