Taste Good 好味 (Chinatown Complex Market & Food Centre)

Taste Good is most famous for their salted egg chicken rice but do not sleep on their other offerings!

Their salted egg butter pork ribs rice is an option for those who want a little more bite to their meat. The sauce is similar but the pork ribs sauce seem to be thicker and creamier compared to the sauce used for the chicken.

I like both the chicken and pork ribs version so I guess I will have to resort a coin toss the next time I am there!

Taste Good is a popular "mini wok" stall in Sim Lim Square that serves tzi char style dishes in single diner portions. I happen to chance upon their latest outlet at Chinatown Complex in their opening week and before the crowds caught wind of it.

Compared to another competitor who has set up shop in the Tanjong Pagar area, I felt that Taste Good's salted egg sauce is richer and creamier. The meat chunks though were more soft and tender as compared to their competitor, which makes Taste Good more enjoyable.

Taste Good is also comparatively cheaper but to be fair, the rental at Tanjong Pagar is a lot more expensive! Needless to say, we will be back!

Taste Good is a name that does not require much of an introduction especially to foodies in Singapore — the name is often mentioned as one of the few dining establishments that one must try in Sim Lim Square for those whom are keen to on salted egg dishes; the item of which that Taste Good had seemingly built its identity on over the years that they have operated in Sim Lim Square. Having established as a stall serving up mini wok dishes and mixed economy rice, Taste Good’s location in Sim Lim Square had expanded to multiple shop units; all that to accommodate for more seating space as office workers and shoppers make a beeline for their salted egg mini-wok and mixed economy rice offerings — their Sim Lim Square location also does occasionally see an additional vendor moving in to one of their shop units to serve up other cuisine, though the appearance of such set-ups are often short-lived. While there was a point where Taste Good does seem to be located at some coffeeshops in the heartlands, there a little information around about them that mentions if they are currently still in operations or not. That being said, they did manage to further expand their operations with a concept that is an extension of the original Taste Good at Sim Lim Square named WOK by Taste Good 好味小厨 at E!Hub @ Downtown East. They have recently opened at yet another location; this time being a stall situated in Chinatown Complex Food Centre. Taste Good’s location in Chinatown Complex Food Centre is within the red zone area; the stall it occupies being at the end of the red zone that is also bordered by the blue zone. The menu at their Chinatown Complex Food Centre does seem to comprise of a limited selection of what is available at their Sim Lim Square outlet — the selection of dishes available at Chinatown Complex Food Centre being just a handful of mini wok dishes that they serve up at their main outlet.

One would not have considered having been to Taste Good without giving their Golden Salted Egg Chicken with Rice a go — this is also exactly the reason why we had decided to go for the said item during our visit to their latest location at Chinatown Complex Food Centre. On first look, the Golden Salted Egg Chicken with Rice does come with a decent proportion of diced chicken cubes to the rice — the diced chicken cubes also comes with sufficient salted egg sauce, which also comes stir-fried with chili padi and curry leaves. The item also comes with a sunny side-up as well. Digging into the Golden Salted Egg Chicken with Rice, the salted egg sauce that is stir-fried with the diced chicken cubes at Taste Good does feel creamy. That being said, the level of creaminess that it comes with does make it feel closer to that of a buttermilk chicken dish rather than that of a salted egg dish — we wished that the savoury notes of the salted egg could have been more prominent here. We did, however, enjoyed the contrasting notes of the curry leaves and the chili padi that came stir-fried with the sauce and the diced chicken cubes; the former adds a nice hint of fragrance to the dish, while the latter comes with a bit tingle of spiciness that tickles the tastebuds. The diced chicken cubes are beet enjoyed while the dish is still hot though; they do turn slightly tougher as the dish cools down after being left on the table for a while. Meanwhile, the sunny side-up comes with a molten egg yolk; the edges being browned and crisp as well. There was also no nasty hint of overused oil for the sunny side-up; a crowd-pleaser to the dish.

We have had tried Taste Good’s rendition of the Golden Salted Egg Chicken with Rice at Sim Lim Square when the office was previously within the vicinity — we did feel that the rendition of the Golden Salted Egg Chicken with Rice that we have had at Chinatown Complex Food Centre does feel a bit disproportionate where the creaminess and flavour of the dish is of concern; we did not recall that the version from the Sim Lim Square outlet was this creamy that it impacted the notes of the salted egg. That being said, we still liked how there was sufficient contrast from other elements such as the curry leaves and the chili padi that they had included in this rendition — this refrained the Golden Salted Egg Chicken with Rice from tasting flat and jelat overall. Perhaps it would be worth giving the Buttermilk Pork Ribs with Rice a go considering how the Golden Salted Egg Chicken with Rice; we have an inkling that the flavours would be sufficiently rich since the Golden Salted Egg Chicken with Rice does seem to veer heavily towards being a little bit more on the creamier side. Prices of the mini wok items on the menu at Taste Good’s outlet at Chinatown Complex Food Centre seems to be rather reasonable — the items being priced between $5 and $6.50; a lower price point as compared to iEat Kitchen at Lau Pa Sat that serves a wider range of the same fare on its menu which we had tried not too long ago. Yet another option that we would be thinking of when dining around Chinatown Complex Food Centre — glad to have an outlet relatively close by to the workplace again.