One of Chinatown's pioneer cafés, Chocha Foodstore enlisted the help of culinary wunderkind Chef Mui Kai Quan for its latest menu change
"Should a restaurant have a signature dish?" poses one food writer to the rest of our crew. On the one hand, it becomes a sort of calling card, and can shoot a restaurant from obscurity to fame. On the other hand, a signature dish may stifle a brand's attempts to reinvent itself.
Better known by its initialism, the CFC (Chocha Fried Chicken), a beloved staple at Chocha Foodstore, has been shelved to make room for new inventions. It's this bit of information that causes us to chew on the question of whether or not to retain crowd-favourites. The vote skews 50-50.
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"I think it's more important to have signature style than a signature dish," says Chef Mui Kai Quan sagely, prompting solemn nods all around. So what exactly is Chocha Foodstore's trademark style?
A Johorean who has gone places, including Singapore's Esquina, London's Ledbury, and Oslo's Maarmo, Chef Mui Kai Quan was last seen at Sprout, a contemporary European eatery in Johor Bahru. What makes Mui's partnership with Chocha feasible is their collective love of locally-sourced, sustainable ingredients. Never mind French foie gras, black truffles and Russian caviar; the team is more smitten with smoked tenggiri mackerel pâté, banana blossoms, and cured jenahak. Some 16 independent farmers, fishermen and foragers supply the low-key eatery with their wares.
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One of Chocha's standout dishes, a sharing platter simply dubbed 'local vegetables', speaks volumes for the restaurant's approach towards food. Beyond making crudités sexy, the platter of astringent flowers, spicy radishes, spears of sweet baby corn and more draws attention to the wild beauty of our local landscape.
