Spring Court Restaurant - Past It's Prime

Spring Court has the honour of being one of the, if not the oldest Chinese restaurant in Singapore. Founded in 1929, it used to be located at Great World Amusement Park (大世界) before finally settling at its current location at Upper Cross Street sometime in 2004.
 

The Place

Housed in a four storey heritage shophouse just opposite Chinatown Point, Spring Court spots white washed walls adorned with pictures and warm lighting, very much typical of a Chinese restaurant. The place is bustling when we arrive, a testament to the popularity of the place I guess?

Braised Beancurd With Scallop

I used to think that serving up beancurd dishes by weight or individual portions were the purview of upmarket Chinese restaurants but clearly, Spring Court has decided to buck that trend. It would have worked if the dish tasted great but unfortunately, it was anything but. The beancurd lacked smoothness and the savouriness that I personally like. Topped with a small piece of scallop and draped over with a mildly starchy meat sauce that had bits of chilli in it. Average.

Deep Fried Prawns With Salted Egg Yolk

The small portion had about 10 prawns or so (charged by weight) and came across as crunchy with a mild egg yolk taste (would have preferred something more pronounced actually). While decent, it lacked that savoury saltiness that is the hallmark of any good egg yolk prawn in my humble opinion. 

Stir Fried Broccoli

Cooked just right, the broccoli was neither too hard not soft but could do with some wok hei. Nonetheless, greens are always welcome as they help break the monotony of rich foods. 

Roasted Chicken

Mildly crisp skin coupled with moist meat and a good pinch of saltiness; a respectably tasty dish of roasted chicken.

Peking Duck

As part of a tie in with a credit card, a Peking duck was offered to us for a mere 85 cents (with minimum $85 expenditure). We opted to have the meat chopped up and served ($5++ extra) over frying it with noodles ($12++ extra) and to be honest, it was probably one of the worst Peking ducks I've had in a long while, on par with the sub $20 ones that go for sale at the Ubi area. The skin was mildly crisp but came wrapped in limp and dry crepes whilst the chopped up meat was rather oily and had a strong fowl taste to it amidst flittering hints of herbs. We gave up on it after a while.

Lotus Leaf Rice

Apparently a signature dish of Spring Court and one that required pre-booking, the lotus leaf rice or 荷叶饭 had a slight waxiness to it (which was good) with bits of dried sausage, egg and shrimp. However I did find it a little lacking in fragrance and flavour, coming across as bland and nothing like the delicious 荷叶饭 at Peony Jade Clarke Quay.

Bill

Dinner for the 6 of us was a rather inexpensive affair, at just over $190 or ~ $32/pax with decent service. However food quality was average at best as a whole and I really don't understand the hype or seeming popularity (yet another Red Star?) of the place. Sure, Spring Court has a long history but I don't see how that's going to bring it into the future.


Final Verdict:

Ambience: 6.5/10
Service: 7/10
Food: 6/10
Value for money: 4.5/10

Overall: 6/10

Address: 52-56 Upper Cross Street

Contact: 6449-5030

Opening Hours:

Lunch: 11.00am to 3.00pm (Last Order: 2.30pm)

Dinner: 6.00pm to 10.30pm(Last Order: 10.00pm)

Website: http://www.springcourt.com.sg/