The Dragon Chamber

PRESS RELEASE

When you arrive looking for The Dragon Chamber, you will find yourself at the entrance of a Kopitiam where patrons are sipping beer and having a bowl of noodles—just an ordinary street food stall. “This must be the place,” you say to yourself. The hostess then gestures you toward the beer fridge ...More

When you arrive looking for The Dragon Chamber, you will find yourself at the entrance of a Kopitiam where patrons are sipping beer and having a bowl of noodles—just an ordinary street food stall. “This must be the place,” you say to yourself. The hostess then gestures you toward the beer fridge as if to offer you a drink. But instead of pulling out a tasty cold brew, the fridge door opens up into a portal into another realm like something out of a real-life Alice in Wonderland. “This is where you must continue alone,” says the hostess, as the fridge door opens into a street alley that transports you into the braised underbelly of the “Long Tang” that is The Dragon Chamber. Things are not always as they appear.

Secretly located within a brightly coloured Kopitiam, The Dragon Chamber is a hidden restaurant. What may look like a regular beer fridge in a kopitiam is actually a secret door that opens up into its own inner recesses. Reminiscent of Chinatown gambling dens and secret society hangouts, the walls of The Dragon Chamber are covered with artwork from local and regional artists such as Sabotage, Mister Tucks, and Riandy Karuniawan, referencing past and recent Chinese tradition from a globalist, counter-culture point of view.

The Dragon Chamber offers an unconventional menu serving “guerilla style” food, representing dishes that are not typical banquet style Chinese food. Among its own wild concoctions from The Dragon Chamber’s test kitchen, the underground restaurant also brings back age-old Chinese dishes that never caught on in mainstream restaurants, because of unconventional ingredients. Yet the flavours are immense. Contrasting lovable Chinese-American recipes, The Dragon Chamber pushes the diner’s comfort zone with adventurous dishes that may even shock diners with unusual Chinese techniques of nose-to-tail animal preparation. One such dish is the Dragon’s Claw. Touted as one of the restaurant’s signature dishes, it features a Crocodile Foot braised in Chinese herbs, served on a bed of greens and a literal ring of fire. Bearing a taste similarly close to chicken, the meat is tender and sweet. Its skin is painstakingly descaled with a torch, revealing a thick and rich layer of collagen that coats the succulent herb-marinated meat with a soft and sticky texture, adding a consistent mouthfeel to every bite. If crocodile foot and mammal innards might be too adventurous for some, we also offer more conventional favourites such as Firecracker Chicken and Wagyu Truffle Hor Fun.

Not a space for political correctness and mellow elevator music, the restaurant recommends not bringing any overtly conservative in-laws you might have. Make your way down to The Dragon Chamber, we dare you to enter the bowels of Chinese cuisine to discover your true gastronomic self. (Sept 2019)

DISHES WE LOVE

Dragon’s Claw, Crocodile Foot braised in Chinese herbs, Wagyu Truffle Hor Fun, Dragon Mountain, Firecracker Chicken, Cheeseburger Eggrolls