Popular Taiwanese diner The Salted Plum revives after three years with “thicc” lu rou fan and sweet potato congee

It’s a terrible feeling to see your favourite makan spots call it a day. Especially so during the Covid-19 pandemic, which saw many beloved haunts were forced to shutter, one after another.

One of the big losses was The Salted Plum — probably a name that many people haven’t heard of in a long while. 

Back in the late 2010s, the casual diner was a popular spot frequented by many lovers of Taiwanese food. While Singapore has seen an influx of new Taiwanese concepts in the recent months, The Salted Plum was a bona-fide trailblazer in the scene and paved the way.

The restaurant’s origins date back to 2017, when it first started as a pop-up named Five Ten, before eventually transitioning into The Salted Plum in 2018 with its first outlet at 10 Circular Road.

Subsequently, the brand expanded to a second outlet at Suntec City in 2019, while also opening creative new concepts such as the now-defunct Pasta Supremo, a pasta spot known for its Asian-inspired pastas.

Although things were going well, the spread of Covid-19 brought the local F&B scene to a crawl. 

Eventually, The Salted Plum was forced to close down all its stores in Dec 2020.

Fortunately, after a long three years, The Salted Plum is making a comeback — it will be reopening on Aug 2, at a new spot not too far from its original flagship.

Behind the revival is 38-year-old founder Shawn Kishore, who is raring to welcome loyal supporters back with a new iteration of The Salted Plum, housed in a three-storey shophouse at 6 North Canal Road. 

We sat down with the man behind the restaurant to hear about some of his sentiments and ideas behind this anticipated brand resurrection.

If not now, then when?

“When we first closed, it was very painful. Running a F&B business in Singapore has to be one of the most painful experiences. I swear anyone who does it probably has mommy or daddy issues,” Shawn jokes.

However, Shawn confessed that while he was reluctant, he also recognised that The Salted Plum had a lot to offer Singapore diners. Moreover, he knew there was plenty of goodwill behind them.

All that contributed to the decision. He recounts: “To be honest, I didn’t want to come back to the F&B industry. But we knew there was a community behind us so we let the idea stew for a while. Now that Covid-19 is already two years behind us, I just thought: ‘If not now, then when?’”

Besides a supportive fanbase, there’s another reason for The Salted Plum’s return. Shawn also believes there’s a growing niche where the brand would thrive — in between the more upscale concepts and the extremely casual or hawker establishments.

At the same time, The Salted Plum also brings a different style of Taiwanese dining, as compared to many establishments in Singapore.

“If I had to classify our style of cooking,it’s definitely this thing called 快炒 (literally ‘fast fry’). It’s basically like ‘Taiwanese zichar’, with something for everyone and food items are fried up fast — everything must reach the table in three minutes. No one else really does it,” he explains.

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Of course, the team isn’t jumping in blind. They’ve taken in the lessons and insights from their previous stint and hope to come back fresh and wiser.

Shawn recalls: “We made so many mistakes previously. I was a very different operator back then — I only put what I wanted to see on the menu and we didn’t listen to the community.”

“It was a lot of arrogance, but the team has since matured. This time around, I’m hoping to bring back a lot of our customers’ old menu favourites to complement our new offerings and find the sweet spot,” he adds.

A more fun and mature The Salted Plum

Be that as it may, there will also be a deviation in direction from the original Salted Plum — which was more of a family-style establishment — to best serve the niche Shawn identified.

He hopes that the brand can cement itself as a sort of a vibrant, almost izakaya-inspired dining experience that serves up affordable comforts and fun nights.

“It’s not going to be child-friendly. There will not be baby chairs and there will be lots of alcohol and lots of shouting. If there was a Taiwanese-style izakaya, this would be it,” says Shawn.

One interesting way to achieve that buzzy environment? The new Salted Plum is eyeing a Cat 1 entertainment licence, which would allow them to add an exciting new fixture: Karaoke.

“I’m hoping that the universe conspires with me so that our Cat 1 licence is approved and we can install a KTV system at all levels,” he adds, cheekily.

Ultimately, the vision for The Salted Plum to become a spot where guests can swing by, fill up their bellies and get pumped up before they head off for more drinks at the popular bars nearby.

To Shawn, that is the essence of the business. After all, it’s not a brand that should take itself too seriously. 

Shawn notes: “While I fell in love with Taiwan and it’s food, I’m not Taiwanese myself. The fact is that The Salted Plum will never be an authentic Taiwanese restaurant.”

As we chat, he details how the team finetunes the recipes to match up with the local palate, which typically skews heavier and with more spice, as compared to the sweeter, milder profile commonly found in a lot of Taiwanese cuisine.

“We pride ourselves in serving inauthentic Taiwanese food,” he says. “I feel that if I want to present the cuisine to my customers, it needs to have a Singaporean angle to it.”

Although it’s still very early, the team apparently has already laid out future plans.

Shawn lets slip: “We are planning to open an outlet in the heartlands, hopefully in around six months or so.”

“I’m biased towards the east, but who knows?”

“Inauthentic Taiwanese food” taste test

Although Shawn claims the restaurant’s offerings are “inauthentic Taiwanese food”, they are still Taiwanese at their core and it’s easy to recognise its influences.

For example, The Salted Plum puts a twist on the classic braised pork rice (S$13.80) by serving it with a behemoth slab of braised pork belly instead of minced meat.

Still, it tastes just like a good ol’ lu rou fan, drenched in a rich braise sauce that’s brimming with aromatic herbal notes. But it does turn up the decadence to eleven (out of ten). 

The silky layer of fat wrapped around the tender meat? Oof.

This rice bowl is one of the four rice bowls that The Salted Plum is serving for lunch, available from Monday to Friday from 11.30am to 2.30pm.

Other options include burnt chilli chicken with rice (S$13.80), squid fried rice (S$15) and steak fried rice (S$15).

Another timeless dish that’s not as prevalent in Singapore is The Salted Plum’s signature seafood porridge (S$38), served in a large claypot and presented in a dainty shade of lavender.

This one is a comforting slurp — thick, silky and inundated with seafood broth richness while loaded up with a miscellany of seafood. 

While there are only two huge prawns, there is plenty of squid and clams to go around and will undoubtedly make for a great sharing dish.

These mains are supplemented by a slew of side dishes, with our favourites being the crab omelette (S$22) and wing bean with crispy white bait (S$18).

A favourite is the former, an extremely homely dish, where a soft and fluffy fried omelette is stuffed full with chunks of crab. 

This is not the most elaborate dish, but everything is well executed and comes together very well — a perfect case of the sum being greater than its parts.

On the other hand, the latter features wing beans as a stir-fry, which isn’t as common in Singapore. Usually, leafy greens such as kang kong get this treatment. 

For this dish, The Salted Plum shows a lot of skill in the frying, as each morsel turned out impeccably juicy and crunchy — we couldn’t stop popping them in our mouth.

On top of the tasty winged beans, slivers of fried white bait are also mixed in, each encased in airy batter, while remaining moist and soft on the inside, making for a great complement.

Last but not least, The Salted Plum also serves up some indulgent spicy pork intestine (S$28) — bouncy, chewy and jazzed up with spices and such to rid it of most of the offal pungence. 

This is probably for those who enjoy pork offcuts, more than anything.

As Shawn says, this is essentially Taiwanese zichar. The flavours on show here aren’t flashy or complicated. Rather, everything is homely, hearty, and satisfying.

We can only imagine how good everything would be with some beers and a buzzier mood. Either way, we’re just glad to see an old friend returning, possibly stronger than before.

This was a hosted tasting.

For more ideas on what to eat, read our stories on the exciting new casual Italian restaurant by the world’s no. 57 pizza chef and the best spots to score yourself a hearty dim sum feast.

Do explore the new GrabFood Dine Out service for awesome deals.

You can also book a ride to The Salted Plum at North Canal Road.