Ok, I guess some explanation is in order, here. The Orange Lantern is a restaurant serving authentic Vietnamese cuisine. I find this name familiar at first, before realising that I kept coming upon this restaurant at the 1st level of Harbourfront Centre whenever I'm headed for Batam.
I guess they noticed the high traffic of Malay-muslim visitors (even Indonesians) at that place and saw the potential of opening up to the halal market. They also have another branch at 73 Killiney Road.
Doesn't that make it the first Halal-certified Vietnamese eating establishment in Singapore? I do know of a stall selling Halal, simple Vietnamese fare at Jalan Masjid. And now there's a couple of restaurants as well! Wowee!
How I came to know about this was because they set up a stall at the Halal Food Fair held at Singapore Expo over the weekend and had their newly acquired Halal certificate displayed prominently.
I got all excited to see the Vietnamese rice paper rolls on display. This delicacy, it's pretty difficult to get the halal version anywhere. That time I went to the stall at Jalan Masjid, they sold out on it. The dry rice paper is soaked briefly in hot water and then fresh greens like the scallion, basil, coriander & mint leaves, salad green, vermicelli and the meat item like chicken or prawn; are rolled in.
The ones served here comes with 2 different types of dips. One is a sweet & sourish dip with thinly shredded carrots and a bit of chopped chili (L on the pic above) and another is this thick and dark-coloured sauce that's reminiscent of the one used for Yong Tau Foo; and it's topped with a bit of chopped peanuts.
This is like the fried version of the above-mention rolls, save that the filling reminds me more like a typical Chinese spring roll.
The dip given is only the sweet & sourish one.
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I'm so keen to bring my family here for a meal. The only decent Phở Bò (the famous Vietnamese beef noodle soup) that I've tasted was the one served at Sedap Corner. Even though that one looks authentic enough, I guess it can't beat eating that at a Vietnamese restaurant, right?
However, I don't think it's THAT feasible to bring my family all the way here just to eat. Well, unless when we go to Batam. Then again, we always come here very early in the morning, when the shops are still closed or that by the time we come back, we will either be so full, dead tired or have too many luggage in our hands....
Sigh. We'll see...
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