Everyone loves a good plate of roast meats. Juicy charsiew, crunchy roast pork, buttery duck – yes? So when we stumble upon a hidden gem offering not just one, but all these choice meats, we have to share the good news.
Frankly, we’re a little surprised the stall hasn’t blown up yet. Perhaps its location is to blame – in the heart of Toa Payoh, Roasted Master definitely has some stiff competition in terms of kopitiam eats. It’s also very new, given the coffeeshop (which also houses the more established Hong Sheng Restaurant) had just undergone renovation, and added a bunch of new stalls. Still, at just a five minute-walk away from Braddell MRT, and located directly opposite the SPH News building, it’s in a prime place for when you’re nursing a carnivore craving. And worth skipping over the other Lorongs for!
The coffeeshop was moderately crowded, presumably with SPH folk and office workers from the surrounding industrial buildings. Roasted Master is hard to miss – all bright white lights, red signboard, and rows of glistening meat beckoning to you in the stallfront. We glimpsed quite a few people gleefully tearing into whole duck legs and made a beeline for the stall.
Enter our dabao-ed food haul for the day – roast pork, charsiew, and a whopping portion of roast duck. Let’s just say everyone’s first bites were… silencing.
Let’s be real – it’s hard to find good roast duck anywhere except, erm, Beijing. The duck from Roasted Master was buttery and tender – not quite so melt-in-your-mouth slippery but close enough for a humble Toa Payoh substitute. And the skin! Flavourful and moist, it pulled the whole taste together, especially when dunked in black sauce.
The roast pork was a surprise – unassuming in looks compared to the deep, slick browns of the other meats; but so light and crunchy we could easily pop them like potato chips. Probably why it was the first meat to disappear, then.
But the star of the meal was hands down the charsiew. The glazed charsiew pork was thick, tender and juicy – nothing like the sad, skinny dry charsiew you might get from a regular chicken rice/roast meat stall. Burnt in all the right places, and gloriously fatty everywhere else (the good kind of fatty, mind you.) Paired with the flavourful black sauce, it was unanimous; we had found a winner.
It was the food comas to end all food comas after, but so worth it purely for the fact that we’d found a new great find so close to office; and in general so conveniently located. No more excuses about being too lazy to travel out of the way for good coffeeshop food – it’s Toa Payoh, people.
Roasted Master
203 Toa Payoh North, Singapore 310203
Nearest MRT: Braddell
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