The Soup Spoon's 'Soul-Good Mullet Soup Teochew Style'

For the month of August, The Soup Spoon has a special trio of soups in 'Soul-Good Mullet Soup Teochew Style', 'Chicken Soup for the SG Soul' and 'Watercress with Roasted Pears and Red Dates'. I was definitely curious about its fish soup. The table also chose to have soups as mains, and ordered sides of quinoa with dukkah and Thai-style vermicelli with mushroom. They opted for the restaurant's signature soups which were great, as usual- 'tangy tomato with basil', 'velvety mushroom stroganoff', 'beef goulash' and 'roasted pumpkin'. I asked for red rice to go along with my mullet soup. Shared the carbs with the friends.

The soup was chockfull of ingredients, and slightly less on the volume of soup. I ermm daresay while it's influenced by Teochew fish soup, it's totally NOT Teochew fish soup. Don't go looking for the delicate flavors, you're not going to find it. For the lack of vocabulary, this is the type of 'fish soup' that will never be churned out by a Cantonese or Teochew restaurant or a Teochew fish soup stall at the hawker center.

It's very brave of The Soup Spoon to use mullet as the base fish, along with grey mullet stock. The restaurant is known for its good Western soups, not Asian soups. The problem with commercial soup pots and servers who don't really care about scooping out soup and the ingredients, you end up with muddy soup, broken pieces of fish and an unappetizing presentation. This bowl could have done better with more coriander... Hurhurhur. But it tasted all right lah. Glad that the restaurant tries to refresh its menu with monthly specials. I'm not going to whine so loudly. 🙃

Fish soup is best when you do it at home on your own, and I am very finicky about soups, and especially fish soups. I don't just grumble okay, I also happen to be able to do a superb version of fish soup. To be honest, this isn't the best iteration of Asian fish soup from The Soup Spoon, but when it's commercially done with little salt, no MSG, no strange ingredients that could trigger allergies, then this is fine. It's an honest healthy soup. When we eat out so often, this makes one decent meal.