Steamed food or hotpot? This restaurant in Serangoon Gardens lets you enjoy both at the same time

Hotpots may be all the rage right now, especially with numerous international names opening up outposts here in Singapore. But Serangoon Gardens eatery, Steam Box, has been drawing crowds with their modern take on steam-cooking. While it may have worked for them the past two years, it was only a matter of time before they hopped on the bandwagon. They’re now introducing a new hotpot option, to go along their their “steam-potting”.

The only big difference here is that instead of cooking congee beneath all the fresh ingredients that are steam-cooked, you can now opt for various hotpot soup bases so you get a two-in-one dining experience. You can choose from three types of bases—pork rib lotus root ($18), chicken herbal collagen ($25) or seafood ($28)—all of which are made in-house using the chef’s “special recipes”. Like the congee, the soups will become much tastier with the collection of rich juices from the fresh ingredients being steamed above. 

Of course this also means that they’ll be expanding their variety of dishes to include stuff like dim sum, which are perfect for steaming. Other items you can now order include assorted meat pastes and balls ($1.80-8.80), sweet potato ball with sweet corn ($4.80 for two pieces), sliced fish ($9.80), chef’s specialty marinated beef ($10) and more. There’s also the paper-wrapped mala grouper fillet ($19.80), where steaming the fish in the paper will retain the full flavor and aroma of the spices and the fillet (and not to mention you’ll get juicy bits of mala dripping into your soup after).

More information can be found here.