Pot Master: Using automated technology to cook $7.50 claypot dishes

When I think of Chinatown, it’s stereotypical images of old school or traditional cooking methods. So, when I heard that Pot Master uses automated technology in their cooking, I was intrigued. 

If you look into Pot Master’s stall at Chinatown Complex, you’ll see a 10-burner gas stove doing the cooking. Each burner rotates and they’re all set to specifications decided on after countless trials and errors. 

Despite the grand stove, Pot Master still had three employees manning the stall. One had to constantly manage the stove area itself. 

The owner explained that each burner rotates the claypot on the spot so that each of them cooks evenly, and creates a nice even charred crust in the rice. They do not want their diners to eat it burnt, which used to happen when they were using a charcoal stove.

While the cooking is handled by machinery, the recipes themselves come from the owner’s shifu. While learning, he found the charcoal stove too inconsistent and wanted to remedy that.

So, when Pot Master opened, it wed traditional recipes with futuristic methods. But does it help create a good bowl of claypot rice?

What I tried at Pot Master

We started with Master’s Four Treasure (S$7), which is Pot Master’s signature. This has a mixture of items that are not commonly sold in claypot. The ingredients are lap yuk, lap cheong, chicken thigh chunks and pork ribs. 

While the lap cheong and lap yuk were fragrant, the rest of the ingredients were not as strong on first impression. 

I immediately decided to put the “even charred” claim to the test. I mixed the rice, disappointed at the amount of sauce and was even more dismayed once I started scraping the bottom of the bowl. While I did find small portions of crispy rice, they were few and far between.

I mostly just found regular cooked rice stuck to the bottom of the bowl.

On taste alone, despite the usage of the waxed meat, it was rather weak. Maybe it had to do with the lack of sauce coating the rice, but if not for the lap cheong and lap yuk, I would have found this rather plain.

At the very least, the chicken chunks and pork ribs were tender and the latter tore off the bone easily. 

Next was the Minced Pork Eggplant (S$7). Even though this wasn’t the last thing I ate here – spoilers ahead – it was my personal favourite out of everything I ate here. 

The rice is topped with eggplant strips and minced pork marinated with garlic and oyster sauce. The eggplant was soft and savoury. The whole bowl was saucy and every bite was coated with either the ingredients or gravy. Despite these points, it wasn’t overly heavy. 

The only downside was that after mixing the bowl around and scraping at the bottom, I did not find any charred bits of rice. 

The final claypot dish ordered was the Braised Beef Brisket ($10), the most expensive dish on the menu. For this, I ordered an add-on of Salted Fish (S$1).

Like the signature, the meat, while tender, was rather dry. There wasn’t a lot of sauce. Unlike the signature, it didn’t have the benefit of having nicely golden charred rice at the bottom.

By this point, the hindsight to get the salted fish saved this dish. It added more of a punch to the almost plain rice bowl. 

We also finally decided to add Pot Master’s chilli sauce into the mix. If you enjoy a strong hit of spice, this may raise the bar at Pot Master for you. The intensity of the spice with the salted fish made for a better combination overall. 

Final Thoughts

I can’t say Pot Master was a total letdown as I really enjoyed the Minced Pork Eggplant dish. But the taste alone did not show the unique selling point of consistency among the 3 dishes that we tried. The entire basis of using AI is to ensure consistency raised my expectations and I had anticipated the same golden charred rice in each of my orders.

Without the crispy rice, it felt like the claypot dishes were missing something. I cannot say if I would have enjoyed the same recipes used when cooked by traditional means, but overall, Pot Master was a rather disappointing experience. It’s just a blessing that everything was still wallet-friendly and I did especially enjoy the minced pork eggplant dish. 

Expected damage: $6.50 – $10 per pax

Order Delivery: foodpanda 

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