Ah Bong's Italian

Tiong Bahru is a very interesting place nowadays. Home to the old school Tiong Bahru Market and small Chinese restaurants and the famed Tiong Bahru Bak Kut Teh. Here in Tiong Bahru you still can find small eateries known as 小吃店, which are dying off in Singapore because the government have limited granting licenses for these eateries due to hygiene reasons. This small shops supposedly don't have the piping systems in place for food processes.

In the midst of all these old shop houses, Tiong Bahru also boast many hipster cafes such as Tiong Bahru Bakery and Dripz. And one particular 小吃店 goes through a transformation. Small eating house with a few hawker stalls by day, it transforms into a pizza parlour by night known as Two-Face Pizza. But today I'm not talking about the transformation nor the pizza. I'm focusing on one of the hawker stalls. In the face of dying traditions, a young fella stepped in and went to set up a hawker business. What's more interesting is, he is not selling traditional hawker food. He is selling Italian food, in a hawker fashion.

For Italian food, the prices weren't expensive. $6-7 for a plate of pasta. The menu changes daily, so check back often, or check their facebook. On the day I went, I had the Chorizo bolognaise. It was served in a traditional 'chicken' plate. Cute. The serving isn't huge, but with the minced chorizo and peas, it was good enough for me. Our intern had the aglio olio which only had some mushrooms. She's, um, still growing I presume, and found the portion not quite enough. The young chef came over and chatted with us and asked how the food is. When we feedback on the portion, he said that was 150g pasta each. I'm presuming he meant cooked weight. For me, I liked my bolognaise. The pasta was perfectly al dente, the sauce rich and delicious. Maaaybe a little more will be nice.

Chorizo bolognaise

Because those who had the aglio olio were so unsatisfied, we ordered the Expresso creme brulee. It's actually not bad. The coffee flavor wasn't overpowering, and the sugar crust was beautifully crunchy. Although I did find the custard not quite rich enough. It felt a little... thin...

Expresso Creme brulee

Broke through the beautiful sugar crust

I do admire the guy for braving the hawker industry with real 'ang moh' food. Not the usual 'western food' you see in kopitiams that serves asian flavored chicken chops with fries and call that western. And to do all that in his tiny stall area, I'm impressed. To tell the truth, we haven't really gone back there for lunch. The portion is probably one deterrent. The space constraint is another. The eating house doesn't have a whole lot of seats and can get quite warm in the afternoon.

Ah Bong's Italian

56 Eng Hoon St, #01-46
Singapore
Tel: 9650 6194

Foong Kee Coffeeshop

We have coined this the Legendary Char Siew place. This was discovered by our student, A. He found out about this online, and had been there on several occasions with his friends, and sometimes alone. Comfort food to him when experiment failed, he said. It was quite a walk for us, and by the time we reached, I was grumbling. It better be good I said. But after the food came, I shut up and ate.

It's a roast specialty shop. They only have four kinds of meats. Soy sauce chicken, roasted duck, roasted pork belly (sio bak) and bbq pork (char siew). Then you can opt for white rice, oil rice, or noodles. I love noodles, so noodles it is. Some of the rest took rice, but I forgot the pictures. E loved loved loved the oil rice. He always go for a noodle and a oil rice. The birds are nice but not out of the world. The chicken was tender, and well flavored. The duck was roasted very nicely, with the skin nicely crisp. Duck wise, I think I prefer Yee Kee Roasted Duck. But overall, I prefer here, and I'll tell you why.

The porks. We call it Legendary Char Siew place for a reason. The star of the place is really the porks. The sio bak is beautifully roasted to crispy perfection, yet the meat remains moist and oily and sinfully good. The char siew. Oh my. Perfect balance of sweet and savory. Good mix of lean and fatty bits. I could pick out my lean ones for health reasons, while the boys could attack the fatty ones for yummy reasons. But even the lean ones were tender. The fatty ones, they were to-die-for. Melts in the mouth. Drool. I miss this place.

The the other reason for preference to this place. The chilli. Yee Kee have a half-hearted sub-standard chilli. The one here is chopped chilli and garlic and coriander in vinegar. That's the best dip for roasted meat I'm telling you. Then the springy noodles. I love. They offer wanton noodles too, for those who just want a plate of noodles to enjoy the char siew with.

Soy sauce chicken and roasted duck

Noodles

Sio bak and char siew

We've been there several times now. And still love it. And Lynn had been nagging me for telling her all about it but not bringing her there. In fact I think she's going to nag me again after this post.

Foong Kee Coffeeshop

6 Keong Saik Rd, 089114

A&I Hainanese Boneless Chicken Rice

This is another of those food I ate growing up. No, they aren't my relatives. They did, however, operate at my void deck for a good number of years, maybe about 10, before they were forced to move to their current location when the old place stopped being a coffeeshop. So you can imagine how often we patronise them as teens, because it was so convenient to buy. But convenience aside, we love it so much that even after they moved away, we still drive there to eat their chicken rice. I can proudly say this is the best chicken rice I've ever eaten.  In fact, we love it so much that my cousins can finish one whole chicken between the two of them... If I didn't remember wrongly.

I missed it terribly after I moved away from my mum's. Because they operate mainly for lunch, I rarely get the chance to eat it as I'm rarely in the area during lunchtime. So this post was made possible only because I happened to be on leave, and dragged my family there for lunch.

Their rice is a generous heaping bowl of rice, not the measly small plate that you often get nowadays. Not that this helps my diet, but you do feel happier knowing that the seller didn't scrimp on your lunch. The rice is fragrant, but not overly greasy. I like. 

The rice

Their chicken is none of those fancy kampong chicken. No coloring to make it artificially yellow. Just plain, tender, well-seasoned chicken. The breast meat is sooooo tender, which is a rarity in itself as most places serves dry breast meat. And they drench it in a great soya sauce cum sesame oil mixture. My favourite part is actually picking those small detached pieces of meat left behind in the sauce after all the big pieces are gone. They soak up the flavor so well. The chicken skin is very 'Q' (best translation I can give is bouncy?', so chicken skin lovers, rejoice! I'm not a drumstick lover, but I do know of someone who love their drumstick so much he used to request for an unchopped drumstick so that he can bite it off the bone. Just looking at the chicken breast meat now is making me hungry.

Juicy and tender chicken

Zoom in on the chicken. Look at that tender looking breast meat!

The star of their stall is actually not really the chicken. It's their chilli. Fiery hot, well flavored. It compliments the chicken and rice so well. We are such frequent customers (at least my family is. I'm a rare customer.) that they gave us extra chilli and sauce on the side.

The extra chilli and sauce

But do be warned. They do overdo either the MSG or the vinegar. You get very thirsty after the meal. But I'm willing to suffer that for that delicious chicken. And chilli. And rice. Occasionally. Their soup is pretty blah so forget about it. And their pricing remains reasonable too. How I miss this place.


A&I Hainanese Boneless Chicken Rice
Blk 907  
Jurong West St 91Singapore 640907

Kampong Chicken Rice

My dad had driven pass this joint several times, so I roughly have an idea of its existent. Yet, even after I started working in this area, it never crossed my mine to lunch here. Until one day, while we were hunting for the location of Tiong Bahru Bak Kut Teh via Google maps, we saw the street view capture of this shop. So we made our way down one fine day, and it made its way into our regular lunch places list.

Everyone loves chicken rice right? Fragrant steamed 'kampong' chicken - the supposed free-range chickens one will imagine to be running freely in a kampong. Of course, these days in Singapore, the term is no longer as imagined. It's simply the same breed of chicken, but most likely kept in cages. Still, it's smaller than the usual fat chickens, and slightly more lean. J insisted that the yellow skin is a trademark of real kampong chicken. I think it's simply a generous use of either yellow ginger or yellow coloring in the cooking process. I don't remember the kampong chicken my mum bought from the market looking so yellow.

Back to their food. Their chicken are done just right. Cooked through, but still tender. The gelatinous jelly-like substance under the skin, I still can't make out what it is. Coagulated chicken fats or artificially added gelatin? Will love it if someone can give me an answer. Their rice is fragrant and flavorful, and goes so well with their yummy chilli. Their soup is a cabbage soup, as opposed to the usual MSG soup. And we love their sambal sweet potato leaves.

This joint is apparently quite popular with the tourists, who come in by the bus loads. Don't expect top notch service though. The Chinese servers pretty much have a can't be bothered attitude.

Yee Kee Roasted Duck

This is frequent lunch location. We were on our way here when we walked pass Fatty Aunt Yong Tau Foo. If you like roasted meats, this is a great place to go.

I love my roasted duck. Despite my calorie counting that started this year for the sake of my health, I usually wolf down the plate, skin and all. Only thing I do better is I give some of my rice to the guys in a pathetic attempt to cut calories. The duck's skin is roasted to a thin, fragrant, slightly crispy perfection. The rice is drowned in a generous scoop of gravy. Even the cucumber slices given is much more than the usual pathetic 2 slices some hawkers give.

I also love their roasted pork belly (shio bak). My standard order used to be roasted duck plus roasted pork belly rice. But my rising triglyceride levels force me to cut back some of my fats intake so the pork has to go. Theirs are juicy, yet the skin is super crunchy. Love.

I'm not a huge char siew fan but colleagues love their char siew too. From what I heard, theirs is tender and yummy. They used to serve a 3-in-1 (all three meats) plate for $5. But I think the rising food costs forced them to jack up the prices wheverever duck is concerned.

A colleague say they even have roasted suckling pig occasionally. But rarely now. He said its because Uncle has a very high standard, and he won't do it if the suckling pigs at the market aren't good enough quality. As a hawker child myself, I think more likely it's the rising cost of pork that makes it a less profitable portion of the business. Moreover, with age catching up, it's not easy for Uncle and Auntie to deal with all these roasting all by themselves.

Another thing I love love love about this place? Their soup. In Chinese it's called 八宝菜干烫 - 8 treasures dried vegetable soup. It's a rich broth with generous servings of vegetables etc. The best part? Soup is free flow. But to save myself the trip back to the stall and to irritate Auntie less while she's busy with other customers, I usually ask for a bigger bowl up front. But even then, I do refill sometimes because I just love that soup so much.

So if you're craving a good plate of roasted meats, head down to Silat Ave. it's sure to satisfy. 

P.s. I refer to the sellers as Uncle and Auntie out of respect. They are in no way related to me. :)

Yee Kee Specialist Roasted Duck

Blk 148

Silat Ave

S160148

Fatty Aunt Yong Tau Foo

We walked pass this joint renovating while on the way to another for lunch. This shop front had been empty for a while already since the previous soup place closed down, so we were pretty curious what's the new place. A quick investigation reading the signs indicated a new Yong Tau Foo shop opening. It went into our to-visit list. Since its opening, we've been there several times already. We really like it for the freshness of the ingredients, the flavorful soup and the general nice service.

Food: the non-fried ingredients are kept fresh in a ice cream fridge. I like. No souring of the tofu and no icky feelings about the raw fish paste sitting out at room temperature. 

Leafy vegetables and fried food items are on the upper shelf at room temperature, but that's fine, since these foods are less perishable. They serve up a good variety of Yong Tau Foo on top of the standard tofu and such. I love the fish paste stuffed capsicum, which is less commonly found elsewhere. FQ love one of their fried sticks of some sort, which contains egg.

After your selection you pay at the counter and get a numbered receipt. Then your number will be flashed on the screen when your food is ready. Although they do need you to be self-servicing during peak hours, they are more than happy to send the food to you during off-peak. And we've been there so often that aunty already know my choice - bee hoon soup. FQ and E love it plain. Simply blanched Yong Tau Foo with a little sesame oil and sprinkled with sesame seeds - no sauce, to go with rice.

It's a 小吃店 kind of place, an entire shop front to themselves. Although air conditioners are installed, they are never turned on. Since they don't have doors closed during operation, I guess it makes no sense to turn them on and waste electricity. If you can find seats under the ceiling fans, it's actually not too bad. But we went during peak a few times and ends up sitting outside along the corridor. Hot. So we learnt to go there are later timings.

Prices isn't too exorbitant either. 50 cents per piece for non-premium items. I saw signs that indicate pork belly goes at a dollar. I think it's worth it for the quality of the food, and the crowd definitely agrees. :)

Fatty Aunt Yong Tau Foo

• Blk 147 Silat Ave #01-26
• Singapore, Singapore 160147

Gui Lin Bee Hoon Mee & Nasi Lemak

I have a disclaimer to make. This post is in every sense an advertisement. But I just cannot, in the name of family ties, not post this. Moreover, I share because I honestly feel that our food is yummy. I'm sure those who spend their morning or weekends in the long queue for our food can vouch for this. This is actually my family business, food I grew up eating, as well as helped in selling. Food that makes me the foodie I am today. So for all the high end restaurants I visit, I'm still a hawker girl through and through.

I apologize for the faded signboard, but it goes to show how long we've been in business. My parents had been hawkers since before I was born. They only took up this location around 1989. This signboard is actually a new one after a coffeeshop refurbishment in between, but yeah, we're sort of iconic in the area.

Econimical bee hoon and other noodles types is always a popular option in all coffeeshops because of its affordability. But to make patrons return again and again to wait in the queue, I guess that says something about our food. Our fried bee hoon is fried just right, not mushy, and stringy enough without being chokingly tough. On top of this, we have fried yellow mee and fried thin kuay tiao. And another signature main is our dry fried mee siam. All the flavors of mee siam fried dry-styled into bee hoon. It's in an appetizingly orange color, topped with chopped chives, fried scrambled egg and tofu bits. A squeeze of lime makes it a plate of calories worth diving into.

Fried Bee Hoon

Fried Mee Siam

We are known for our nasi lemak too. My colleagues can vouch for this. They're always happy whenever I pack this for them for lunch. Fragrant coconut rice,, we don't make it green not because we skim the pandan leaves, but because we don't bother with food colorings. Don't be taken in by green rice you see outside sometimes. Putting pandan leaves in DO NOT make the rice green. And our homemade ikan bilis chilli goes perfectly well with the rice. It comes with a small additional cost but it's totally worth it, I promise.

Nasi Lemak with luncheon meat, otah, chicken wing (covered) and ikan bilis chilli

We have a huge selection of sides to choose to go with your mains, priced accordingly. There's something for everyone, and the huge favorite is our fried chicken wings. With our secret recipe marinate (wink), our wings are fried to a beautiful yellow color instead of the usual dull brown. Crispy on the outside, tender and flavorful on the inside. I'm telling you I really miss these wings after I moved out.

Signature fried chicken wings

Some of the options we have

Depending on the sides you choose (or no sides at all for the noodles), the prices start as low as $1. We operate as early as 5.30am and close shop at roughly 11.30am, while stocks last. And my parents are human too and need to rest, so we're off every Monday.

P.s. My uncle and aunt are operating a branch at Bukit Batok too! ;)


Gui Lin Bee Hoon Mee & Nasi Lemak
NTI Foodcourt
Blk 964 Jurong West St 91
5.30am to 11.30am
Closed every Monday

Yishun 925 Chicken Rice

I saw this eating place recommended by a neighbor on our estate Facebook page. I love a good chicken rice, and hubby was doing night classes at that time. So it sounded like a perfect on-the-way-home dinner alone.

I'm not a fan a eating out alone, especially in a coffeeshop where I have to find seat, order food and order drinks somehow without losing my seat. I don't fancy the 'chope seat with tissue paper' method. So I solved the problem by packing home instead. Simple dinner of chicken thigh rice.

This stall is a little more commercialized than usual hawker stalls. You place order at the cashier, is given an order slip, and return the slip upon collection of your food. I was expected quite a wait, and was quite surprised to receive my packet before I finished taking a decent photo of the signboard.

That packet of rice made me extremely hungry on my 20 minutes bus ride home from Yishun Interchange. It smelled sooooo good. It's aroma floated up to my nose throughout the entire ride, making me hungrier with each second. I simply couldn't wait to get home and devour the packet. And devour I did. I opened it up immediately after getting home, paused to snap a picture, and proceeded to wolf down the whole pack.

Alright. I did pause a little to chew slowly and enjoy the flavor. The rice is very aromatic, and cooked just nice. Fluffy grains of rice that aren't mushy. The chicken was tender, and perfectly flavored. The chilli... I can't remember. I ate this back in May 2012. Hubby graduated after that and I no longer had dinner alone, so haven't gone back for chicken rice. That coffeeshop doesn't have a vegetarian stall. I'm craving chicken rice recently after watching someone eat a packet in a movie a few days ago. I think it's time to revisit 925.

自在斋 Zi Zai Vegetarian (Yishun)

This little eatery was found quite by chance. It just so happened years ago that the hubby found an injured pigeon while waiting for me. Being the kind to animal person he is, he brought it back and wanted to bring it to a vet. And it also happened that most vets don't do birds. So after a whole lot of googling and calling, we finally found one at Yishun who is trained with avians. So we brought the pigeon there. To cut a long story short, the poor bird didn't make it through its injury and died in the end. But the gist of this post is not the bird, but the place I found via HungryGoWhere for dinner.

So while we were in Yishun at the vet, I searched HungryGoWhere for a vegetarian place near Yishun. And saw Zi Zai Vegetarian with its pretty good ratings. And it was actually near where we were. So we drove over and had our dinner there. Hubby loved it, because he loves sambal kang kong, and really, not many places serve decent vegetarian versions of it.

And because we got a BTO in Yishun, we're now regulars at this little 小吃店. It's a corner unit below some HDB flats, and serves up good vegetarian zhi char. And another big attraction of this shop is its roti prata. Although the zhi char side comprises of almost entirely Malaysian chinese, the roti prata side is operated by Indians. In fact, I personally think the fat Indian uncle tosses the best prata. The prata here is crispy, fluffy and fragrant, which is already a plus. The second plus is the curry. I'm telling you, their curry beat many of the non-vegetarian ones. Its aromatic, thick, and oh so yummy. I love their prata so much that I usually order one on top of my dinner. And hubby's sister and brother-in-law love it too. They frequently ask us for dinner or breakfast there, since they stay relatively nearby at Sembawang.

The best roti prata - look how fluffy it is!

For dinner we sometimes order things from the ala carte menu, other times we order one-dish meals. For most part, I'll talk mainly about the ala carte menu since it's more 'colorful'. First up, the main reason why we keep coming back, at least as far as the hubs is concerned. The sambal kang kong. Theirs had a good balance of spicy and salty, and the seasoning is just right. And their kang kong are still crisp. I think the secret lies in that they had a good vegetarian sambal. Sambal by default contains dried shrimps, which is why most sambal kang kong aren't vegetarian. Many vegetarian places either use plain chilli, or some weird concoctions that resulted in a completely wrong flavor. Theirs is just right.

Sambal kang kong

Another dish that found its way to our favorites list is the hotplate tofu. Sizzling hotplate with a saucy mixture of tofu, capsicum, chilli and mock minced meat atop a bed of eggs cooked on the hotplate. Its sauce goes really well with rice. The other dish I really like is the preserved vegetables with eggplant. Another saucy dish that goes well with rice. The preserved vegetables lend a nice salty flavor to this dish, and the eggplant are cooked just nice - soft without being mushy. In fact, hubby eats this, even though he hates eggplants!

Hotplate tofu

Preserved vegetables with eggplant

Another dish that we occasionally order is the cereal oyster mushroom (although it says abalone mushroom on the menu). Crispy mushroom coated with cereal. It's nice to have once in a while, but usually gets quite sickening towards the end.

Cereal oyster mushrom

This place had formed a staple in our diet, because of the convenient location for us, and because hubby has a lot of choices here. And I really really really love the prata. Apparently the Tampines branch serves equally good prata too, cos hubby have a vegetarian aunt staying near there and she said so. My colleague staying in Bedok knows about that place too. So for those who go vegetarian occasionally, or just want a change from too much meat once in a while, or just want plain good prata, check out this place at Blk 236 Yishun Ring Road, #01-1000. Or its branch with the same name in Tampines.

Da Lian Traditional Noodles

Came by this corner little eatery quite by chance. It was one of those Friday evenings which W and me were both hubby-less. I needed to pick up something I bought from Deals.com, and she agreed to accompany me.

We collected my purchase quickly enough near Lavender, and then proceeded to walk vaguely in the direction towards Jalan Besar in hope of finding to place to eat. Saw this small corner shop selling noodles and BBQ chicken, and we decided that it will do. Upon closer inspection, we saw that they had scalded cockles too. So our dinner was two bowls of dry traditional fishball noodles, two BBQ wings and a plate of scalded cockles.

The whole 小吃店 (directly translated to snack shop, but actually is a loose term for these little shophouse eateries that doesn't fit the description of neither kopitiam nor hawker centre) seemed to be under the same management. We placed our orders for food from apparently different stalls all with the fishball noodle uncle. And payment was made in total.

View from across the road

The wings came first and we were pretty happy. It was nicely done, and the tangy chilli provided matched the chicken nicely. The noodles were pretty good too, springy with bits of chilli flakes in them, suggesting a homemade chilli. The fishballs were alright. The cockles were fresh and cooked just nicely, so that they weren't over bloody, yet weren't overcooked to rubbery. However, the chilli provided were the ones for the chicken. Even though that went with the chicken perfectly, I prefer my cockles with more garlicky chilli. So that part was a miss. But given we both hadn't had cockles for some time, we enjoyed it nonetheless.

BBQ chicken wings

Fishball minced meat noodle

Scalded cockles

Overall we did enjoy our simple little dinner in this accidental find. Not entirely likely I'll find myself in that area again and not likely I'll make an intentional trip there to eat either. BUT if I ever happen to be in the area close to mealtime, I'll definitely find my way back there for some yum.

Soup Master 老火汤 @ HarbourFront Centre

Directly translated to old fire soup, this stall in the little known foodcourt in HarbourFront Centre boasts a decent selection of Chinese soups. I've long heard about them, but only managed to try them recently. This is probably one of the newer outlets, with others at Great World City and Sembawang. If I'm not wrong the pioneer outlet lies in Chinatown.

Soups here are priced higher than regular foodcourt soups, but it's worth the money. Scooped out of giant metal pots shaped like earthern pots, into porcelain crock pot-looking soup bowls, it looks somewhat rustic, yet modern at the same time. The soups are thick with the flavors of all the good stuff going into them. Not the usual kind you find in a foodcourt.

CW had a Buddha Jump Over The Wall ($8), chock full of goodies. I could taste a very strong flavor of fish maw, and saw he had a lot of ingredients such as dried Chinese mushrooms, red dates, dried scallops, dried oysters and something that looked like abalone slices (though I doubt it's real abalone given the price, but hey, it makes people happy).

I ordered a 十全大补人参鸡汤 ($6.50). Directly translates to ten tonic ginseng chicken soup. It's essentially a ginseng chicken soup beefed up with so call ten strong herbs into 'completeness'. Again, the herbal taste is strong, the soup is very full of the flavor, and really rich. Only had one drumstick in it, which was a little dry after boiling too long. The essence of the chicken must have all gone to the soup. Overall a very good herbal soup and I liked it.

XP ordered a lotus root with pork rib soup, again, rich and flavorful. It's so well cooked that the soup had turned opaque. Guess there's really a lot of pork essence in there. A really nice change from the usual clear soups that tastes superficial. These soups really had a lot of depth and dimension to them.

E ordered a pig stomach with ginko and beancurd skin soup, not as peppery as the usual kind. The beancurd skin had all dissolved into the soup, resulting in a white colored opaque soup. Forgot to get a picture of his. It's nice too, but he preferred CW's soup. Haha...

Soup with rice

Lotus root with pork ribs soup

十全大补人参鸡汤

Buddha jump over the wall

Soups here comes with free refills, for the broth only, not the ingredients. Good enough, since the essence is really the broth. But the serving is actually large enough that I didn't need a refill. Moreover, at the concentrations of the herbs (especially mine), I think with a refill, I will get so 'heaty' that I'll end up with a sore throat. CW did ask for a refill, and got half a bowl of broth. Somehow the refilled one had a very pronounced burnt taste to it. Not sure if something in the main pot burnt after he got his initial bowl, or whether they have a separate pot of broth for the free refills. Nonetheless, I enjoyed my lunch, and will be back in the future for a good bowl of nice, rich Chinese soup.

Old Tiong Bahru Bak Kut Teh

I sincerely apologize for the fact that our blog mainly feature restaurants. It's not that I despise hawker centres or coffeeshops, I do eat at those places very often and in fact, grew up a hawker kid. It's just that usually I reach these places horribly hungry, and proceed to wolf down my food without thinking about blogging about them. And because many of these places are frequent haunts, somehow it become such a normal thing to be there that it really doesn't occur to me that I should take photos to show. Just like how I always forget photos at Chinese restaurants because my natural instinct is to fight with my cousins for the food the moment it is set down on the table (although that is changing these days because of the more polite significant-others that will give way to us uncivilized people). So I decided that this should change. Slowly. I can't promise that I will remember to take photos before I tuck in, but I will try. There are so many hawker food that I love, and do think that they are worth sharing. So here goes the first hawker post.

We were thinking of somewhere to have lunch other than the two usual canteen and coffeeshop - these were ok, but get boring. So J thought of going for a Bak Kut Teh (direct translation: pork rib tea) lunch. Instead of heading out to Song Fa where we usually go when the craving hits and the time permits, he thought that we can hunt out a nearer one. He knew that there's one that's quite renowned in the Tiong Bahru market area, but wasn't sure of the exact location. Nothing Google can't solve, and the location was pinpointed in no time. It didn't have a rave review on HungryGoWhere.com, but neither did Song Fa, which we liked. So no harm giving it a shot.

It was a relatively nice day (how nice can Singapore get anyway), so we decided to walk. Got there in about 15 minutes. The staff were like super speeded Mario, zipping around efficiently. The moment we sat down, our table was set with chilli, chopsticks and spoons, wet towels, and dishes of you tiao (fried fritters - which we didn't ask for actually). We placed orders for a bak kut teh with rice each, and a plate of stir-fried tapioca leaves and preserved vegetables to share. Plus Chinese tea.

The tea set was brought up very quickly, but we found it very dirty. Got the attention of one of the uncles zipping around and tried to tell him that we wanted a cleaner set. In his 'efficiency', he somehow misunderstood us and proceeded to make our tea for us in a jiffy. Ah well, dirty eat dirty grow up (la sap jia la sap tua - a freqently used dialect phrase). The tea was very strong, literally tea-expresso... I think it kept me awake for a good part of the afternoon. Everything else arrived equally quickly. I felt that I was having an accelerated lunch.

The soup here is less aromatic than Song Fa's, less herbal and less peppery I think. J say he remembered their ribs being much more tender before. I guess standards dropped with commercialization. The vegetables were so so. At least so normal that I actually don't remember them. I didn't like how the chilli were so soaked in the soya sauce that they had turned black. Looked super unappetizing and I didn't use them at all. Only ate the chilli padi we requested for and were given without soya sauce. They topped up our soups at our request (for free). It was, however, quite uncomfortable to drink hot soup on a hot day at a somewhat outdoor table under a extension shelter. Didn't know why I signed up for that when I knew I perspire easily...

Zoom in to the lead actor

When the bill came, I was a little surprised. We ended up paying slightly pass $10 each. Considering it was a non-air-conditioned place, the price was a little steep. I tried to calculate how it got to that price, and it seems that the small plate fried tapioca leaves was going at $10 or more... Eek. It wasn't as good as Song Fa, which is priced similarly (maybe a little lower, I think we usually pay about $9, inclusive of cold drinks) but air conditioned. Next time the craving hits, we probably will take the effort to go a little further for more dependable Bak Kut Teh. Lynn told me there's an even better one (but more expensive) at Tanjong Pagar. Wonder if I can kidnap my colleagues there some day?