Back to SG!

As the airplane flew over my homeland, a city filled with bright lights, late night movies, 3am suppers and great shopping, my heart skipped a beat, to say the least.

Dashing to Perth after finishing the horrid 2 years of slavery, I've forgotten how much I missed Singapore. The beatiful weather, the awesome food, the shopping and the crowd, I missed them all. If only Perth is only an hour's flight away and costs only a hundred bucks to get to. Sigh.. Stop dreaming Sam.

Well, I'm just counting my blessing I was able to come back during this CNY period, I missed out on ang baos the previous two years you know?!

Okay, back to blogging. I didn't take much pictures during this trip back so I'll probably cover my trip in two posts.



The first day I landed we went to eat my favourite place for San lao or stir fried hor fun with fish slices and bean sprouts. This restaurant in Chinatown is a branch of the XO fish beehoon and serves equally well san lao.



As the plate of steaming hot, savoury rice noodles landed in front of me, all memories of Singapore food returned. The thick and flat noodles, nicely charred with a generous serving of sauce, is complimented by the huge serving of beansprouts which gives the dish a nice crunch. Wah... shiok...



And then the XO fish beehoon, which I couldn't eat (because of my skin, cannot take alchohol and milk lar) is also equally power (because I've eaten it in the past). Let's just say XO in fish beehoon is a good combination okay?

Other stuff we ate in Chinatown included Xingxing's kueh. Wah piang eh! I regret not taking a picture of it man. I tell you, their tapioca kueh is the most kick-ass in Singapore. I've never eaten a kueh so soft yet tangy and which taste melts in your mouth. It's soft, yet with a firmness which allows you to handle it quite roughly. (er... quite X-rated hor... solly solly!)

But really, it's flavour is unprecedented, and even Bengawan's doesn't come in close. 3 large pieces for a dollar is also a good deal as well. If you're there, buy a couple of kueh kosui as well, it's equally good. And since you've bought those, might as well buy the damn good ondeh ondeh and mochi right?

On the other hand, Sgkueh's kueh has deteriorated badly. It's ondeh ondeh has become hard, and so has it's kueh. Plus, I bought abought 4 kuehs and asked for a box and the lady refused to give it to me. Wah lao, so niao meh? I also asked if certain kuehs contained milk (because I'm allergic to it) and she irritatedly tell me "Don't know la, don't know la". Wah... Sgkueh's boss, if you ever read this, please take note.

On the next post, I'll cover Zhen jie's desserts and the rest of my trip.

Fish soup for the soul

The sound of fish soup usually yield responses like "ewwwww", or "yuuuck", or "boooooooring!". I understand what you mean, because paying $3 for a bowl of plain MSG-laden soup with a few slices of fish and decorated with a few pieces of lettuce and tomatoes just looks downright well, not worthy of my money. When did lettuce and tomatoes make their way into fish soup anyway? They weren't there in the past and they certainly don't complement the soup in any way.



This fish soup I found at Long House Food Centre though, is different. Its soup is rich! Clear but rich. Slurping down the soup is like drinking some really tasty broth and they have added deep fried egg whites which give the soup extra richness with a very slight, subtle hint of eggi-ness. The bowl soup also contains blocks of tofu, a generous serving of chye sim and bitter gourd, a few pieces of tomatoes and seaweed which enhances the rich taste even further. I still don't stand by tomatoes but the chye sim and bitter gourd gives a nice side to the dish. Plus, they give a very generous portion of fish slices! All these for a reasonable $3.50.

They also have three kinds of chilli. The first is hei bi (dried shrimps) chilli for their handmade noodles, second is simply cut chilli padi in soy sauce and the third is blended chilli which I tried and is haaaaaaaute. The taste is good but don't dip too much because it is super hot!



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