Collins road

When pictures start getting blurry, and your camera takes 10 seconds to focus, you know something's not right. Alas, I guess that's what happen when you drop your phone too many times. Well, at least you can still make out the pictures.

Mmm mm! Hawker food today! I'm always in the mood for hawker food aye? Just around the corner of Collins Road at Willeton, a small restaurant always buzzing with people having their meals.. Big meals, that is. The portions here at Taurus is so large, that you can actually ta pao for dinner as well. Check this out, the plates (some of them) are more than 30cm across! And not half empty, if that's what you're thinking, they really stuff you well.



Apparently what was recommended here was the yee mien, which came in an astonishingly huge portion and it was fairly good as well. Stringy noodles snapping in your mouth accompanied with a light yet sufficiently savoury egg sauce, with a good amount of chicken pieces and other condiments. I'd say it's a darn good deal for $8.



I had the mixed meat rice, an entire serving of chicken thigh and BBQ pork, for $8. That's a good deal! At least here in Australia. You know how people complain like how Australia food is expensive? I seriously don't think so, because you pay 8-10AUD on average, but two people can share the amount of food. Alas, the BBQ pork was thin and overly dry, the chicken was not too bad though.

Oh well, hop across to the next stall called Asian food or something and you'll find a smaller shop selling things like Bak kut teh, mee siam, satay, prata and claypot rice; very Singaporean, or Malaysian, considering how similar those two both are.




Here, I ate the best claypot rice in Perth, considering it's the only claypot rice I've ever had in Perth. Nah, it's alright; not fantastic or whatever, but tasty enough (I'm actually hard pressed to find a satisfying claypot rice in Singapore). A good portion of chunky chicken thigh pieces with lup cheong and salted fish pieces, drizzled over with loads of dark sauce and a fair bit of oil I suppose. Quite tasty, but don't think you can finish it all (too much!)



So if you ever need some good asian food, hop on down to Collins rd. On weekends, they serve nonya kueh, curry puffs and rice dumpings toos. Oops, I meant dumplings?

Comfort food

Back to Perth but still craving Singaporean food, qin and I decided to hit the alleys of Northbridge to get our fix.

Northbridge is Perth's Chinatown. Well, sorta. It isn't as packed with chinese as, let's say, LA's Chinatown where it's literally filled with chinese people, restaurants and groceries stores. It is, however, where you can find many dim sum places, chinese tze char restaurants, hong kong tea houses and taiwan bubble tea cafes. Not to mention a good amount of vietnamese and korean restaurants and the occasional malay restaurant. It's also home to the famous Corica apple strudel and Hog's breath cafe, plus a few other western restaurants which look a little too high end for my pockets.

The place we dropped by yesterday was called Da pai dang, or Hawker place in english. Apparently it's a Malaysian-food based restaurant which served quite a good variety of dishes, amongst them the Singapore-styled chilli crab.



We had Nasi goreng special ($9) and Hainanese chicken rice ($9) which were quite decent. The only bad point with both dishes were the rice which was a tad too soggy. Other than that, the chicken rice came with a whole chicken thigh which was tender and well flavoured. Although the rice was too wet, the taste was there as well and paired with the chilli, made for a very good meal. The chilli, however, is different from those we normally have in Singapore. Instead, it resembles more like the chilli served in chinese restaurants. Think chicken rice chilli infused with a little thai chilli sauce. Slightly sourish sweet but very tasty nevertheless, definitely a nice alternative to what we usually have.



The Nasi goreng was also well fried, a pity about the rice's moisture though. Filled with juicy prawns, mixed vegetable and chicken meat, it also comes with 2 sticks of satay which were not too bad. It also came with a freshly fried chicken wing which qin said was "very good!". Plus, she said that the belachan they provided was "quite power".

I'm really glad we still have Northbridge to fall back on. Stay tune as I'll be back for it's dim sum restaurants, Viet eating houses and Taiwanese tea cafes!

Shanghai Ren Jia

On the last dinner of my family's visit to Singapore, I brought them to Shanghai Ren Jia located at Upper Thomson Road (beside Han's Restaurant) upon ieat's blog recommendation. Apparently, the shen jian bao is said to be extraordinarily good and well proven by the various news paper clippings and foodie reviews pasted on the glass walls of the eatery.

The place is too small though, to properly accomodate a dinner crowd (around 10 - 12 tables?) and we waited for almost half an hour before being seated. Of course theres a reason why we waited so long, everything has a reason right?

Blah blah blah, with recommendations from friends and blogs in my head I shot off my orders with a few other recommendations from the lao ban niang herself.



The handmade noodles with beancurd, pork chop and chicken pieces came first and tasted like.. maggie mee. I'm not kidding! It's bad enough that the noodles were springy and had a texture like maggie mee, the sauce wasn't at all fantastic and chicken pieces were scarce. The pork chop even had the texture of rubbery fish cake, in the form of pork. I very much prefer Crystal Jade's zha jiang mien. Hmmm, not a good start huh.



The second bowl of noodles, beef noodles recommended by the lao ban niang, was well.. a little worser. In my opinion, I think the soup tasted like MSG and really maggie mee-like but maybe thats just me. Or is it? A $7++ for a bowl each with really, really small portions, I'd say go to Crystal Jade. This is starting to get ugly.. Did I mention that they served really small portions?



The luo han vegetables were okay tasting but for $4.50 a serving the size of my palm, its not very economical. Thumbs down again.



The mei cai kuo rou (preserved vegetables and three layer pork) is kill people put fire! Sa ren fang huo! At such a small bowl, (imagine a small rice bowl-size), it cost us $6++! And the large bowl which I think SHOULD be the price of the small bowl's, cost us $13++. Murder!



Taste wise, it was alright. The sauce was a little on the thick and salty side but is quite tasty but the vegetables were a little hard. I would very prefer if the vegetables were boiled to an even softer consistency. The pork was also too thinly sliced and doesn't have a good "kou gan" or in english, no bite! However, the owner said that the oil in the fats had been squeezed out to give a good bite feel yet without the added calories a.k.a fat on the waist. Err.. Okay man, whatever you say.. Haha.



The xiao long bao had the similar taste as Crytal Jade's. However, it's juicier and you can't really bite into the meat filling. That could be a good thing, or bad.. depending on how you look at it.



Don't fret though, good things come in the midst of bad things [I don't know how the hell I came up with that] and the drunken chicken was really good. Man, the moment it was served it did some kind of drunken aerobics on the table followed by an impersonation of Jackie Chan's drunken fist. Oh, did I forget to tell you that their drunken chickens are served live? Yeah, and then they slaughter it and cook it right there. Just kidding, I'm not that sick, and neither are they. The drunken chicken (cooked.. chicken) was really tender to the bite and especially in the breast meat. Such tender breast meat are really hard to come by and the wine was just nice, not overly strong and indeed made the dish quite delectable. This however, will set you back at $8++.



Lastly (literally), the shen jian bao ($7++ for 6) was served. My gawd it took them almost an hour to serve this man (which kinda explains why we had to wait so long for our seats) Now, I understand that their shen jian baos are made from scratch when you order but seriously speaking, the taste doesn't justify the wait.

Granted, its much better than Crytal Jade's (which is harder and tougher) but theres nothing really special about it. The broth is same as the xiao long bao's and it is simply wrapped in a bun. Of course, the bun has a nice bite to it with a oh-so-cripy bottom and a spongy top if thats what you're here for. However, I was looking for surprise and I didn't even get a kick out of it.

Shanghai Ren Jia is THE place to go, if you have THE money to spend. The dishes are exorbitantly priced, I wouldn't say unreasonably but rather, inappropriately. Taste wise and portion wise, they have much to improve on and I certainly hope they do so.

Zi Yean Restaurant

Zi Yean restaurant is the perfect place to hold a meeting, for my parents and Qin's. It's well priced, well located and serves good food at a good price. This restaurant is located at the void deck of a HDB block. No no no! Don't run away yet!

Its located at the void deck of a HDC block but it really looks like a restaurant! Thats quite a unique experience, if you think about it. Zi Yean stretches the whole void deck and is split into two parts; one part air conditioned and really resturant-looking, and the other un-air conditioned and kopitiam tze char-looking.

Okay, I didn't take pictures of the actual dishes though, as it was somehow like a formal dinner and it would look weird, plus rude, cause we're chinese.. I think, and it will definitely draw weird stares and ridicule from my grandma.. and others. So I took pics of the food on my plate! Hope that helps.



Now to the FOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOODAAA. The first dish was long beans with dried shrimps. It was really good. The beans were smaller and thinner than normal long beans and was really crunchy. It also wasn't too oily and the dried shrimps really gave it a good sweetness/saltiness and fragrance. Swee!, or Nice!



Next was the Empire Chicken which is chicken stuffed with preserved vegetables on a bed of chye sim. Mmmm, umami! The chicken was tender and stuffed with preserved vegetables which had the right bite consistency, not too hard or soft. The preserved vegetables were also not salty and soaked in the sauce very well. The sauce was nice and yummy and really nicely balanced.



The home made tofu came next. This was also nicely done with loads of spring onions on top. One thing about this Zi Yean is that their sauces are never bland.



The dog stew duck which was served in a claypot was supposed to be the highlight of the dinner and it didn't disappoint. The sauce is thick and rich and the taste was something I couldn't place. To put it simply, it was thick, more on the salty side and had a slight nutty taste with chinese wine in it. It is good but also very heaty so don't eat too much! In the claypot was also muchrooms and loads of tau kee.

The vegetables came next and looked.. funny. So I stared.. and stared and took a bite. Wah Lau eh! Shark fin?! I asked the lady to recommend one vegetable dish and she blabbered something in chinese and I, being the lousy-in-chinese guy, just said Er... can lar can lar and she gave me.. shark fin!? With vegetables nonetheless but still! [fuming mad] And it wasn't exceptional either.

The last dish was steamed grouper [I didn't take a picture] which was fresh and goooooood. The sauce was the same, usual light soy sauce etc, but the fish was well steamed.



And finally, Orh nee for dessert! Mwahaha! Thick, rich and gooey makes a bowl of yam paste sinfully good. Mmm, it was a little overly-sweet though but good nonetheless. I ain't complaining. I easily finished two bowls of this stuff.

Overall, I will recommend this place to friends. Its good and reasonably priced; considering we paid $230 for 11 people and we ordered 2 meat dishes, 1 fish, 1 vegetale dish, 2 big bowls of dessert and.. a plate of shark fin. Plus, the environment is nice and comfortable.

Address:

Lengkok Bahru
Block 56
Tel: 64740911
Opposite Redhill MRT Station

Soup, ribs and stuffed

Soup restaurant is one my favourite restaurant worth visiting again and again.. and again. I simply love the dishes they serve there. Its just sooo... chinese! Which is good cause I like chinese fooooooooooooodddaah.

Plus they also serve nice slurpilicious soups which are really strongly flavoured without MSG, I guess, since I don't really feel thirsty afterwards.

We popped by Soup Restaurant in Suntec City yesterday after craving it for SO many months and ordered the set meal for two which consisted of a plate of Samsui chicken, Ah kong potato leaves, Begger pork ribs, Soup of the day and desserts.


O sweet holy mountain of nuts!

They serve nuts as an appetizer. Peanuts soaked in sugar and dark sauce, I think, which are reaalllly good.



Soup of the day was winter melon soup which was VERY good. Very well boiled and brought out the flavour of the pork ribs. Yummay~



Can I just say that the Samsui chicken is SUPER DUPER WOOPERLY NICE?! Ooo nicely boiled chicken pieces wrapped in fresh crispy lettuce and topped with a KILLER ginger sauce. The ginger sauce is just outta the world when eaten with the chicken, or alone, or with rice, or with anything. Its just so delicious! I think they added sesame oil, some soya sauce and a little sugar to it to make it taste so good but if you don't the ingredients right on your 9980th attempt to get it right, don't worry. They do sell it in a bottle for $4.80 only.


Wrap it up~ before you go go~



We also order the begger pork ribs because its lip smackingly good. The slightly charred ribs is seasoned in a sauce so good you'll keep wanting more. Come to think of it, the sauce tastes like tweaked char siew sauce. Don't come here expecting Tony Romas though, the ribs here are dry but tender and comes off the bone easily, not juicy little sticks with fat dripping down their bodies.



The Ah kong potato leaves we changed to Ah por's. And yes, there is a difference, one is cooked with sambal while the other is cooked with black sauce. Nothing special about this and it tastes like spinach drenched in dark, sweet sauce.

Dessert is a choice of white fungus and gingko or herbal jelly and we tried both which were pretty average.

Order the set meal because it's only $40 (you're allowed to change one dish) and it will save you quite a good sum. Plus, it think its more suitable for three people cause we were STUFFED to da max!

Sobs... love handles...

Kim Gary's

It's hard to find good fried rice that's nice, tasty and not oily, even harder to find just better than average fried rice in restaurants. Or maybe that's because I don't order fried rice in restaurants. How many times has it been... Cnce..? Twice?

Alrighty but Super Sam knows a good plate, or in this case a bowl, of fried rice when he sees one! ..Or tastes one! Yeeeah, trust the man who never eats fried rice.

We popped by Kim Gary's restaurant in Vivocity sometime last week which had me asking the question, "Who the fish is Kim Gary?!". But nevertheless, we crossed our fingers, clutched our souls and sacrificed our tastebuds for the greater good. Or so we thought...

Kim Gary's offer Hong Kong styled cuisine and has the usual thick toasts, pork chop noodles etc, and rice with toppings like stir fry beef, pork chop and fried fish pretty much like the stuff you can find in Hong Kong, I guess.

We had an Almond tea ($1+) which was pretty milky in a cow kind of way. It tasted diluted and not almondy enough.



Also, a dish of mini drumlets ($5+) which were pretty decent but the sauce tasted pretty much of mainly black pepper and wasn't really suitable for the drumlets.

We also wanted to try the thick toast but when it was served to the table beside us we went, "Holy shizz! Look at size of that thing!". I swear man it was at least 8 inches high or maybe it was only 4 inches... I wanted to take a picture but I was quite sure they would've minded. Oh well.



Okay finally to the mains! The hot and spicy noodles with chicken wings tasted pretty much like crap. The soup was so diluted and tasted like peanuts and yeah, that's about it.



But I ordered a gem! Yay, a gem! I ordered stir fry beef with mushroom rice which was a-w-e-s-o-m-e. The rice was well fried but yet not oily even one bit. In fact, the rice was so separated and un-mushy that I could feel every grain of rice. It had the right wetness level of sauce which actually made it taste like steamed rice which had been slightly left dried and seasoned with sauces, grainy but tasty.

And I'm telling you, mushroom, chinese sauces and rice gotta be a match made in heaven. The mushroom soaked in all the seasonings and mixed with the already lightly sauced rice was drool worthy. Besides, the rice had the wok hei taste and they were brilliant to add corn bits to the rice which added a distinctive flavour and crunch.

The beef was soft and nicely cooked, although it may have been swimming in corn starch for a little too long. Even so, it had a good wok hei taste and nice texture and a $6 bowl of fried rice provided me with a hell lot of beef.

It wouldn't be fair to judge Kim Gary's at this point but the fried rice was really worth it.

Foodcourt Gems: Shanghai Delights

It's seriously almost impossible finding good food in a food court. I mean finger lickin' good food. Food courts are full of boring stuff like mixed chinese rice (Qin's gonna laugh at me for this one), fishball noodles (ewww!) and man, over-commercialised chicken rice (like everyones cashing in on it).

Surprisingly, I DID find a gem in one food court. Well, actually I was introduced to it by ieat's gang. But nevertheless, good food! Woohoo!



This Shanghai Delights stall at serves really yummy food. For instance, check out this Suan La Mian (Spicy sour noodles). Woot! It's really spicy but with a rich flavour to it and not just mind-numbing spiciness. And the noodles is super QQ okay! When you bite into it, it doesn't feel like the usual hand-made noodles where the flour stick to the top of your teeth (and anywhere else which has holes). Instead, bite into this noodles with a snap and a clean cut and no floury doughy texture.



Next, this Guo Tie (Pan fried dumplings) rocked my socks off! Seriously, it is better than Tian Jin Fong Kee's or even the potstickers at Margeret Drive. Hey, no kidding man, go try it yourself! (But taste is subjective so if it's not nice, don't blame me okay!)



Why is it nicer I hear you ask? Well, for one, the skin is not oily, not doughy and very thin. It also has that doesn't-stick-to-your-teeth quality. Hrmm, I think this stall has a very good dough-making technique and their recipe is spot on. Anyways, the filling. Wooooooooooot! Bite into it and the juice just squirts out! Plus it's very flavourful, right amount of fatty minced pork and chives. I've never eaten such juicy Guo Tie before man! It's like a juicy, pan fried xiao long bao-style Guo Tie. For me, this is the gem of the stall.



And last, but not least. This stir-fry beef rice set which comes with a sunny side up and some boiled vegetables. This dish is not fasinating, not fantastic, not unique. So why am I blogging about it? Because it tastes like something I love to eat during my childhood and that's minced pork in black sauce. If any of you have eaten that dish before I'm sure you'll remember what it tastes like. Sweet and slightly salty and good for making sure you finish your rice! Well, the sauce here is slightly more subtle and thicker, and the beef is also soft yet comes with a bite.

Mmm, good dishes!



Address:

Sim Lim Square (Foodcourt at B1)
Shanghai Delights

No dumplings, porridge lor

I was supposed to eat bak zhang last Saturday.

Supposed.

I set my alarm clock zun zun at 8am on a Saturday just to rush down to buy Ho Kee bak zhang. On a Saturday okay! But when I reached Amoy Street FC, I saw all the shops closed and all their wares messily stacked outside so I asked, "Uncle ah, jing tian mei you mai ah? (Today never sell is it?)". Then he told me, " Mei you ah! Jing tian spring cleaning!".

Spring cleaning?! I mean, which food centre does spring cleaning!!! Ahhh!!! Wasted my Saturday.

Okay lar, not quite. Because I took a chill pill, calm down, walked to Maxwell FC to have breakfast with a vengence! Ah ha!

I bought 2 muah chee, 2 kueh kosui, 1 min jiang kueh, 1 bowl of prawn dumplings, 1 bowl of braised beef noodles, 1 bowl of peanut soup w/ rice balls, 1 bowl of red bean brown rice soup, 1 bowl of tau suan, 1 bowl of century egg porridge and 1 plate of yu sheng (raw fish). Wah, breathless

Before you think that I'm a glutton, let me mention that most of the food were ta bao for my gf also (but I think I ate most of them).



Okay anyways, I've heard about Hoe Kee's century egg porridge and it's finally time to give it a try. Uhm, the porridge is tasty! Check. The porridge is sticky and pasty. Check! The porridge has loads of century eggs and pork. Check! And plus, the porridge is served in a large bowl for just $3 (or $3.50 if you add an egg). Oh yeah, they have condiments like fried onions, spring onions and chillis on the side so yeah, feel free to go crazy with them!



Generosity seems to be their speciality because check out this yu sheng. Oh mama, I've never seen so much fish in such a small plate of yu sheng before. And it's only going for $3. Seriously, the yu sheng is not bad. It's quite tasty and the amount of raw fish is just, Phoo!



Address:
Maxwell Food Centre
Hoe Kee or He Ji

Stuffing ourselves silly

The large crowd at this steamboat house never fails to make me take notice everytime I walk pass the Bugis area. Of course, what always drew me to take another peak inside was the alluring scent of good stock cooked with loads of seafood. Besides, it's $15 per head, nett, which always make me say to Qin, "Next time must try leh!"



So when the guys decided to have steamboat one night, there was no doubt in my mind which place to have it at.



A steamboat is always a place for hungry people, like us! Just look at the amount of food we took! There are also 5 different kinds of soup stock to choose from; Chicken, preserved vegetables, pork ribs, tom yum and ma la (which is a very spicy stock). I didn't try much of the rest because all I kept having was the preserved vegetables stock. It's really good and a little sourish.



The fare at this place is pretty usual with the normal vegetables and mushrooms, fishballs etc. And of course different kind of thinly sliced meat like mutton, beef, pork etc. What sets it apart is that it had flower crabs as well. I've seen prawns in steamboats but flower crabs? First time.



And of course the huge assortment of sauces including sesame sauce, peanut sauce, and some other weird sauces.



Oh! Boy were we full!



But while we were in the vicinity of course we had to head down to Ji De Chi, the chinese dessert stall which I had mentioned in my previous post. The sesame paste which I recommended was definately a hit with everyone being delightfully smooth and well grinded. The mango in grapefruit juice was also refreshing and good.



Some of them ordered three bowls each.



Ah, what a night, stuffing ourselves silly.