Thursday 27 March 2014

Not your average neighbourhood soup stall...

If you are talking about a soup stall in your neighbourhood, most likely it would be a Chinese soup stall selling the various types of Herbal Soup. As for the food centre over here, it doesn't seem to be the case...

'Spicy Pork Spaghetti Set'
Though I call it a set, but it's merely a bowl of soup + a bun and a piece of
butter. And rather than handing over a piece of cold bun, the chef over here
has made the extra effort heating up the bun, before handing it over to the
customer. Since I have gone ahead with the 'Spicy Pork Spaghetti', it doesn't
really make sense if I dipped the bun into the soup. Therefore, I ended up
creating an opening on the bun and throw the whole piece of butter inside.
The bun is good. The nice and not too hard texture combined with the fluffy,
sweet interior makes it pretty nice. Probably It might ended up to be much
more better if I have gone with the much more soupy stuff. :)

As for the 'Spicy Pork Spaghetti', the base is pretty good. The thick and
flavourful base is fantastic. Even though it's not spicy enough, but the
nice mixture of generous portions of meat and vegetables ingredients simply
makes it pretty tasty and good. As for the spaghetti, it's pretty normal, not
too soggy and not too tough. Well, at the end of the day this stall is
specializing in soups more than anything else. :D

Too bad I couldn't take beef. Otherwise, the 'Beef Stew & Red Wine' option
over here looks pretty interesting. And if you are looking for the common
Chinese Herbal Soup, you will be disappointed with the choices that you are
getting over here.

The name of this stall would be 'The Soup Bar'.
It's located inside 'Tanjong Pagar Market and Food Centre'.

Opening Hours:
  • Weekdays: 10:30 - 20:00
    Saturdays: 10:30 - 15:00
    (Closed on Sundays)
* Click here to find out more about 'The Soup Bar'.
^ Click here for the location of 'Tanjong Pagar Market and Food Centre' on 'Google Maps'.
~ Click here for the list of delicacies that you can find and get in 'Tanjong Pagar Market and
  Food Centre'.

Monday 17 March 2014

Not the whole head but this is more than enough...

From time to time, I would like to give something different a good try. Therefore, rather than giving the usual 'cze char' dishes a try, I ended up eating something much more funkier and bigger. Introducing...

'Steamed Song Fish Head in Hot Sauce'(驰名酱蒸松鱼头)
Even though this is merely half a fish head, but it's much more
bigger than those that you are getting from your neighbourhood food
stall or a restaurant. On top of that, the price of the fish head
over here is ridiculously cheap. They are selling it at a relatively
low price of S$13. @.@""

For a start, the sauce is pretty interesting. The gluey texture and
the nice mixture of salty and sweet taste(soy beans) makes it pretty
delicious and unforgettable. Usually, the chef over here will topped
it with crispy pork lard, but you can also have it without the pork
lard just by asking. (In fact, if you like the taste of the bottled
'Soya Bean' sauce that you can get in the local supermarket, you
should give this dish a good try.)

Meat wise, it's pretty fresh but the taste isn't super fantastic.
However, if you dipped it inside the sauce, the taste of the sauce
will blend with the meat nicely. In fact, the fish head over here
also comes with 1 of the eyeballs(=.=""), a reasonable amount of
fish meat and also the slimy bits around the mouth. And if you have
a gigantic appetite, this dish is big enough to help you to empty
more than 2 bowls of white rice. :P

As for the drawback, I guess that would be the bones. This isn't
an atas fish head, where the waiter will help you to remove all the
bones. But if you ask me, when I compare the amount of fish meat
and the fish bones that I'm getting, I think that the fish bones
are simply nothing at all. :D

So where can you give the fish head a good try?
The name of this stall would be
'Cheng Ji Steamed Fish Head in Hot Sauce'(成记驰名酱蒸松鱼头).
It's located inside 'Chinatown Complex Food Centre'.

Notes:
  • Operating Hours:
    12:00 - 21:00 Daily
    (Closed on Sunday)
* Click here for the location of 'Chinatown Complex Food Centre' on Google Maps.
^ Click here for the list of delicacies that you can find and get in 'Chinatown Complex Food
  Centre'.

Tuesday 11 March 2014

No Queue = Big Queue?

This stall might appear to be pretty harmless at first but once you hand your orders over, you will be surprise with the number of invisible customers that are standing ahead of you... =.="""

'Yong Tau Fu'
For a start, each individual ingredient over here is S$0.60. This is
relatively high as compared to all the other 'Yong Tau Fu' stalls out
there. However, besides for the normal stuff that you can get at a
normal 'Yong Tau Fu' stall, they have specially made ingredients too.

In the end, I'm ended up with this.

For a start, they have separated the ingredients nicely. Once you
started mixing all the noodles and the ingredients together, the
heavenly sensation is a big (+). Every single bite comes with a nice
mixture of chewy and crunchy ingredients topped with a nice blend of
spicy and sweet sauce. Best of all, the ingredients that were
separated into the bowl of noodles are mostly ingredients that will
end up to be soggy when it's served in a bowl of soup. In fact,
I ended up finishing the whole bowl of noodles + ingredients without
even touching the bowl of soup + ingredients. :P

As for the bowl of soup, it comes with a strong and nice taste of
soya beans. The original taste of the soup is pretty sweet, which is
something that I like. However, it would be great if I can add a bit
of small sliced green chillies to spice up the overall taste of the
soup a bit more. :P As mentioned earlier, the choice of ingredients
over here are pretty good. The ingredients that were added into the
bowl of soup didn't end up to be pretty soggy and the sweet taste
of the soup can blend with the ingredients nicely.

So where can you give the nice 'Yong Tau Fu' a good try?
The name of this stall would be 'Rong Xing Yong Tau Fu'(榮興酿豆腐).
It's located inside 'Tanjong Pagar Market and Food Centre'.

Opening Hours:
  • 07:00 - 14:30
    (Closed on Sundays and Public Holidays)
  • Things can get pretty scary when there are more than 20 invisible customers that are standing in front of you. So either you have to be pretty early or you have to endure with the long queue... :P(Although it's a bit costly otherwise I couldn't imagine how long the queue will ended up to be if the price of each ingredient has been lowered... =.=""")
* Click here for the location of 'Tanjong Pagar Market and Food Centre' on 'Google Maps'.

Wednesday 5 March 2014

When you can keep both...

'鱼与熊掌', this is a Chinese Idiom. It means that you can't have both fish and bear's paw. You will have to choose one of them. However, this doesn't apply to the foodie world. You can actually have both of them at the same time. Introducing...

'Fish Fillet Burger'
Basically, this ended up looking like a toy more than a fast food to me.
Anyway, you get to D.I.Y the burger that you want. First of all, you have
the choose the main ingredient, either Fish or Chicken. After that, you
have to choose a 'Paw' out of 6 different flavours, which is 'Milk', 'Yam',
'Whole Grain','Brown Sugar','Japanese Curry' or 'Squid Ink'. I ended up
choosing 'Japanese Curry'. Well, most of the burgers out there are topped
with a sauce. Same goes over here, you have to choose a sauce out of 6
different sauces. There's 'Black Pepper', 'Tar Tar', 'Golden Cheese',
'Mushroom', 'Thai Chilli' and 'Honey Mustard'. Well, that's 'Black Pepper'
for me.

Taste wise, I think that this is pretty normal. Even though the taste of
the 'Paw' has added an additional taste to the burger, but the additional
taste just isn't strong/nice enough. Or probably I have to go with the
funky selections to spice up the taste a bit. (Ex: 'Squid Ink Paw' +
'Honey Mustard'.) By the way, I do admit that the burger looks kinda cute
but taste wise it's pretty normal and the potion is kinda small for me. :|

'D-I-Y Fries'
By topping up a bit more, you can get the 'D-I-Y Fries' rather than the
usual natural cut fries. Basically the difference between the 'D-I-Y Fries'
and the normal natural cut fries would be the extra sauce that comes with
it. Basically, you just choose a sauce out of the 6 listed in the above. I
don't remember what's the sauce I ended up choosing but I do remember that
the texture and the original taste of the fries were pretty good. But there
are more and more fast food restaurants nowadays that are offering 'natural
cut fries'. Therefore if you continue to offer the normal fries, you will lose
out to the competitors in the competitive market of fries.

So where can you give the cute burgers a try?
The name of this fast food restaurant would be 'Bear Bites'(熊の食).
The above shows the second outlet that is located on basement 1
of Bugis Junction.

Notes:
  • Operating Hours:
    Weekdays, Saturdays: 10:30 - 22:30
    Sundays: 12:00 - 22:30
* Click here to find out more about 'Bear Bites'(熊の食).
^ Click here for the 'Facebook' page of 'Bear Bites'(熊の食).