Coffee Queen, Marine Parade Central Food Centre

Coffee Queen (#01-01 Marine Parade Central Food Centre, 84 Marine Parade Central) has a few outlets. Have had coffee at this branch and the one at Maxwell a few times. This stall, in my opinion, and its branches have one of the more drinkable coffees around that I know of.

They also have Horlicks tea - a beverage I don't see anyone else serving even though it wasn't the most difficult or wildly imaginative drink to whip up.

Not bad actually. Tasted like a mixture of Horlicks and tea, no surprises in it.

Kun Ji (坤記), Marine Parade Central Food Centre

Heard about Kun Ji (#01-025 Marine Parade Central Food Centre, 84 Marine Parade Central) and their duck rice. There were a couple of lessons learnt in trying to get a plate here.

i) The stall didn't open at 9.30am on Friday as stated by Google. We were asked to come back at 10am as they were still doing prep

ii) At 10am the braised duck and char siew still weren't ready and they informed us that it'll be another 30 mins to half hour before those were.

We ended up with the roast duck rice. Added roast pork and stewed mustard greens (梅菜). Portion was pretty generous. Duck's serviceable, they're not those with crisp skin with an under layer of flavourful fat kind. Skin's a little chewy. Roast pork was serviceable - didn't like the bones in it. 梅菜 was tender but definitely not one of the more tender ones around. All in all...serviceable but not very memorable.

That roasted chilli though was delicious. Much more so than those from most of the other roast duck stalls. Inhaled the rice easily with it.

One week later......

I like the braised duck more than the roast duck. Seemed to be a bit more tender. Managed to get some char siew this time round - these were somewhat different. They looked like the old school char siew with red dye, but they were of a more tender cut and thicker sliced with some sweet sauce flavouring them. Didn't taste like those "red dyed cardboard".

Omma Chicken Soup, Redhill Food Centre

Omma Chicken Soup (#01-42, Redhill Food Centre, 70 Redhill Lane) which has a number of branches scattered across the island does a samgyetang derivation of chicken soup which only includes the chicken leg instead of the whole chicken stuffed with glutinous rice. The kimchi on the side was just a sad pinch.

There are a few flavour variations of their chicken soup. This was the collagen one. Chicken leg was tender and pretty meaty. Okay-ish tasting broth as chicken collagen soups go but not something I'd go out of the way for. The ginseng flavoured one leaned closer to samgyetang in terms of flavour.

Chef Foong Pork & Seafood Noodles (大佬峰 猪肉 & 海鲜汤面), Pasir Panjang Food Centre

The thing that caught my attention with this one (#01-39 Pasir Panjang Food Centre, 121 Pasir Panjang Road) was that the chef was formerly a senior sous chef at Google. I hadn't any idea what that could have meant but I saw some pictures and was curious enough to come down.

Even though most of the menu consisted of various configurations of pork and seafood noodles, the one that beckoned was their curry chicken dry noodles. The visuals looked promising.

I like it. Flavour from the curry reminded me of those from years back. Quite similar to the ones that my grandma used to make. Thick, creamy and in my opinion, drinkable. Mee kia didn't turn soggy and the curry clung well onto them. Liked those potatoes in there too. The only gripe was that the meat from the chicken drumstick felt stiff.

Nonya Chendol, Old Airport Road Food Centre

Pretty decent durian chendol at Nonya Chendol (#01-115 Old Airport Road Food Centre, 51 Old Airport Road). I've had them previously from both Redhill Market Food Centre and Whampoa Market. I think the one at Redhill is no longer around.

Wen Hua Yuan (Boneless) Hainanese Chicken Rice, Old Airport Road Food Centre

I gathered that this chicken rice stall (#01-119 Old Airport Road Food Centre, 51 Old Airport Road) has been around for ages but I've only noticed them recently. They're just a couple of stalls away from Roast Paradise.

Not bad. Passes the checkboxes for tender smooth chicken (I had thigh today), garlicky limey chilli and adequately flavoured rice.