A recent trip to Lai Heng Mushroom Minced Meat Noodle (來興香菇肉脞麵)

It's been a while, more than a couple of years actually, since we last ate at Lai Heng Mushroom Minced Meat Noodle. Prices have gone up by a dollar since then. The big bowl is now $8. This was a 40 minutes wait on a sweltering Sunday late morning.

Seriously got quite irritated with the wait. I guess it was a combination of heat/humidity, crowd and being hangry. 

When all was said and done, it dawned upon me how I've had just almost imperceptibly (even to myself) determined if a place was not overrated. Maybe just one of few of such ways. All that roiling boil pent up beneath the surface dissipated in short order after I've tucked into the bowl. The spicy umami and textures immersing through and shrugging off that previous 40 minutes of vexing sweat.

Regarding Margaret Drive Sin Kee Chicken Rice (新記馳名雞飯) at Holland Drive

I just realised that the other Margaret Drive Chicken Rice branches that used to be around have disappeared except for this one at Holland Drive which is Margaret Drive Sin Kee Chicken Rice. Up till recently, I also hadn't realised that that the name "Sin Kee" was on their signage. 😬 Always though they were just another branch of Margaret Drive Chicken Rice. 

This does make things less murky, at least for me. It's the stall that I've been eating at since their days as Sin Kee Famous Chicken Rice at Mei Ling Food Centre. I'm going to disregard the confusing branding among various similarly named stalls and move on with just this one.

This was from maybe a month back. They're still great without the chilli sauce which allows for some nuances like the flavour of the rendered chicken drippings over the poached bird to be more discernible.

Jurong Popiah (裕廊132薄饼), Redhill

Decent poh piah from this stall. The wrap wasn't particularly firm but it's not a dealbreaker. The reddish looking roll has extra chilli and garlic - nice. Love that extra punch in them. Stall's located in that same coffeeshop as Penang Handmade Pau and Daeng M.Y..

Ah Hua Teo Chew Fish Ball Noodle (亞華潮州鱼圆面), Ayer Rajah Food Centre

Trying Ah Hua Teo Chew Fish Ball Noodle (Stall #43 Ayer Rajah Food Centre, 503 West Coast Drive) for the first time.

This was their snow crab noodle. Not real snow crab included obviously. Just crab sticks.

Decent-ish. There's sliced pork, minced pork, mushrooms and crab sticks. There was a sweetness in the saucing that borderline bothered me and I think it's from the stewed mushrooms. Speaking of mushrooms, these weren't as tender as I preferred.

Handmade Carrot Cake (手制菜头粿), Tekka Food Centre

Black radish cake from Handmade Carrot Cake (#01-301 Tekka Market & Food Centre, 665 Buffalo Road). Might not look like much and I was even thinking that a better job could have been done with the caramelisation. But there was a nice flavour coming from the kueh and one could also tell that it wasn't a mass produced variety from the texture. I liked that. For anyone that might want to know, they do fried radish cake sticks too.

Penang Handmade Pau (槟城手工包点), Redhill

Penang Handmade Pau was mentioned again to me recently so we came down for some of the bao/pau for breakfast. Stall's located in the coffeeshop (80 Eating House, 80 Redhill Lane) beside Redhill Market.

We got a bunch to try.

That's the coffee bao - tasted like coffee flavoured lotus seed paste inside.

Vegetable bao which has mostly stewed turnip and a bit of carrot stuffing. Not so different tasting from poh piah.

These char siew bao were noticeably better than the ones from Ru Fa Bao Dian. Nicer flavouring in the char siew stuffings and better filling to skin ratio.

Not so much of a fan of their kou rou pau (扣肉包) because the lean meat parts of the pork belly weren't as tender.

Slightly gingery and sweet fillings from their big bao. Not a fan.

Mei cai kou rou pau (梅菜扣肉包) - not bad. While the flavour from the mei cai wasn't as intense or punchy and the pork wasn't as deliciously moist & fatty as a proper dish of it, I thought it was adequate as bao stuffings. Wouldn't mind recommendations of better ones if they do exist.

Sauerkraut pork belly & pork blood stew from Mincheng Bibimbap

Mincheng Bibimbap has obviously gotten the memo on the lifted ban on blood. There's a sauerkraut pork belly & pork blood stew on menu now. Blood curds, pickled vegetables and thin sliced pork belly in a sour porky broth that was deliciously salty. I enjoyed it.

Re-revisiting Hong Xing Handmade Fishball @ Bukit Merah View Hawker Centre

Kuey teow mee 白 from Hong Xing Handmade Fishball this time. Just textural and flavour difference in the noodles compared to the mee pok I normally get. The flavours from fried garlic and shallots were also more apparent.

King of Laksa (叻沙之王), Aljunied

King of Laksa (Food Gallery, #02-100, 118 Aljunied Ave 2) opened second half of last year. There's been a bit of social media buzz over them and they have gotten themselves a Michelin Bib Gourmand since. From what I gathered, they're going the "no added salt, sugar, and MSG" route. But before you knock it, you should try it.

It's as lemak as any respectable laksa rendition out there. Broth was creamy, thick and adequately salted but not as oily. Very drinkable stuff in my opinion. Flavour's quite similar to the Katong Laksa variety. The prawns were deveined and meaty.

Gripes? More laksa leave and sambal that you could help yourself with would be nice. The queue was excruciating.

Rat tail noodles from Teochew St. Mushroom Minced Meat Noodle (潮州街香菇肉脞面)

Seeing as Teochew St. Mushroom Minced Meat Noodle's style is a little sauce-y, I got the bee tai bak today which I thought worked better as a noodle type. So I guess this is as much confirmation as any that their dry bowl is the wet and pretty vinegary type.

More food from Tim Ho Wan (添好運)

More recent eats at Tim Ho Wan. Aside from some of the things we tended to get like their pan fried radish cake, spinach prawn dumpling and recently their morel dumpling which weren't photo-ed, there's a bunch of limited time stuff from their SG61 “Flavours of Singapore” specials.

XO fried rice with bacon and luncheon meat. Pretty decent. For something that has bacon and luncheon meat, this was really low on salt.

This was bak chor rice rolls - a take on bak chor mee obviously, using cheong fun. There's minced pork, stewed mushrooms, some fried pork lard, tau gay and a token sprinkle of chopped spring onions. It's not lardy like some of the local bcm but it was an interesting take, especially with the vinegar in the sauce that made it easy to inhale.

Not bad laksa seafood dumplings that's stuffed with bits of shrimp, scallops and water chestnut. Those water chestnuts were unexpectedly chunky. Laksa gravy was a little thin but it wasn't bad. Would have been great if there were more laksa leaves. 

I don't think I've never had egg tarts from Tim Ho Wan before. It might be a first time for me. Short crust pastry with eggy custard inside - typical of Hong Kong styled egg tarts. Not bad.

Never seen this peach gum & goji berries in coconut soup dessert before. I reckon it would have been nicer if there were more peach gum.

Some calamansi lemongrass fizz for the weather. Flavour was like a preserved plum (酸梅) drink, but not particularly lemongrass-y,

Ru Fa Bao Dian (如發包點), Holland Drive Food Centre

Have been wanting to try the baos from Ru Fa Bao Dian (#02-09 Holland Drive Market & Food Centre, 44 Holland Drive) for some time.

There're a couple of flavours not commonly found for baos around that they do here.

Like curry chicken bao which has chunks of curried potato and chicken. Closest thing were those steamed curry baos from Old Chang Kee. Not bad though.

There's also one with chicken and cheese. The stuffings tasted like sesame chicken with cheese and it's actually kinda nice.

Char siew bao was...ordinary. Skin's a bit thick.

Their har gow's not my thing. While I might have been unfairly comparing these with those from restaurants, I'm not sure what's inside these even. Siew mai tasted like a minced pork ball.

Master Nan Hainanese Chicken Rice (南北海南鸡饭), Happy Hawkers @ Kim Tian

This stall's (201 Kim Tian Road) right next door to Tian Tian Chi Mian. I normally don't comment on service from coffee shop stalls but the guy with slicked back hair here appeared to have problem processing my orders. I paid thrice because he kept forgetting to charge for things and still got my orders wrong.

This was poached chicken and char siew. Nothing particularly special about the chicken but the nicely caramelized fatty char siew was pretty good tasting.

Perhaps this gives a better picture of that caramelized fatty char siew

Decent light but adequate flavouring of their beady rice. Nice with their spicy/sweet/lime-y/garlicky chilli.

Liver and egg on the side.

 

Tian Tian Chi Mian (天天吃面), Happy Hawkers @ Kim Tian

Bak chor mee pok from Tian Tian Chi Mian (201 Kim Tian Road). Their rendition doesn't have meatballs. Pretty decent tasting bowl with generous toppings. Sambal has a nice flavour.

Revisiting The Beef House

Been many years since we last ate at The Beef House.

Their beef tendon balls elicited the same nostalgia as the previous time I had them. I've an updated take of that clear broth. I thought little of them in the past. I enjoyed the light clear beefiness this time round.

Got ourselves some smooth slurpy kuey teow today. Nice.

It was only when I was writing this that I remembered that we've had their soon kueh before. Same feelings as the last time about them.