Teochew St. Mushroom Minced Meat Noodle (潮州街香菇肉脞面), Smith Street Food Centre

Been wanting to try the bak chor mee from this stall (Yellow Zone, #02-023 Chinatown Food Centre, 335 Smith Street) for a while. This was their $6.50 signature noodle. Pretty loaded with the works. I was initially scoffing at how soft the mee pok was but it for some reasons grew on me. Saucing is pretty wet here. I liked the quality of their toppings. Special mention goes to their stewed mushrooms and the fragrant combination of ti poh and lard. Verdict was I enjoyed it with the sliced chilli. Will come back.

Set C for 2 meal from Putien Mama

That's the Set C for 2 meal from Putien Mama. There's a selection from a couple of proteins and a vegetable dish going for $28.80. Which isn't a bad deal.

Ended up with some things we liked like their sweet and sour pork with lychee.

And their fermented red rice wine chicken.

Tried their luffa with pork lard for the first time. Both the gourd and lard soaked up that delicious savoury gravy. If anyone hadn't realised, all their sauces were rice thieves.

Nasi lemak from Faith Nasi Lemak (信心椰浆饭)

Finally got to try the nasi lemak from Faith Nasi Lemak. This was the Set B at $5 which edged it into the category of pretty good value. The rice wasn't as aromatic as I hoped so this was one where the sambal definitely helped. A couple of things did bother me. That chicken thigh was a little dry. 魚柳 was freshly fried but a little too greasy for my liking. 

Bee hoon kuey teow soup from Uncle Beh Pork Noodle

Note to self: The soup rendition of pork noodles from Uncle Beh Pork Noodle was less intense and garlicky than the one from dry bowl. Gotta remember that. Still a pretty good eat though.

Wild grouper in laksa soup from Hai Kah Lang (海脚人)

I enjoyed this as much I as the tom yam broth from the last time. This laksa broth wasn't the thick Peranakan variety obviously. It's thinner, still flavourful and very drinkable. At least for me it was. I'm starting to feel that the soup from them is the thing to look forward to rather than the fish.

Roast duck with roast pork rice from 威胜碳烤烧腊

More roast meat rice from 威胜碳烤烧腊. Today's roast pork was really fatty. $9 in Feburary 2026 for posterity.

Tiong Bahru Hainanese Chicken Rice, Ngee Ann City/Takashimaya

Tiong Bahru Hainanese Boneless Chicken Rice has opened a restaurant in town called Tiong Bahru Hainanese Chicken Rice (B2-36A Ngee Ann CIty, 391 Orchard Road, tel : +65 6900 4320). So they're no longer boneless? 🤔 Anyways, there's a slew of other stuff on the menu other than chicken rice. That seems to be how all these old chicken rice brands that expand end up.

Chicken's pretty decent. Quarter portion was bigger than I imagined.

Chook has jelly beneath the skin.

But it kinda feels a little different from eating them at Tiong Bahru Food Centre.

There's Hainanese crispy pork on menu too. I liked this even though I'm generally not a fan of crispy pork with the exception of the ones from the defunct Blk 38 Curry Rice. These were crispy, lardy and savoury. Loads of crunch and porcine flavour.

Even the curry that accompanied those crispy pork was delicious. 

The pickled mustard green were much more intense than those that I remember from their Tiong Bahru stall.

Bean sprouts quite nice. There're bits of salted fish in it.

Egg.

This outpost has chicken rice made using basmati and Niigata Koshihikari rice. Might come back and try those another time. 

Ah Lim (阿林), Soy Eu Tua Coffee Shop

Ah Lim is located in the same coffeeshop (Soy Eu Tua Coffee Shop, 15 Upper East Coast Road) as Chendol Melaka - stall's literally a coin's flick away. This was their $8 bowl. There's plenty of minced pork in this one. Okay-ish tasting bak chor mee as a whole but I also thought it was a little pricey. And not particularly memorable.

Old Master Hong Kong Grill (炭烧香港烧腊), Smith Street Food Centre

Noticed Old Master Hong Kong Grill (Yellow Zone, #02-006 Chinatown Food Centre, 335 Smith Street) which I had initially thought was the Old Master Roasted Grill stall that disappeared some years ago.

Decent roasts here. Roast pork (烧肉) had a good bite and the duck breast slices were relatively tender. Love the sweet char siew sauce. What didn't work for me were the char siew. We ordered 半肥瘦 and this was probably 85% 瘦. Those looked a lot better hanging in the stall than they tasted.

Hoe Nam Vintage, Tiong Bahru Plaza

Hoe Nam Vintage opened up at the lot vacated by Lee Lai Jiak. The last time I've had prawn noodles from Hoe Nam was ages ago. Have a vague recollection of finding them okay-ish. I have mixed feelings about these guys here (#02-105/106 Tiong Bahru Plaza, 302 Tiong Bahru Road).

The impression I had gotten was that the crew were taught how to prepare the food they were serving and might not have much real exposure to how some these dishes were actually like.

And the kitchen was apparently dealing with some order issues that resulted in long waiting time.

This bowl featured small prawns and thin sliced pork belly. The latter was pretty good by the way. Saucing was...I don't know. Not bad but not what I expected from dry pork noodles. Then again, I haven't had Hoe Nam's prawn noodles for ages so maybe it's always been this way. The soup was pretty good, refillable and left an aftertaste like monosodium glutamate does.

What happened was we wanted to try their claypot dry bak kut teh. It never arrived and after about an hour, they informed us that we'd have to wait quite some time if we still wanted it. At this point, we didn't.

Tau kee's nice. The pickled mustard greens were the first sign that maybe, these guys weren't acquainted with what they were doing. There weren't very salted and were also fibrous and crunchy. 😮‍💨

One week later......

Prawn kuey teow soup's pretty decent. Portions were kinda small for a large bowl. These featured their "regular" prawns which were larger than the tiny shrimps from last week.

Okay-ish pig's stomach soup. Didn't taste exactly like what I imagined of it because the flavour was just a little different. Why is there 芹菜 in it?!

At $3.10, the pork liver rolls looked sad. Not nice. Not very livery. A knee jerk reached out to the memories of those superior ones from China Street Fritters and He Ji Wu Xiang Guan Chang. These ones here weren't close. Wouldn't get them again.

Their fried pork lard were freshly prepared but was oddly lacking in flavour. Hmmm......🤔

Managed to get the claypot dry bak kut teh this time round. I don't remember if I've ever had these so I have no frame of reference. This rendition was pretty good. I had expected the flavour to be more akin to dark soya sauce but these didn't quite taste like that. Still enjoyed it though. Pork ribs were tender with meat easily pulled off the bone. Love the thin sliced lady's finger. Would have been great if they sliced the chilli into smaller bits.

Yuen Kee Dumpling (袁记云饺), Funan

Finally got to try Yuen Kee Dumpling (#02-3 Funan, 107 North Bridge Road, tel : +65 8931 9588). I must have walked past their shops at least a couple of times in my last trip to Hong Kong and Taiwan. There's barely anyone in there. The ones here are on the other hand, often packed. 🤔

Tried their shrimp and crab roe wanton with the viral sauce. Maybe viral in the context of the sauce means common or ubiquitous. It's a little spicy but not special or great and surfeit crept in pretty fast from the peanut sauce. Thankfully, there's vinegar and chopped garlic from their condiment section which made inhaling this enjoyable. Not bad wantons.

The other dumpling they had were 饺子. This one was stuffed with vegetable, shrimp and pork. Skin's hardier and less smooth than the wanton. The amount of garlic from the garlic sauce was pathetic.

I don't mind coming back only if I don't have to wait more than a few minutes in line for it.

Yang zhou fried rice from Jumboree

Back at Jumboree. Got the yang zhou fried rice from the Jumbo zi char stall today. Since it's by Jumbo, one gets real char siew instead of crab sticks or worse - fake crab sticks. It's a competent plate though a little more oily than I prefer. Flavour's decent but nothing in particular was outstanding.

Nan Yang Dao (南洋岛), Tiong Bahru Plaza

Some stuff we had from Nan Yang Dao (#02-115 Tiong Bahru Plaza, 302 Tiong Bahru Road).

I had initially scoffed at the pat of butter with their butter coffee which I thought was kinda small.

Turned out to be pleasantly adequate. Not bad Hainanese coffee by the way.

Decent tasting egg tarts they have. I just wished the crust was bit more buttery and the custard a bit more eggy. Not of the same standards as those from Oriental Kopi if anyone was wondering.

Kolo mee wasn't bad per se but the sauce didn't taste like those we've previously had and there was something about the texture of noodles that was off. These just weren't as springy. If I had to describe, this bowl tasted like an imitator with leathery char siew jerky.