Lee Hong Kee Cantonese Roasted, Tiong Bahru Food Centre

As messy as this plated heapful of proteins looks, it wasn't just another ordinary plate of mixed roasted meat. This was with certain honours, roasted pork belly with a light (believe it!) crispy crackling, char siew with beautifully caramelized exterior and aromatic charred edges; and succulent roasted duck of a non herbal variety that was certainly tasty and moist enough without the need for any additional sauce. And it was beany braised tau kwa too.

My father used to tar pow mixed roasted meats from this stall (30 Seng Poh Road, #02-60 Tiong Bahru Market) on the weekends home for our lunches when I was a kid. One of the secrets that I almost never hear mention which made them so appealing, was their rice. Which was ordinary by itself. Drizzled in a magical combination of fragrant dark soy sauce mixed with, yes, lard.

Koh Brother Pig's Organ Soup, Tiong Bahru Food Centre

I remember a stall that sold pig organ soup back from the days of the old dingy Tiong Bahru market when the food centre was but a single story and had stood side by side with the market. I was but a child. Grimy floors, stone tilings that were in the process of being uprooted by tree roots and when rainy weather didn't make eating the best of experiences. But hey, it had that charm that can no longer be found anywhere in this country today.

Since then, I've been told that the mentioned pig organ soup is Koh Brother (30 Seng Poh Road, #02-29 Tiong Bahru Market). I don't recall having eaten at their stall since the current food centre was in operation so I guess this visit was a clean slate. These guys are even on the most inescapable social media space of our time today.

What I do remember vividly was the tangy broth flavoured by the pickled mustard greens with a base of clean porcine aroma that simmered just beneath the surface. What went into the soup were slices of lean pork, stomach, liver, meatball and was that heart or tongue there? I'm guessing that in the past, the steaming bowl would have included cubes of pig blood as well. 

Those glutinous rice with chestnuts stuffed in intestines what-you-call them were pretty interesting. A food craft from yesteryears fading away as the decades move along.

I'm loving it.....

....no, that would not be entirely true.

It's actually more of a love hate relationship. The love because I did grow up eating them quite a bit and there is always that little bit of nostalgia in the flavour there. What disagrees with me is the ever shrinking portions and leaps in prices for their food, some of which hasn't changed for literally decades. I would also very much prefer real pork bacon rather than turkey ones.

This McGriddles Supreme thingy. Small stuff for the supreme label. I made up for it by drizzling more of the maple syrup. Wet sticky hotcake sandwich it became.

Gula melaka ice kachang from Chinatown Food Centre

This deserves mention. In spite of its ordinary appearance, this was actually one of the better ice kachang I've had for years. Granted that I do not actually go searching for good ice kachangs on any basis. What differentiated the bowl from most of the other rainbow hued syrup concoction was that there is only palm sugar and evaporated milk. Instead of just being sweet, there was also the fragrance from the gula melaka. The little chunks of fairy grass that they included tasted like real fairy grass instead of ambiguous bits of obsidian agar agar. 

And I've only been introduced to this stall (#02-104 Chinatown Complex Food Centre, 335 Smith Street) in recent years.

Tomato sauce omu rice from Pecori

I'm generally not big on tomato sauces. The good ones are hard to come by and there's usually enough options that I don't have to take risks with them. I took a plunge on this and gave it a shot this time round hoping that the flavour would offset all the weight from the egg and meat. Guess what?  I didn't like this too. I guess it was flat with that tartness. Today's hamburg was disappointingly floury and less beefy too. I'm pretty sure it wasn't of the same make as the ones I had from the last visit as this one contained quite a bit of fillers. Stick to the mentaiko with rubbery squid rings I shall.

Selera Rasa Nasi Lemak, Adam Road

So, this was the nasi lemak that people were talking about which was supposedly fit for Bruneian royalty. I remember having had nasi lemak in this food centre ages ago and it was probably from the neighbour which had the same snaking queue as this one (2 Adam Road, #01-02 Adam Road Food Centre).

In a nutshell, I think wasn't bad. The savoury basmati rice was delicious with the aroma of pandan and coconut and I liked that they didn't hold back whatever they had used to salt the rice. The chilli was one of numerous renditions that was a pleasant balance of sweet and spicy. The other items weren't memorable.

For a start, their crispy chicken wing was pretty greasy and lacked flavour in the batter. These have got to be one of the blandest wings I've tasted. The bergedil was nice and savoury but was also a tad too greasy and soggy.  Otah tasted unusual. By unusual, I did not mean it in a bad way. It just not what I'm used to from otah, lacking the spicy kick and all. I'll eat at this stall again if there wasn't so much of a queue but that's a big maybe there.

This wouldn't exactly be my go to place for nasi lemak when I have a craving. I think Kukus fits that bill better.