Sin Swee Kee, Seah Street

Sin Swee Kee (25 Seah Street, tel +65 6337 7180)is named after a chicken rice institution, Swee Kee. The latter has not been in operation since the 90s. This shop from what I know has no relation to them despite having a very similar name. The setup is pretty much like how Chin Chin works at Purvis Street. The mainstays are cze char, Hainanese pork chops and chicken rice. I'm pretty sure I have visited this place at some point years ago but couldn't really remember much from that time beyond that it was not bad.

Here's a half chicken along with kailan stir fried with salted fish. They are using kampung chicken, so these birds are somewhat smaller, less fatty and are possibly older than the younger GM chickens that are bred to grow fast - and hence, a yellower hue to their skin. Also, we're don't see the dousing of light soy sauce with sesame oil as many regular chicken rice stalls tend to do. Using chickens that are not engineered to grow fast also means a longer turn around period since the rearing of each batch would be a longer cycle. Which translates to more expensive chicken. It's $19 for a smaller half chook here. 

As chicken rice go, this wasn't bad at all. The rice itself wasn't excessively greasy and had their savoury flavours. Chicken was tender enough - just not as slurp of the bone tender as the ones from Sin Kee. There's also a bit more aroma of lime than usual in their chilli sauce. The kailan was a competent stir fry but one could imagine them better if they improve on the quality of the vegetable they were using. Speaking of Sin Kee, it's about time I checked out their new shop down at Holland Drive.

Old Street Bak Kut Teh, Tiong Bahru Plaza

I've never heard of Old Street Bak Kut Teh (#02-105/106 Tiong Bahru Plaza, 302 Tiong Bahru Road, tel : +65 9812 9346) before until I saw them for the first time some years back at Funan Centre. My first impressions were that they might have been an old and possibly respectable stall in the past and have franchised just like a number of other old and possibly respectable local stalls. I didn't pay much attention on them then.

It seems that they have expanded their business into a number of malls since then and have even ventured into Surabaya and Jakarta in Indonesia. 

These guys have updated their business and have installed iPads on their tables for order taking. While that was a nifty thing to have, there wasn't a way we could have indicated the sequence of the dishes that arrived. And hence, the first item from our order list they served was what people normally get for desserts. Tau huay (bean curd). It was not bad though. Light weight and a little "rough" in texture.

We ordered their rice with minced meat braised in a spiced dark soy sauce because we had previously seen other people eating them and they looked pretty good. This was comfortingly delicious. Possibly the local standard for the equivalent of the Taiwanese lu rou fan.

These are the premium loin rib options for their bak kut teh. While the bone was longer and looked more impressive, the meat on the edges were dryer compared to the rib meat from the regular bak kut option. Still it had the prerequisite fall of the bone tenderness and tasted pretty good. The broth was deliciously garlic-ky and peppery.

There was of course the condiment not to be left out as dips for the ribs. Sliced chilli padi in dark soya sauce.

Their you tiao/you char kway (fried dough sticks/crullers) were the soft and bready variety with only a faint crisp on the exterior. These were good for soaking up the peppery broth from the bowl of ribs. 

Braised tau kee was also pretty darn good. They were tender and one could taste the flavour from the bean it was made with.

We were honestly apprehensive initially but I think this visit has gotten us convinced that the food was worth coming back for if we needed a fix without navigating into the inconvenient places some of these bak kut teh stalls are located at.

Revisiting Restaurant Manchurian (满族全羊铺)

This was an anticipated return to Restaurant Manchurian after the promising past couple of visits. We missed the barbecue lamb the last time round so this was the opportunity we had been looking forward to.

We started with their barbecued tendon. The wait staff had described it as tendon with some meat. The texture of the meat was layered in a manner like tripe and their spice mix was awesome. Like their lamb skewers, they were a dollar-fifty a stick. We’re gonna be getting more of these in the future because they were really good.

That’s stir fried cabbage with dried chilli, some spices and thinly sliced pork belly. Aromatic, nicely salted and the doneness of the cabbages was impeccable. By that I had meant that the vegetables retained a healthy crunch while it was cooked past any residual rawness.

Here be the barbecued lamb. Seasoned with what might have been their regular barbecue spice rub with extras on the side for more flavour. The meat was pretty tender and the portions hearty.

The letdown in this visit was their yang rou pao mo. The broth was thin and because of the heavily spiced dishes before, tasted bland. We could hardly discern any flavours of lamb in the broth compared to the robust bowl that the defunct Yang Gui Fei made.

Baba Wins' Peranakan Cuisine, Tiong Bahru Plaza

We've never heard of Baba Wins' (#02-107/108, Tiong Bahru Plaza, 302 Tiong Bahru Road, tel : +65 6884 6884) until quite recently but apparently they've been around for some years. This Peranakan outfit had previously been operating at Star Vista. From what I've read, these guys are a family run business using recipes that have been passed down from, well - the family.

We had sayur lodeh where they gravy had a little heat and was also a little sweet. Just that little bit of sweetness more than what we had been expecting. I'm pretty sure some of it came from the vegetables that were braised in the curry. Speaking of curry, the gravy was thin in consistency. I guess we (and many others) were just used to the more lemak and savoury Malay renditions. It's not bad though.

That's sambal brinjal with crispy grago. The latter are fried tiny shrimps/krill that are piled over fried halved brinjals that have been slathered with a bit of sambal. An unusual but tasty dish.

Their meat and potato stew made with minced pork was delicious. I could eat loads of rice with this thing.

And there was bakwan kepiting - a soup with meatballs made of minced pork, crab meat and bamboo shoots. This was light on the salt and tasted homely. I meant that in a good way.

There were quite a bit of items on their menu and we couldn't possibly try all those that sounded interesting in a single seating. We'll definitely come back another time for more. If I had to do a comparison with the recent Peranakan episode at House of Peranakan Petit, the only thing that bothered me here was the rice which was a little dry and beady; and there, was the price.

Fat Prince, Peck Seah Street

To be clear, the two week old Fat Prince (48 Peck Seah St., tel : +65 6221 3683) is a Middle Eastern themed “café-kebabery”/bar from the people behind Neon Pigeon. The operative word here is theme. The owners are American and the chef from what I hear is Canadian. As much as the decor has style elements imported from Turkey, the undertone looks New York. So Fat Prince is probably about as Middle Eastern as Artichoke. Contemporary they are, halal it is not.

Otherwise, their bar would probably not be a fixture.

There's the Fat Prince hummus - made with duck fat and powdered with za'atar on the side. Don't know if there was any olive oil involved but the garlic flavour in the hummus seemed to be absent. This came with pita chips.

We had a scotch egg falafel, which as you might have surmised is an egg wrapped in a falafel instead of minced meat. Came with a fig, fennel and pistachio salad that consisted mostly of rockets and what might have been a lemon cardamom dressing. This was not bad.

That's the Cyprus pork sausage menemen with crispy potatoes- a Turkish styled scrambled eggs dish which is reminiscent of the common scrambled eggs, sausage and potatoes breakfast plate. The orange stuff are the eggs spiced with harissa. Spices in the pork sausage tasted Middle Eastern - the only way I can think of describing. Stuffings were coarse and rustic underneath that caul fat which gave it great texture. This was pretty good too.

What's a Middle Eastern themed lunch without a finish of Turkish coffee. Beans courtesy of Sarnies.

A bowl of mee pok from Hua Bee

Hua Bee Restaurant (78 Moh Guan Terrace) is known for a few things. That the 1995 local movie Mee Pok Man (not a spandex-ed superhero nor related to Marvel/DC!) was filmed here and in recent years, a Japanese kushiyaki joint - Bincho operates out back in the evening after the mee pok stall is closed for the day. I’m sure some of you remember Mee Pok Man. A little bit of sensation of its time when the infantile censorship board in this country was struggling with its baby steps to attempt to regulate “artistic” media. Looking back, one cannot help but laugh at those feeble attempts and wonder what was there to even censor. But I think people who remember Mee Pok Man probably remember it for Michelle Goh. 

Anyways, here’s the bowl of mee pok from Hua Bee. The noodles were a little sticky, slightly clumped together, vinegar indiscernible and the chilli didn’t pack much of heat. The ingredients were generous in their bowl of soup, but nothing was particularly outstanding. For what they were charging, it was a lot more satisfying to get a bowl of fish ball noodles at Li Xin or at Whampoa Food Centre. This shop might have been decent at some point in the past but it’s no longer very relevant except as a washed out curiosity with a reputation. Like an old movie that was once a sensation. No longer in the game but a part of an endless series of portraits waiting to fade away.