Soya sauce stewed pig trotters with rice at Broadway

I've previously mentioned a mix pig's innards (猪什汤) at the Broadway coffeeshop at Toh Guan. The folks manning that stall seemed to have changed so I'm not sure if it's still the same but they are still selling the same stuff. Here's stewed pig trotters from them. Not bad. The skin and other gelatinous parts were expectedly tender and pretty slurpy. Meat was a little harder than I preferred but it's not a biggie. It's not the standards of what I've previously eaten at Joo Siah (which has since relocated) but still very edible. This one just needs more intensity with/from the stewing liquid.

See Sean Rice Stall (时鲜饭店), People's Park Complex Food Centre

If anyone was wondering what was remarkable about this particular plate of Yang Zhou fried rice, here's a clue in to the obvious. They use real char siew instead of crab sticks or the gooey matter that's pretending to be crab sticks which are in turn pretending to be char siew. The other thing would be those golden brown nuggets in the fried rice - those were fried lard, not salted fish. Coupled with some smoky scorching on the rice, it made a pretty good eating with their cut chillis.

While waiting for the rice to be fried, I went through a duck drumstick which I had added on to the order fried rice. Meat was reasonably tender with full flavoured skin and some bits of fat. Yes, these guys (#01-1026 People's Park Complex Food Centre, 32 New Market Road) indeed do both roast meats (烧腊) and cze char.

More salt and fat from iSteaks

That's their bacon steak. Thick cut, salty and meaty with fat and smokiness. Came with a pretty smoky barbecue sauce on the side. I'm normally not big on those but I liked the smoky sweetness from this one.

Another picture of the capped loin of lamb which I haven't been able to get away from since. That scored fat cap was well salted and seared for that extra umami caramelized flavour on the meat. I wonder if these are the rosu equivalent for lamb. So good.

Pin Sheng Teochew Bak Chor Mee (品盛潮州肉脞面), Eng Hoon Street

Out back behind Chapter 55 along Tiong Poh Road to Eng Hoon Street is Pin Shen Teochew Bak Chor Mee (#01-46, 56 Eng Hoon Street, tel : +65 8833 2282) - housed within the same coffee shop as a certain Tiong Bahru Yong Tau Hu stall

I've passed them by a number of times over the past year and have been wanting to give them a try. Saw that they have a tom yam bowl which looked intriguing. I ordered one and was intently observing the assembly of the bowl until it was plopped onto the tray and I was arrested by a “要小柑橘吗?”

小柑橘 refers to calamansi. A common lime variety found in this parts. All that was needed was a squeeze and a drizzle over the mee kia - one that had a moderate burn from the heat, was lime-y and lemon grassy from an enjoyable savoury tom yam broth. There was also a large fish dumpling among the toppings they had in the bowl. Not so much minced pork though. But I will come back for this.

Tsukemen from Ippudo

Ippudo has tsukemen on their menu for this month. From what I gathered, it's available only at their shops along Mohd Sultan and in MBS.  The tsukemen is apparently a Singapore exclusive. I was intrigued.

Those thick chewy whole grain noodles and charshu were as they appeared. Competent.

Hence the item that made or broke the tsukemen for me would be the dipping broth. This one was not viscous and punchy as say Tonkotsu Ikkyu, Sanpoutei or Tetsu (formerly at Ramen Champion). If we were comparing only strength of flavour, the one Keisuke's Kamo Soba also hit harder.

There was a pronounced bonito flavour from the gyokai broth, a nice sharpness from diced onions and bits of fats. But it was too thin to cling much onto the noodles. Not thick enough that I could still drink it like soup - in fact, I had imagined the bonito tonkotsu bowl at Ikkousha to be somewhat like this. 

Putien and the 2021 Yellow Croaker Festival

It's the Yellow Croaker Festival at Putien. I gather that these "festivals" occur to showcase specific ingredients that are in season. Like the oyster or seaweed ones that they've done. The yellow croaker has always been on their menu though. It's just more variety of dishes that they've done with the fish.

But first, their stir fried yam with sugar and fish sauce. First because it was the first dish that made it to our table. So addictive.

They've a red mushroom seafood lor mee which we've never seen on the menu before. There might have been a seafood lor mee previously but not one with red mushrooms. Which rendered the broth pink. From what I've read, these mushrooms are gathered from deep within the forests of the Wuyi Mountains in the Fujian province. Harvesting them isn't a walk in the park. 

They have a pleasant woodsy mushroom flavour which I find less intrusive than regular Chinese dried mushrooms. Don't know how much flavour they contributed to the lor but that lor was delicious from the seafood and sweetness from the cabbage.

One of the dishes from the festival was kailan stir fried with salted yellow croaker. It's okay. Not as impressive as the previous two or the next dish. Some of those kailan were a little fibrous. Which I didn't expect because they usually put more care into the ingredients. 

Another festival dish was their yellow croaker fillet soup. Soup was tangy, I couldn't tell if that came from tomatoes or pickled vegetables. Meat from the fish was a little too soft for my liking. Perhaps deep frying works better for me with this fish because of their texture.