More eating at Putien

I'm not a shareholder if anyone was suspecting. I just like their food.

We have favourites like their fine Heng Hwa bee hoon which is great on its on or with their lime-y chilli sauce.

They also do a very decent lychee sweet and sour pork (咕噜肉) which we enjoy.

This was their deep fried tenggiri - Spanish mackerel which is pretty common in this parts. Fish was dry without excessive grease and pretty tasty with their sweet garlic sauce.

Ordered their kailan with bean curd skin. Loved those bean curd skin. Reminded me of the tau kee that I used to eat loads of in Chinese vegetarian bee hoon as a kid.

The Duotou clam festival is in progress so we grabbed a pot steamed in Huadiao wine (花雕酒). This method of cooking preserved the natural flavour of the clams while adding another light layer from the wine on top. 

See how fat and juicy looking the clams were. They were literally squirting out hot juices when I bit into them.

Sixties Chaozhou Traditional Minced Pork Noodles, Seng Poh Road

That's the queue I joined at about 7.30am - was but three steps from the front of Loo's Hainanese Curry Rice stall. Those three steps took me 25 minutes. Another 20 or so went by before I reached the minced meat noodle stall. By the time I was done, it was an hour of my life gone. I've previously eaten here, aired my opinion and mistakenly assumed that they were a popular nameless stall. They are popular but not nameless, they are Sixties Chaozhou Traditional Minced Pork Noodles. 

What I said about their bak chor mee the last times till stands. Nothing has changed about how I felt about their bowl. I came back today because I guess I was just trying to reconcile the hype over them over what I actually felt about their noodles. Got the mee kia today and on hindsight, I prefer their mee pok. Today was a little more vinegary than the last time but that's about all the difference there was. Not a bad eat but I wouldn't come back because of the queue. I've been guilty of pandering to hype. Once or twice. Maybe thrice. Need to draw the line again.

Mee kia with extra chilli from Pin Sheng Teochew Bak Chor Mee

I wanted to come back to Pin Sheng Teochew Bak Chor Mee (品盛潮州肉脞面) to give their ba chor mee a proper try with chilli because the one that I had previously didn't have any. This was mee kia and I asked for extra chilli for this bowl but it turned out not very spicy. It was for some reasons very savoury and I think the chilli had something to do with that. Couldn't taste the vinegar even though I opted for it. This time round, I also noticed that there were small bits of crispy fried lard (猪油渣) which you could taste but the bowl of noodles as a whole didn't have any fragrance from lard (猪油).

The kopi from this place sure kickstarts my heart.

Black truffle dark chocolate ice cream from The Dark Gallery

I've tried some dark chocolate ice cream previously from The Dark Gallery before but it didn't leave me impressed at all so I kinda forgot about them for a while. Until recently. I happened to be looking at them again and noticed that they had one which was black truffle dark chocolate. Took a leap of faith and got myself a scoop. The ice cream was coal black, not even dark brown. I liked that the truffle flavour wasn't overpowering at all but still present amidst the creamy dark chocolate flavour. 

Lao Chen Carrot Cake & Popiah (老陳菜頭粿·薄餅), Tiong Bahru Food Centre

I remember getting poh piah from this stall (#02-83 Tiong Bahru Food Centre, 30 Seng Poh Road) years ago but don't recall much of it. This was presumably my first time getting radish cake from them - ordered with extra eggs. For some reasons, the taste was triggering memories that I hadn't expected. The kway reminded me of those brown triangular carrot cakes that I used to eat ages ago and the eggs made me think of oyster omelette. Not a bad plate of chai tow kway. I liked that there were some crusty caramelized bits on some of the edges.

This stall doesn't do the black and white order by the way.

Mun Zuk (满粥), Westgate

Someone suggested lunch again and this time it was Mun Zuk (#B2-K1 Westgate, 3 Gateway Drive), a congee stall which appeared to have opened recently. From what I gathered, they're an offshoot of Li Fang Congee - another multi branched porridge brand. I got the bowl with meatball and sliced pork. Added an egg which was...90 cents. You know what? I liked it. The porridge had a good creamy texture and pretty moderated flavour. Am also sure those meatballs are hand made. Portions felt a little small but I don't mind coming back again.