Chai Kee (財記), Hong Lim Food Centre

Noticed Chai Kee (#01-69 Hong Lim Food Centre, 531A Upper Cross Street) from our previous visits to Hong Lim Food Centre and made a note to come back; to what looked to be pretty credible looking local fish soup

Watch out for the pot of fried shallots at the front.

What caught our eye were the prawns on display. They were huge.

The proprietress told us those prawns come in at about 9am. So we waited for the bugs to arrive.

That wait culminated in their seafood soup with ee mee. Seafood soup at this stall meant just a duo of sliced batang and prawns. Both of which were of respectable quality. The broth was gentle with a seafood sweetness and a hint of ti poh. Personally, I felt that a splash of chilli-ed light soya sauce along with fried shallots in their oil added a depth which enhanced the flavour.

Added fried fish roe to this.

Prawns were solid and meaty with study shells that readily gave up the meat with a bit of light tugging. The bite on these bugs were satisfying.

Here's the fried fish roe which was hidden beneath the noodles.

A few days later...😬

Came back for a bowl of sliced fish bee hoon with fried fish roe. Their fish roe's kinda expensive. It's a dollar a piece and the standard option is $4. For $4, one gets a whole lot more fried fish roe at Cai Ji.

While the quality of the food was undeniable, one cannot help but compare the portions of sliced fish to the chunkier ones from the likes of Cai Ji, 453 Fish Soup or Mr Batang. This shop was noticeably more expensive.

50’s Teochew Minced Meat Noodle (五十年代潮州鱼丸肉脞面), Redhill Food Centre

Spied another bak chor mee stall at Redhill Market (#01-39, Redhill Food Centre, 85 Redhill Lane) next door to Bak Kee Teochew Satay Bee Hoon. There was a queue and that normally deters me but I decided to give them a go because they looked credible and it'll satiate my curiosity.

The bowl was competent. Mee pok was the slightly thicker kind, saucing was a little wetter than I normally like and chilli flavouring was mild. Didn't expect to see a lonely fish dumpling in there. These guys use the non spicy big chillis instead of the small fiery ones. A pretty decent bowl but I don't think I'd want to endure a long queue for it the next time though.

Hwa Kee Lemon Chicken Rice (华记柠檬鸡饭), Peninsula Shopping Centre

Came across Hwa Kee Lemon Chicken Rice (#01-12 Peninsula Shopping Centre, 3 Coleman Street, tel : +65 9001 8109) recently and was intrigued by the focus of their sunny yellow branding on lemon chicken rice. I've had those before and most of them haven't been memorable. Could this be different?

They made mistake with the order but I decided not to pursue it. Still baffled by how 白鸡尾 could have been misheard as 油鸡. Soya sauce chicken was decent tasting, tender but flavour falls short compared to places like Maria Virgin Chicken or the Hawker Chan before Hawker Chan. The lemon chicken was outstanding though. Tasted freshly fried with a solid crunch on the batter and had a better tasting lemon sauce than the usual sweet starchy gloop. The eggs were all double yolked!

Rice was lightly flavoured but not bland. There's achar on the side which was unusual but I definitely welcomed those. Chilli was pleasantly bright and limey with heat and a light hint of ginger. 

Don't ignore the soup which one can help themselves to. It's chicken soup with...I don't know what else but it's better than the majority out there.

Xi De Li (西得利), Redhill Food Centre

Xi De Li sells local fried snacks. I've been wanting to get these glutinous rice buns from them for a while. Finally got my hands on one of them at their stall at Redhill Market (#01-14, Redhill Food Centre, 85 Redhill Lane). These glutinous rice buns were essentially a ham chim pang (咸煎饼) stuffed with glutinous rice. Carbs in carbs.

The fried bun was slightly salty and slightly sweet with a bit of five spice seasoning. Pretty decent tasting and if you've had them before, you'll know what to expect. What I especially liked about these were the sweet and tender glutinous rice stuffings in the bun. A subtle textural contrast in each bite from the fried bun to the gummy sweet sticky rice. I gotta get myself one of these more often!

Prosperity Burger season and other stuff from McD

Prosperity Burger is back for the CNY season. I wonder why the Hello Kitty box designs this time round.

Today's sandwich was saucy. The way I like the Prosperity Burger.

Sweet peppery saucy with the crunch of onions. The meat was....well, it's McDonald's.

Ha! Chicken Drumlets has gotta be local because it's marinated in prawn paste and I don't see this happening anywhere else in the world. The taste isn't on par to better quality prawn paste chicken from zi char stalls but credit where its due, they did a decent job with the flavouring for these drumlets.

There's pineapple pie this year. The flavour's akin to pineapple jam/candy with bits of pineapple meat - exactly what I was expecting. Two years ago, it was strawberry pie. 

Fish Noodle @ Koufu, Tanglin Halt

The name of the stall Fish Noodle in the Koufu at Tanglin Halt (#01-08 Commonwealth View, 88 Tanglin Halt Road) was misleading because they don't do fish paste noodles nor are they exactly doing fish soup noodles as most of us know it. It's a Chinese stall selling noodles that have a variety to toppings permuted across a few broths.

Got a couple of bowls - one with the sour spicy (酸辣) broth ☝🏼and the other with their original broth 👇🏽. I prefer the former which was salty, sour and had a bit of heat with Sichuan peppercorn flavour. The latter didn't taste bad, I just didn't know what to make out of the flavour after the 酸辣 excitement. Noodles were almost gummy and soft but not soggy. 

Toppings were decent. Braised pig intestines (肥肠) were tender and chewy. The fish they use have a light muddy taste and aren't batang as the pictures misled me to believe. As a whole, the noodles from this stall weren't so different from the stuff that one can find in Sichuan Alley.