Generation Coffee Roasters, Hong Lim Food Centre

Nice, this shop (#01-59 Hong Lim Food Centre, 531A Upper Cross Street) also makes local kopi and covers tid lo (直下). Coffee's thick and pretty decent too. No reason to endure the Toast Box queue with this stall around when I'm in Hong Lim. If anyone needs a landmark to find them, they're just next door to Heng Kee Curry Chicken Noodles. 

The Johor styled bowl from Shu Heng Bi Tai Mak (數興老鼠粉)

Came back to Shu Heng Bi Tai Mak because I wanted to try the Johor styled bowl which featured a slightly starchy broth filled with stuff. Stuff like minced pork, tiny shrimps and finely diced mushrooms which was later topped chopped spring onions, fried shallots and bits of salted fish.

The dominant flavour was garlic and the salted fish which made it moreish. Think umami. After spiking it with some of the soya sauce and cut chilli, the additional heat upped the flavour ante with a noticeable level of oomph. Nice.  👍🏼

Kong Wai Cantonese Cuisines, Tiong Bahru Food Centre

I remember walking past Kong Wai Cantonese Cuisines (#02-52 Tiong Bahru Food Centre, 30 Seng Poh Road, tel : +65 9003 9117) on a number of occasions and haven't paid much attention to them mostly. For some reasons my interest was piqued recently. Must have been something on their menu that had subconsciously caught my attention and subtly taken root. Anyways, we came over for dinner. These guys open till 10.30pm.

By the way, portions aren't big. All the food in here fed two. For $49. We were still kinda peckish afterward. 😲

We ordered their butter cheese pork chop. With the name of the dish in mind, no one would be blamed for wondering what in the world this was supposed to be. 😂 

The proprietress did also mention beforehand that there's no cheese in it. This was as much as we knew from the vague "no cheese" description. While we were eating it, we didn't taste any butter as well. But damn this was delicious. What I could visually identify were slices of pork, eggs, onion and curry leaves.

Pretty decent rendition of nai bai (奶白) stir fried with fermented bean curd (腐乳). The nai bai which was coated in that fermented bean curd sauce, bits of garlic and a little bit of heat from sliced chilli padi was suitably crunchy. As we were going through them though, we felt that the sauce didn't pack the punch we experienced at Long Ji. Would have loved for more of that fermented bean flavour to come through. But it wasn't a bad dish.

We wanted sliced fish in black bean sauce. That's not on the menu but seeing that they have black bean sauce dishes and also sliced fish, we figured they could put the two together and they did. Not a bad rendition but not getting the nuances of fermented black bean in this. Couldn't find the actual whole beans in the sauce, just bits of them. The sauce was still delicious though.

Stir fried kailan with prawns. Competently done with loads of prawn-y flavour in the salty sauce which was made for pairing with rice. The Chinese name mentioned 虾球 so we weren't expecting shells but I guess that's their rendition. While I couldn't be sure, these prawns tasted like they had been deep fried before being stir fried.

Heng Ji Chicken Rice (亨記鸡飯), Chinatown Food Centre

Finally got to try Heng Ji Chicken Rice (Red Zone, #02-131 Chinatown Complex Market and Food Centre, 335 Smith Street) after hearing about them for so long. It was mentioned somewhere out there that this is the oldest chicken rice stall in the country. And they also turned out to be a queue I understood because they were that good. At least it was for me.

Their poached chicken were slurp off the bone tender - pretty much the epitome of it just like how it was with Sin Kee back when they were at Mei Lin Food Centre. Their light soya sauce concoction also tasted chicken-y. Rendered chicken fat maybe?

I thought the flavour of their rice was mild initially but it somehow developed as I ate, to the point that it reminded me also of those from Sin Kee. Flavourful yet not heavy. I need to come back again.

Tanamera Coffee, Rodyk Street

Breakfast by the river at Tanamera Coffee (8 Rodyk Street, #01-01/02, tel : +65 9145 8171). So to speak.

Have seen them here for a while but we've never actually understood what differentiated Tanamera Coffee until we went to the branch at Tanglin Mall.

I recalled liking their dirty matcha. While it should taste the same, I have the impression that the previous one I got had a better coffee flavour.

Americano's kinda sour. There's also an aftertaste from their brew that one gets from soya sauce or fermented beans(dao jio). 

Tahu tempe goreng which was good munching with their kecap manis sambal concoction thingy.

We found out that these guys fry a pretty mean goreng pisang as well. The bananas here were halved and battered. Great tangy sweetness from the pisang raja. Gonna get these again if/when we come back.

Chicken porridge was not outstanding. It was simple. Like something many would think shouldn't cost more than a couple of dollars kind of simple. I find it strange that it was served just lukewarm and not piping hot. Dough fritters did not taste like the regular kind we're used to.

That's their Big Breakfast 2.0. Not bad. Beef kofta would benefit from a bit more salt. Beans were quite delicious. But they were slightly chilled - which I thought was odd because I expected them to be warm. Kinda enjoyed the minty lamb sausages. Enjoyed the sweet caramelized onions. They were pretty generous with the beef bacon which were pretty chewy and not as smokey or salty as I imagined they would be. 

Was there anything that could have been better? Sure. Getting fried eggs with molten yolk like the menu shows would have been the least the could do for those. 😞

Xing Long Food Stall (興隆菜社), Chinatown Food Centre

Xing Long (Red Zone, #02-161 Chinatown Food Centre, 335 Smith Street) has apparently been around but I've never noticed them until very recently. Menu's not extensive but from my limited "research", rep's good and they definitely looked like they knew what they were doing.

Loved their fermented bean steamed fish head - possibly even more than those from Cheng Ji or An Ji. Might be because there seemed to be less of that "muddy" taste from the meat. Might also be because that bean sauce was cleaner tasting and reminded me of the sweet sauce from chee cheong fun. Just so that it's clear, this was the fermented soy bean sauce which is generally sweet, not fermented black bean which is salty. This sauce with the chunks of lard were a duo of rice thieves.

Decent stir fried (清炒) kailan with garlic. They shaved the exterior of the stemmy parts which removed the fibres making them tender with a soft crunch. Ironically, the leafier parts which I had thought would be more tender were more fibrous.

One rice like not enough.