Lai Heng (來興), Bukit Merah View Hawker Centre

Not to be confused with the bak chor mee stalwart Lai Heng. You know how when one encounters the solid above averager like YouFu or Hainan Fried Hokkien Prawn Mee and in that first mouthful, the exception to their quality can be discerned. This was not it. (#01-06 Bukit Merah View Hawker Centre, 115 Bukit Merah View)

No scorching on the noodles, no wok hei. Maybe it's all stir fried on a low flame. Stock wasn't very flavourful. Texturally it was unexceptional. The sambal and bits of fried lard saved it from mediocrity.

This was their large portion of oyster omelette. Not much oysters. Mostly flour and eggs. Light to moderate crunch to the crust and....mostly I felt like I was eating flour and oil. $8 of it. Will not come back.

Yang Ji (养记), Chinatown Food Centre

Gotten wind of Yang Ji (#02-57 Chinatown Complex Market and Food Centre, 335 Smith Street) recently. Stall is literally a stone's throw from Sandakan Food. I don't know if they're just Yang Ji or Yang Ji 194. Google registers it as the latter while their social media implies it's the former. Anyways, they're apparently an old guard in the realm of zi char and known for their garlic steamed fish head which we were here to try.

Waited a little over half and hour before the steamed fish head arrived. It's decent. Didn't wow me. The layer of chopped garlic over the top was thinner than I had imagined. Wasn't as sweet as I was hoping for with a mild residual sharpness that still lingered.  

Another half an hour plus before this arrived.

That's the black bean bitter gourd with chicken. Half of those chicken were bones so it didn't feel like there was much meat. Bitter gourd was tender with the lightest crunch and that's awesome. 

The black bean sauce was disappointing though. No fermented black beans in the sauce for that additional dimension or nuance to its flavour. Not even bits of them. It's so clean I wouldn't be surprised if the sauce came from a bottle. Sauce was also starchy so there's definitely flour in it. And loads of oil. The dish was so glazed from the starch and oil that this picture taken from one of the leading mobile cameras in the market today looked low definition. 

Ramen Nagi, ION Orchard

I haven't had anything from Ramen Nagi for some years. The last time was back at their defunct branch at Suntec and I remember being disappointed. This was my first time at their ION (#B4-54 ION Orchard, 2 Orchard Turn, tel : +65 8163 2185) shop.

The current king (at least the reigning one at the time I wrote this) is their ebi king. A prawn oil/sauce/stock infused tonkotsu bowl with prawns.😅 If you're looking for a crustacean infusion in pork bone broth, this was it and I thought it was well done with a good balance between both flavours. Just don't expect hae mee soup. Don't think it was meant to be that. What I noticed though was that the crustacean flavour got more pronounced as the broth cooled so it tasted more robust at the end. I got reminded of hae bi.

Peck Hoon Teng Eating House, River Valley Road

Haven't eaten here (219 River Valley Road) in years and decided to because we were in the vicinity.

Mee pok from Teochew Fishball Minced Meat Noodle was not bad. Nice portion of minced meat, sliced pork, a couple of factory meatballs and a fishball. I had initially thought they oversauced it but it turned out to be appropriately done. Nothing in particular was outstanding but it was assembled well with decent ingredients. Pretty enjoyable eat with the chilli.

Very edible roasts from this one. There's 油饭 to be had which I opted for. Duck breast was relatively tender while the sausages were sweet and quite generic. 

What was worth mentioning were the glistening char siew on display. I wanted to be sure of what I was getting and requested for 半瘦半肥 to which the proprietor responded with a "我尽量". In the end, the meat was all lean and pretty bland. 😓 I might not have recognized those slice meats as char siew if not for the sauce in a blind taste. That sauce literally made the char siew.

There's a prawn noodle stall at the end of the coffeeshop. The lean-ish slices of pork had more fat than the char siew from the roasted meat stall earlier. Prawns are decent quality and the broth's not bad tasting. Kuey teow was nice paired with the fried lard dipped in the spicy soya sauce.

Ordered an iced hor ka sai from the coffeeshop's drink stall. In Hokkien the name translates into tiger biting lion (虎咬狮) - it's just Milo and coffee. This one was bad. The drink was entirely made from a packet of 3-in-1 with that 3-in-1 flavour that I didn't like. For $2.60, I didn't think it was too much to expect them to mix coffee and Milo. But now we know. No more drinks from these cheap guys.

Happy Duck, Bukit Merah View Hawker Centre

Noticed Happy Duck (#01-38, Bukit Merah View Hawker Centre, 115 Bukit Merah View) previously. This braised duck stall is located right next door to Bukit Merah View Carrot Cake. Since we were in the hawker centre getting breakfast, duck kuey teow sounded good. 

Here's a bowl with added on liver and egg. Strips of duck meat were relatively tender, dark sauce savoury with herbal sweetness and the lime-y flavour from the chilli was unexpectedly pleasant. The herbal soup on the side wasn't bad as well. Will consider getting kuey chap from them someday.

Jeju Sanghoe (제주상회), Tras Street

Pretty new Korean restaurant (74 Tras Street, tel : +65 6977 7977) that's appeared almost half a year back. The menu indicates Jeju cuisine - which I wouldn't know if any of it was a good representative but there were things that looked like they were worth trying that weren't the run of the mill.

Makgeolli cocktail's not bad. It's fizzy and there's something floral in it which I couldn't identify/understand. 

Banchan's nicely made. Love those pickled onions and garlic infused strips of potatoes.

Tried a bowl of gogi guksu. I'm not big on their bone broth because of the flour-y taste which I'm guessing is from the noodles. Slice pork's decent and not as amazing as how some reviews have made them out to be. What made me inhale this was their fermented hairtail (galchi) paste. More on that in a bit.

Pan fried prawns on the side. These were pan fried in butter! 😬

That's the fermented hairtail paste - the flavour's kinda similar to saeujeot/chinchalok with gochujang I suppose. Which made it ideal pairing with the noodles and sliced pork.

The menu calls this moum guk - seaweed soup with rice.

Pretty good. Texture's gruel-y with the flavour of seaweed and a base which reminded of grains. Also kicked ass with the fermented hairtail paste.

Fermented fish and soybean stew. No idea what/how exactly but it sounded like it'll be delicious in its stinky manner.

It was. Stew needed to be cooled a bit to let the complexities of the flavour develop. Tasted much like fermented beans and sardines.