That Elusive 古早味

Nowadays, it's hard to find hawker food that tastes as good as those we've had in the days of yore, i.e. when we were young/kids... *Ahem!*. The hawker food these days just cannot make it! From my observation, I think it boils down to two main reasons:

* Foodcourt food being cooked by people who have no idea what the food they are cooking is supposed to taste like, or in a bid to reduce costs, they shortchange the customers, i.e. 偷工减料. It really irks me when many of these food court workers (many from PRC) try to pass off a brown-looking bowl of noodles as Lor Mee, or noodles with chilli oil and vinegar as Tom Yam! Hello, that is sacrilegious, ok!?! Real Tom Yam does not use vinegar. DUH!!

* The traditional ways of preparing/cooking the food is not being passed down to the younger generation, which isn't willing to take over the business from the older generation of food hawkers/chefs.

Hence, it is always a delight when we come across food that tastes really good, or has got that 古早味 that reminds me of childhood food.


Curry Donut - this recent addition by BreadTalk bakery chain reminds me of the yummy curry donuts from Yaohan Bakery!!

Yaohan Dept Store really holds lots of nice memories for me coz we used to live near to it, and would often visit to shop and to bowl at the bowling alley above it (not that I knew how to bowl, now still a longkang bowler).


However, in terms of taste, it doesn't taste like Yaohan's curry donut at all, and they've even added a piece of hard-boiled egg, which is more akin to local curry puffs.


Duck noodles - this one is very good, from Clementi Central's food centre, and it's only $2.50.

Hokkien mee fried in the 60's style


We found this by chance, at Beach Road. Look at the amount of lard they gave. While I think it will appeal to some, it wasn't quite up to our tastes (we're not that old anyway :P ), and I'm guessing they use prawn stock in the cooking instead of pork bone/chicken stock.

Zhi-Char from Chin Chin Hainanese kopitiam at ... Peck Seah or Liang Seah or something street.


They ran out of hor fun the night we visited (so early!), so we had to settle for fried bee hoon. This is rather good and has a bit of that old Hainanese taste as cooked by the Hainanese Ah Gor of the good old days.


The place I used to live as a kid had many Hainanese, who were then known as very good cooks, so they really did very good zhi-char, although I'm sure MSG was used liberally, which was common then.



The next place deserves special mention as it's so far our most favourite place for fried hor fun and the KL style fried Hokkien Mee.


Both dishes are excellent - very fragrant and very tasty which keep us coming back for more.

The only regrettable thing is that they don't use the big, fat, yellow noodles and have only the thin yellow mee.


The place? It's at Lai Huat Seafood Restaurant (a kopitiam) along Horne Road (#72?), just beside the Jalan Besar Stadium. They do some mean zhi-char dishes too like belachan fish, but we have yet to try it (coz too spicy for the SO).

Bibimbap & Kimchi

It's been a while since I've had bibimbap, so I went to eat it. Then I ate it again... And again...

I had these within a span of 6 days. Thinking about it now is making me drool... :P


BBB from the revamped J8 foodcourt. It's very so-so...can't really describe why I didn't like it...maybe something to do with the taste and/or texture, but I'm unlikely to eat it again, unless feeling very desperate.

BBB, the organic vegetarian version. This one is fresh-tasting, with a nice crunchy texture of the vegies and nice chewiness of the brown rice. Yet it didn't feel heavy and didn't make me feel sleepy after lunch. It's super yum! I can eat this everyday.


BBB from Novena Square (Velocity) Kopitiam foodcourt, where I get my regular fix of BBB and kimchi. I've asked to skipped the chicken. The ikan bilis and kimchi are the side dishes provided as part of the meal.

I like this version, and their freshly-made kimchi, which does not taste "powdery".


I always tar-pao a box of their kimchi, which I will keep in a glass jar at home. Even then, the smell is so strong that it will "stink" the whole fridge.

Yummy...when will I eat them again?

Vegetarian - Hakka Lei Cha 2

The first attempt at trying Hakka Lei Cha (organic version) didn't turn me into an addict, so I thought I'd give this dish another try, this time from the Pine Tree vegetarian stall. Pine Tree has several branches over the island and has build up a reputation for nice vegetarian food, especially their yong tau foo.

I figured I won't be able to stomach all the rice, veges and that bowl of soup for lunch, so I tar-bao it home.



This version tastes much better and the brown rice has just the right chewy consistency - not too hard, and not too soft.



The soup though, was another matter - it has lots of "meshed-up grass"!


The soup was a bit oily (maybe from sesame oil?) and just a tad salty, which stopped me from drinking more of it.

After finishing the rice (I ate the leftover the next morning), the base of the plastic bowl was quite oily. The oil must have come from the seasoned vegetables. So, while this dish is quite healthy, it does contain quite a bit of oil, and should be eaten with restraint. :)

Vegetarian food

Some of the vegetarian food that I've had recently, besides the brown rice chye png (vegetables & rice) combo every now and then.

Kueh Chap - Interestingly, the fishball was super crunchy/crispy, but too salty.



Herbal noodles - very nice with herbal soup and the ubiquitous mock mutton (made from mushroom stalks)



Laksa with mock cockles, which was wrongly served to me!


I'd ordered yong tau foo items with laksa gravy, including the vegetarian ngoh hiang, and this bowl arrived, also with the ngoh hiang on top, so I thought it was my order. Luckily, the other customer didn't mind having my food instead and paid more for it. I find that the regular customers at vegetarian stalls are quite amiable and willing to accept such minor mistakes without fuss.

The soup accompanying the main course of ...



Vegetarian Korean Bibimbap (organic version with brown rice)...super yum!


Instead of the usual sunny-side-up egg, it has what looked like scrambled egg, which was very cleverly made from toufu and almost tasted like the real thing. The soup has radish, carrots, soya beans and perhaps a piece of yam-cum-sweet-potato thing.

C.A.M. food stall

Like I've told EJ in the lasagna post, there is really a western food stall called Crazy Ang Mo... no kidding!



After I took the above photo, the owner of CAM suddenly crept beside me to peep at what I took! :P

I told him I took the photo of his signboard to show a friend from Canada who could not believe that anyone would name a business with such a crazy name. Haha!


The owner, Paul is the guy in the photo on RHS - the guy in black with the cap. He said when he first met his MIL, she called him "siao ang mo" (in Hokkien), and that's how the CAM name came about.

I didn't order any food from him, but had rojak instead.

Vegetarian bee hoon

It's the first time we've tried this bee hoon, which the SO tar-bao back from this vegetarian stall.



The cabbage had lots of carrots, the pumpkin looked fresh and bright, and the egg (with mushroom) was yummy.





I still don't know how this kind of egg was cooked, perhaps scrambled?

It's not exactly an egg omelette which is more flat and like, pan-fried.

These are like round bits of cooked egg with bits of other ingredients inside and aren't oily - quite common at chye png stalls.

Maybe someone can shed some light, e.g. cook it over low fire, must add water to the egg mixture, etc. ?

Sinful Sunday dinner

Part of our dinner last Sunday.



Fried carrot cake from a coffee shop in AMK - this was surprisingly very good!




Murtabak was so-so though...the curry was thick but I was craving more for the Indian type of curry.

Lasagne from C.A.M.

Recent dinner from Crazy Ang Mo - chicken & vege lasagne



The ang moh touted it as very good (but of course) and it is good in a sweet, homely taste kind of way.

However, it didn't have the kick of Italian food that comes from thick, flavourful tomato sauce and herbs which I was looking for, so I'm certainly not hooked. It's a bit too watery, actually.


Price: $7.90 with either salad or mash potatoes

Recent makan

Some of the food we've had recently:

Chicken chop from Crazy Ang Mo


It was tasty - well-marinated and moist. I like their fish n chips too, which I find is better than the average western food from food courts/hawker centres, but I don't know why our guy friend kept complaining about their food. (Well, if he can like the Balinese pushcart mee bakso, then I guess there's no accounting for taste! :P )

Indonesian style mee goreng from the new Indon food stall - very yummy and the sambal with ikan bilis was delicious. It's got 4 medium prawns too...not bad for $3.



Ayam Penyet from the same Indon stall, which is more average.



Guo Tie (pot stickers) from the hand-made noodle stall.



Breakfast (a bit overbaked) from Breadtalk - my favourite is the cranberry with cream cheese bun, but from Four Leaves Bakery.



Ahh...the surprise of the month. It's "grilled fish with breadcrumbs & herbs".


I didn't know what it was, but the way it turned out was really nice, with a dash of Italian herbs, I think.

The hidden mash with gravy underneath the egg...yummy!



Fried half spring chicken from A-Star coffeeshop.


I agreed to let them chop up the chicken but didn't expect them to also "batter" the pieces with the flavoured flour. It's as good as (if not better than) KFC.

*Slurp!*

Nasi Bryani

I haven't been cooking dinner much lately, coz it takes too much time to cook for 2 persons than it takes for us to eat the meal!

So, I've been buying our favourite nasi bryani from Tekka Market.

Nope, it's not from the often-quoted famous "A" stall, but from this one which I find even nicer.



The mutton dum bryani is very good and the basmati rice used is light enough that the first time I ate it, I managed to eat up ALL the yummy rice (which does not happen often)!

Somehow, the mutton usually tastes more fragrant than the chicken, so mutton bryani is preferred.



Closed-up of the tender, flavourful mutton from an earlier batch of rice.



We enjoyed the bryani so much so that we don't ever want to eat those bryani from around our place.

Tekka market is due for an overhaul in May, so we won't get to eat the bryani till more than a year later. I just hope this stall will still be there when renovations are completed.

ps: I have been eating the bryani from this stall for quite some time, but only in Jan this year did I realise that their bryani was rated 4 chopsticks by MakanSutra, which means excellent. Glad to know I have good taste...keke!

;P

Yummy hawker food

We were at People's Park area for a bit of shopping yesterday, and ate quite a lot of food...too much, perhaps! In the late-afternoon, I felt hungry (having had only a light lunch) and went to galivant around the hawker centre for food.

The SO wanted to reprise his past yummy experience with the chee cheong fun, but in the end, we choose a new item instead from the same stall, i.e. chee cheong fun maki with zhar2 jiang4! We forgot to take photos of this item but it had bits of carrot and cucumber strips and meat sauce rolled in thin, smooth layers of egg crepe, seaweed and chee cheong fun (steam rice pastry), then cut up to look like rolls of maki. It was yummy, with 6 large rolls at $3.

Later, we also consumed the following:
:P


Amoy Street Fried Oyster (Orh Luah, min.$4 for a tiny plate)

Pot Stickers (Guo Tia, $6 for 12 pcs) and Hot & Sour Soup ($6, enough for two) from Tien Jin Feng Ji

Closed-up of the hot and sour soup which had lots of liao/ingredients

I felt very full after all that binging and right until bedtime. :P

Spring onion pancakes and hot & sour soup

We had these at the Lavender Foodcourt, from a stall that sells Shanghainese food.

Szechuan hot & sour soup and spring onion pancakes (葱油饼)

The soup was average, but can't complain lah, since it only cost a dollar or so, and the pancakes were really good and yummy!

Although the pastry looks thick, it didn't taste heavy but was nice and crispy. The chilli dip was shiokado! too and would even go well with chicken.