Ye Lai Xiang Cheng Teng..mmm MMM!

Ok, although the blog assignment has ended, I thought it would be nice (and as a form of closure) to post up a review of the other stall I visited at Bedok Corner hawker centre.

This dish - or dessert - is none other than the well-loved cheng teng! Literally translated, cheng teng means "clear soup". But it is a sweet soup rather than a savoury one. Made with lots of goodies such as dried longan, crunchy white fungus and chewy glutinous flour balls just to name a few, cheng teng is a popular thrist quencher and light dessert perfect for those hot days (which is almost year round in Singapore if you ask me). Served either hot or cold (though personally, I always go for the cold version because it is SO refreshing), some say that cheng teng has "cooling" properties which will bring down body heat. So those who sense an oncoming sore throat or have taken too much "heaty" food (like deep fried stuff) should down a bowl of cheng teng pronto!


This clear, sweet liquid is a delight to glup down!

Anyway, Ye Lai Xiang cheng teng stall at Bedok Corner is quite famous with Easties (and some Westies). Next to it is a satay bee hoon stall also run by the same family with the same stall name. A little bird told me that because of the popularity of these two family-owned stalls, the owners have earned enough to buy landed property around the Bedok Corner vicinity! (Everybody say "wahhhh..." altogether!)

As for the cheng teng, I guess the owner must really be confident that his cheng teng is number one such that he can open a stall selling only that dessert. Well, I can't really put my finger on why it is so popular, but I can hazard a guess. Maybe it is the clear brown liquid that makes it so sweet and easy to drink, or because of the generous ingredients the owner puts in his cheng teng (dried persimmon, sweet potato cubes, dried winter melon strips, etc), or maybe because the owners are very very friendly people who always greet their customers with a smile (unlike the Hokkien Mee stall owner at Bedok Corner...)


At $2 or $3 per bowl, Ye Lai Xiang's cheng teng is chock full of ingredients...I like!

Well, my verdict is that this cheng teng tastes really delicious and makes for a fantastic thirst quencher on a hot day. I like how generous the owner is with his cheng teng ingredients. Every mouthful is a delight, really! I love how unpretentious this dessert is too (what's up with all the fanciful durian ice-kacang or multi hyphenate "modern" desserts you find in other dessert stalls?). This cheng teng tastes very home-made, and very comforting. 4.6/5



You must try this!

Address:
Ye Lai Xiang Hot and Cold Cheng Teng - Bedok Corner Food Centre, Upper East Coast Rd, Stall 31 (see this post on directions on how to get there)

Open from 4pm - 8pm (or when sold out), closed on Mondays

Oh you luscious plate of noodles!

To borrow a line from George Orwell's well-known novel, Animal Farm, he wrote that "All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others". Well, to use the same analogy, I would say that "All Hokkien Mee (HKM) are equal, but some are more equal than others".

Before you think I'm mad to be sprouting all these, I had possibly one of the best (not THE best, but ONE OF the best in a loooooong time) HKM at Bedok Corner hawker centre.

And it got me wondering: What exactly makes a dish of HKM great? Well, some say the dish has got to have a right mix of bee hoon (vermicelli) and yellow noodles, some say the sambal chilli must be shiok shiok while others say that the stock is the one that makes all the difference. If you ask my mother, she would say that the best HKM is fried generously with lard and wrapped in an opeh leaf (banana leaf).

Being part of the more health conscious younger generation (but as much as I think lard is one of the best inventions after sliced bread), I am more cautious eating a dish of HKM that is chockful of lard, no matter how sinfully tasty it is (but once in awhile is OK lah) because HKM is one dish I eat quite frequently outside. Which is why I think the best HKM is one that combines all of the abovementioned qualities sans the lard - good mix of bee hoon and yellow mee, sambal chilli that is pungent and spicy and the stock that is used to simmer the noodles in must be thick and rich.

Bedok Corner Hokkien Prawn Mee, bless the owner's soul, has all of those qualities that I think makes a great HKM.

It has a very good wok-hei flavour (meaning that the owner's control of the fire and wok is so good it imparts a mellowness to the noodles), the noodles are fried in a stock that is very rich, so you get whiffs of seafood and pork flavour in your noodles, the HKM is sufficiently moist without being overly "wet" or dry and the chilli...OH THE CHILLI! It is salty, pungent with the aroma of what I think is hae bee (dried shrimp) and is sufficiently spicy such that it gives a kick but doesn't numb your tongue. The squid and prawns are also quite fresh, though I think they could have been more generous with how they serve the squid - it was sliced very thinly so I couldn't exactly bite the silvers of squid properly. Where's the fun in that! One thing to note though, this dish of HKM does not come with your usual serving of belly pork, so it's just squid, prawns and egg. But I am really not complaining because the whole dish, taken together with a few drops of freshly squezed lime juice, is simply delightful (even with the stingy squid strips and lack of belly pork). 4.3/5


The stall is quite generous with its portion of noodles - this medium sized ($4) packet was too much for me and my friend to finish!

The only two bad things I can think about this stall is the queue, which is to be expected (I had to stand in line for about 15mins) and the attitude of the stallowners. I think they're a husband and wife team. The husband cooks while the wife takes orders, but the wife is quite a food nazi (full definition can be found here).

Exerpt from ieatishootipost:

"The concept of the Food Nazi was popularized by Seinfeld and it is a term I use for food sellers who have such a great following that they can afford to be cantankerous but people are still willing to suffer abuse in order to eat their stuff."

Well, the wife isn't exactly the nicest and politest stallowner around our little island. When I tried asking her for more chilli, she gave me a small glare and scooped only a teeny bit more onto my HKM. And when I asked her for her stall's opening hours, she grunted in response without looking at me. Now if that's not being a food nazi, I don't know what is! But since their HKM is so damn good, I shall grin and bear it anyway.


It doesn't look as appetizing here, but trust me on how heavenly it tastes!

Possibly one of the best tasting HKM I have tried in a long time. Certainly worth the queue and the grumpy auntie.



Address:
Bedok Corner Hokkien Prawn Mee - Bedok Corner Food Centre, Upper East Coast Rd, Stall 29 (see this post for directions on how to get there)
Open from 4pm to 9pm, closed on Monday

Bedok Corner - kampung days once more

One of the more famous hawker centres in the Bedok area is perhaps the Bedok Corner Hawker Centre, located near the Bedok Camp. One of the reasons for its popularity is because of the hawker centre's two famous stalls - one that sells Hokkien mee and the other that sells cheng teng.

The hawker centre itself is unlike the usual hawker centres you normally come acoss. Its layout is circular and there is a very "kampung" feel about the place. It is also one of the few hawker centres in Singapore I have come across that has so many Muslim/Indian food stalls in one place! So fans of Muslim/Indian food should really drop by to get their fix.

Anyway, back to the design of the hawker centre - after doing some research online about why this hawker centre is so designed, I managed to find the answer from here.

Exerpt:

"As the area used to be a Malay Kampung (village) in the 1980s, the new Bedok Food Centre has a Malay kampung design theme. The predominant design feature for this new food centre would be its roof forms. High pitch roofs are tiered down with big overhangs for maximum ventilation and rain protection. Two main feature roofs are at the two entrances to welcome visitors. Malay motif patterns are also created at the roof fascia to enhance the theme of the place. The individual food stalls are arranged around a central courtyard to reflect kampung-style community living."

And because this hawker centre is not very accessible (there are few buses that lead you there) and the nearest MRT (Tanah Merah) is about a 15-20min walk away and the food centre is also not very visible from the main roads, here is a map that you can refer to when you go there.

Click here to view map
Bedok Food Centre

Despite its relative inaccessibility, Bedok Corner hawker centre is well worth at least a visit. And I shall be reviewing some stalls that I tried in the Bedok Corner hawker centre over the next few days so you can see for yourself what goodies this small hawker centre has in store for you. But for now, you'll just have to be content with my (rather shaky) video showing the circular interior of the hawker centre and its various stalls. Enjoy!

Food for thought

As much as this is a food blog, I believe that it cannot be one-sided all the time. I.e.: talking about the gloriousness of food only and ignoring the possible side effects glorious food might bring along.

So, following my last post, some of you might have been wondering why I'm staying off red meat for the time being. Well, that's because we've all heard about the evils of eating too much red meat (saturated fat, increased risk of colon cancer, the works). And of course, the scary stories about how cows are fed ground up carcasses instead of letting them feed naturally on grass. They are, after all, herbivores. That got me quite turned off red meat.

But just yesterday, I stumbled upon some articles as I was surfing the net that got me really surprised. Apparently, this article says that there are some cuts of beef that are lower in fat than a - get this - SKINLESS chicken thigh! (The Double up chicken I ordered in my last post was a chicken thigh with skin on. Eeks!)

Could chicken really be more fattening than beef? The horror!

(Click to enlarge. Graph taken from http://www.beefitswhatsfordinner.com/nutrition/leancuts.asp)

And in this article, you can find seven reasons to eat beef that you were not aware of. Apparently, there are actually some really tangible benefits to eating red meat! (Just as long as you choose leaner cuts like a tenderloin steak, sirloin steak or filet mignon and opt for organic beef as much as you can.)

But as with all foods, eating in moderation is best. So since I've been staying off beef for awhile, plus there are actually benefits to eating red meat, maybe it's time to start queuing at Astons soon for some steak....

Mmmmm...

(photo taken from http://astonsspecialties.blogspot.com/)

Good and cheap western food - give $10 still got change! Whoa!

So did you guess which restaurant I was going to review? Well, it's none other than Astons Specialties! (Named after its chef-owner Aston Soon)

Astons serves up restaurant style Western food at very cheap prices. With $10, you can easily have your fill. Astons doesn't have service charge as well, but the waiters and waitresses are all pretty friendly despite that. And everyone knows that cheap and decent food and good service is a surefire route to success.

As such, this nondescript eatery along the Joo Chiat/ Katong stretch has been getting lots of attention from TV shows, newspaper reviews and of course, floggers (food bloggers) who wax lyrical about the exceptional quality of food for the price one pays at Astons.

As a result of the publicity, queues have inevitably formed in front of the restaurant. Now, Astons' queue system is rather peculiar. It does not accept reservations, so naturally, come dinner and lunch time, there will be hoards of people waiting in line. But the worst part is that customers have to queue outside the restaurant and wait for an empty table before they can place their order at the cashier and sit down. Surely there must be a better way to do this! Maybe coming up with a queue number system would be good. Making hungry people stand in line for at least 15 minutes facing tables which have food laid out on them already is just plain mean. Because of that, I have only eaten at Astons once before. (And I had to go at a weird timing of 4pm just so I could beat the queue and directly order my food).


I. don't. like. queues.

I digress. But because of how absurdly cheap Astons prices its food at for the quality given, I willingly queued two Sundays ago because I had a craving for good Western food (not the hawker centre style Western food) and was feeling quite broke. So naturally, Astons came to mind. The waiting time that day was about 20 minutes. And the food took around 15 minutes to come. (But it sure felt like eternity. I was STARVING.)

I decided to go for the Double up chicken. What that is exactly is two pieces of chicken thigh meat cooked in two different styles. (I chose to have my chicken chargrilled and with black pepper sauce) So for $9.90 (yes, your eyes aren't playing tricks on you) I had two portions of chicken meat with two sides of my choice.

The verdict: Well, there was nothing spectacular or jaw dropping about the Double up chicken. The meat was not tough, but it was not as tender as I would have liked it to be. My guess is that for the price, Astons must have used chilled chicken instead of fresh chicken, which would have been much more tender in texture. Taste-wise, the chicken was grilled a la minute (i.e.: cooked only when the order is made) so it did not taste stale. In fact, the chicken was grilled well, with some charred bits that gave it good flavour.

For the chargrilled version, my chicken was drenched in a sort of mushroom-y sauce that I thought tasted pretty standard. The sauce could have been more robust. But the black pepper chicken was better. The black pepper sauce was one of the fieriest I have eaten, and obviously catered to the Singaporean palette. So if you're the sort who complains that black pepper sauce usually has no kick, you should try the black pepper sauce at Astons.


The portion might look small here, but trust me, it was BIG.

My Double up chicken came along with a choice of two sides. And I had a hard time picking which two sides I wanted because everything sounded so good! For cold sides, you can pick from this list:
- homemade coleslaw
- potato salad
- pasta salad
- house salad

For hot sides, you can pick from:
- baked potato
- BBQ beans
- corn on cob
- french fries
- garden veggies
- mashed potato
- onion rings
- tasty rice

So you see what I mean by being spoilt for choice? In the end, I picked mashed potato and pasta salad. I am a huge mashed potato fan and I really liked the mashed potato here because it tasted really creamy and the sauce that came with it was actually the same sauce that my chargrilled chicken was drenched in. Somehow, the sauce went better with the mashed potato than with the chicken. The pasta salad was chilled, so it was quite refreshing to the palate. It came with julienned vegetables which added a nice crunch. 4/5

Overall, despite my complaints, I still feel that Astons is worth a try because for the price that you pay for, you actually get really decent tasting food.

*****

Now, I would like to mention that Astons is very well known for its beef dishes. (They go for as low as $12 for a ribeye if I don't remember wrongly!) But I didn't order beef that day because I'm staying away from red meat for the time being. However, other flogs online have always been raving about how good the beef is at Astons. Well, looking at what the signboard outside Astons reads, I'm sure the man knows and loves his beef.


The man and his beef obsession

You can read other reviews on how his beef dishes are here and he even created a burger and named it after my favourite flogger, ieatishootipost (who is quite possibly Aston's number one fan)! In fact, Aston has had such success with his restaurant (and beef) that he has opened Astons Prime (have not tried it yet), which is located a stone's throw from Astons Specialties. Apparently, one of Astons Prime's highlights is the prime rib of beef served in a cart. And Astons Prime also sponsored ieat's Charity dinner recently. A good chef with a heart of gold? I like!

Address:
Astons Specialties - 121A East Coast Road (opposite Katong Mall)
Open from 12pm to 1am on Tue - Thurs and up till 3am on Fri and Sat. Closed on Mon.
Tel: 6342 4634
Website: http://astonsspecialties.blogspot.com/

Astons Prime - 467 Joo Chiat Road
Tel: 6344 2447

PS: Astons aside, because I mentioned I was such a big mashed potato fan earlier, I thought I'd share this video I found on YouTube on how to make the perfect mashed potato. I shall try this recipe one day!

make a guess...

Incidentally, the chef/owner of the restaurant I'm featuring for my next post likes to hang out at Sin Hoi Sai Eating House!

How do I know? Well because of this post that's why!

Here's the chef...



His name is Aston Soon.
(picture taken from ieatishootipost)

Do you know which restaurant is going to be reviewed next on Eat East already? If not, stay tuned!

I don't think I've mentioned this before (because shy lah), but...

When I was working in TODAY this year, one of my responsibilities was to do food reviews. And while looking through some files in my computer today, I found this review I did on Waraku in June this year.

So besides this, you can also read my earlier review on Waraku that I wrote for the paper!