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!

Comfort food when you're under the weather

A few days ago, when I was down with a bad virus and having eaten only watery oats for a day, I started to crave for something that was soupy and light but delicious. And immediately, fish bee hoon (vermicelli) came to mind.

Unfortunately, there weren't any stalls selling fish bee hoon nearby my place, so I just had to make do with looking at some pictures I took of a particular fish bee hoon that I tried recently.


Comfort food

Let's start with the good: The stallowner was generous with the crunchy green vegetables and pieces of fish (I counted 6 chunks of fish in my bowl!), the thick bee hoon was springy and not soggy, and for $3, it was overall a pretty big helping.

The bad: The fish was a tad over-fried, making it slighty tough to the bite. I also felt the soup base - which I must say, is the most important factor in determining a good fish bee hoon - did not have enough oomph. Maybe the stallowner was just having an off day (I say this because my friend who frequents this market always waxes lyrical to me about this stall, so I trust that it has some standards!), but the broth was not rich enough with the essence of fish, making it rather bland. 3.5/5


The friendly stallowner caught in action

Nevertheless, I would give this stall a second chance and revisit it based on the fact that the stallowner and (I presume) his wife, are both very friendly people and because at $3, this large bowl of fish bee hoon is good value for money.



PS: Maybe you can try it and let me know if the stallowner was indeed having an off day or not!

Address:
Hup Soon Fishhead Mee Hoon - Blk 58 New Upper Changi Road Hawker Centre and Market, #01-208
Open from 8.30am - 3.30pm daily

Black, dark, sweet and very very delicious

Hands up those who like carrot cake. No, not the ang moh version - the Singaporean hawker version.

I'm guessing there must be many hands shooting up right now. And it's not difficult to see why. Carrot cake, or chye tow kueh as it is more popularly known as to locals, is soul food to me. When I was growing up in the Tiong Bahru area (and we all know that Tiong Bahru market has some of the best hawker food around), I would never fail to have a plate of carrot cake at least twice a week. Health enthusiasts out there are probably shaking their heads at my terrible dietary habits right now. But how can anyone resist a plate of well-fried, slightly sweet, crispy yet moist and fragrant plate of carrot cake?

Unfortunately, the stall that I used to frequent at Tiong Bahru market has since closed. And I've been struggling to find another stall that serves up carrot cake the way I like it to be.

So you can imagine how rapturous and excited I was when I stumbled upon this gem of a stall in New Upper Changi Road! The taste of the carrot cake is very similar to the one I used to eat when I was a kid. But you know what the best part is? Not only is the taste similar, the price of the carrot cake is also the same! You can get a very satisfying plate for ONLY $1.50 (or $1.20 for a carrot cake without eggs)! And no, your eyes aren't playing tricks on you. I couldn't help thinking to myself: "This stall never increase price...no inflation meh?"


Check out how wonderfully cheap the carrot cake is!

Anyway, just take a look at this carrot cake. Isn't it a beauty?


Now you see it...

The carrot cake is generously fried with lots of garlic and chye poh (preserved salty radish), which is the way I think all good carrot cake dishes should be done. The carrot cake itself is also soft and wobbly without being mushy. The taste is fragrant and the bits of salty chye poh in the dish combined with the sweet dark sauce that coats the carrot cake is the best taste in the world - savoury intermixed with tinges of sweetness. There is a good wok hei ("essence" imparted by a hot wok on the food - definition from Wikipedia) flavour in the carrot cake and the chilli packs a really good punch too.

What I like very much (and was pleasantly surprised) about this stall is that the stallowner makes it a point to "cut" the bigger pieces of carrot cake into smaller bits whilst frying it. This, to me, is the ultimate show of skill and knowledge in frying carrot cake. If the pieces of carrot cake are too big, there will not be enough flavour permeating through it. Hence a good carrot cake stall should fry the carrot cake in smaller bits so that when customers eat it, there are crispy bits for added texture and also, each mouthful is bursting with flavour. Many carrot cake stalls don't do that, and when I request them to, some even "tsk tsk" me rudely! So credit must definitely be given to this stall for doing that without being told to! 4.8/5


Now you don't!

The stall serves up both the white and black versions of the carrot cake. I only tried the black one though, but seeing how cheap and delicious the carrot cake is, you can bet I'll be scurrying back to try more!


Credit must be given to this auntie who fries her carrot cake so superbly!

Address:
Siglap Market Carrot Cake - Blk 58 New Upper Changi Road Hawker Centre and Market, #01-223
Open from 6am to 2pm daily (or earlier if they are sold out)

For carrot cake afficionados:
Here's a link to those who want to try their hand at making their own carrot cake at home! (and abit of a history on carrot cake!)
http://www.visitsingapore.com/publish/stbportal/en/home/about_singapore/fun_stuff/recipes/carrot_cake.html

Dinner tonight

Today was one those rare days that my mum wasn't home to cook, so my dad decided to ta pow (take away) dinner from the newly renovated Old Airport Road Hawker Centre.

Now, the Old Airport Road Hawker Centre is known as a food mecca of sorts, because you can find a whole host of famous makan there, like wanton mee, char kuey teow, kway chap, rojak and not forgetting the legendary Nam Sing Hokkien mee. I haven't had the chance to visit the hawker centre since its facelift, so it was with much delight when my dad annouced that he would be taking dinner orders for food from the Old Airport Road Hawker Centre.

I hurriedly announced that I wanted the Hokkien mee ($3) of course!

I'm glad to announce that the Hokkien mee is still very good even after the hawker centre is renovated! (We all know that the cleaner the hawker centre, the less tasty the food is...kinda strange but true, isn't it?) Well, the noodles were well-flavoured and absorbed the flavourful seafood/pork stock well, though I've to admit it was a tad soggy by the time dad got home with the noodles. The prawns were fresh while the fiery hot sambal was damn shiok! Really gave the Hokkien mee a good kick. 4/5

But I think if I were to eat it there and then when the noodles are freshly fried, it would taste even better.

I now leave you with pictures of my very satisfying dinner... (before I wolfed everything down that is)







Address:
Nam Sing Hokkien Fried Mee - Old Airport Road Food Centre #01-32
Open from 7am to about 8pm or when everything is sold out

Hawker delight!

Hawker centres are so underrated. They serve up cheap and good food that all Singaporeans can identify with and when most of us return back to Singapore from a long trip abroad, the first dish that we want to eat is, more often than not, something from a hawker centre. Be it fried carrot cake, char kuey teow, fishball noodles (with more chilli and vinegar please!), satay or oyster omelette - and the list goes on - all of us have a favourite hawker dish that we are obsessed with. Therefore, it is only right that in honour of the wonderful food that our humble hawker centres have been dishing out thoughrout the years, that Eat East's very first food review shall be on hawker fare.

Two dishes that I am particularly partial to are bak chor mee (minced meat noodles) and oyster omelette, more commonly known as or luak. And I personally feel that some of best bak chor mee and oyster omelette on this island can be found in Fengshan Market & Food Centre in Bedok.


foreground: bak chor mee. background: oyster omelette

For starters, there are two bak chor mee stalls standing side by side in Fengshan Market. I usually go for the dried version ($2.50) which only Seng Hiang Food Stall serves. Tossed in a robust chilli mixture that has bits of dried shrimp added for extra flavour and bits of aromatic crispy lard, the egg noodles immediately take on a life of its own. The stall owner also cooks the noodles al dente so it is springy to the bite. Those who cannot take spiciness can go for Seng Hiang's soup version, though I think that if you want a real kick, the dried version is the way to go.


Seng Hiang Food Stall

The real star of the show however, is the soup. Pork balls and minced pork are added in the flavourful soup that has been lovingly brewed with pork bones and other spices. This results in the soup being wholesome and chock-full of porky goodness. Garnished with chopped spring onions and a dash of fried onion oil, it is difficult not to want to slurp the whole bowl of fragrant broth down. 4.2/5

Oyster omelette is also another dish that never fails to perk my olfactory senses up. There is just something about the scent of eggs, sweet potato starch and juicy oysters being fried together on a hot pan that makes this dish such a winner. In my opinion, a good or luak is one that is has nicely crisp bits and yet is moist enough (ie: not overcooked). There must also be a subtle oyster flavour (if there is an overwhelming oyster smell, it means that the oysters probably aren't fresh!) and the fragrant fish sauce must flavour the eggs and crispy sweet potato starch thoroughly.


Zhen Zong Wu Luo Bei Hao Jian (there isn't an English name) satisfies my criteria on all counts. Although they serve other dishes like fried Hokkien mee, char kuey teow and carrot cake, the oyster omelette (from $3) is the numero uno dish. The or luak is wonderfully savoury smelling while the oysters are just the right size - not too big. When dunked into the tangy chilli dip and eaten with the flavoursome fried egg and crispy starch, it is difficult not to feel like you are in hawker food heaven. 4/5



Zhen Zong Wu Luo Bei Hao Jian (too busy eating so I forgot to snap a shot of the stall. Picture from http://mrs-sheng.blogspot.com/, titled "suppers again" posted on August 26, 2007)

Address:
1. Seng Hiang Food Stall - Blk 85, Bedok North Rd, Feng Shan Market & Food Centre, #01-08
Open from 6pm-4am daily

2. Zhen Zong Wu Luo Bei Hao Jian Blk 85, Bedok North Rd, Feng Shan Market & Food Centre, #01-51
Open from 6pm till late daily