A Weekend Tale of Two Bak Chor Mees

I had bak chor mee for breakfast over the weekend on both Saturday and Sunday. On Saturday morning, I decided to head to River Valley after dropping the husband off at work.

Loon Seng Coffeeshop at the junction of River Valley Road and Kellock Road has been around for a long time. I used to go there to eat bak chor mee with my father during school holidays in secondary school, junior college, university and after I started work, even on the alternate Saturday mornings on. They have 3 stalls: one hor fun stall, one roasted meats stall, and one bak chor mee stall. The roasted meats stall only opens at 12pm, and I used to love their char siew. Nowadays, I'm not so sure about it because the service is poor, prices have increased and portions have decreased.

The picture below looks deceptively empty. When I arrived at the coffeeshop at 8.45am, the place was completely full, and the only seat I could get was at the smoking corner, which I usually try to avoid. When I placed my order, the first thing the bak chor mee uncle said was “你能等吗？要等很久。” - can you wait? It's going to take a very long time. He was right. I waited 35 minutes!

This shop separates their noodles from their meat, which is placed in the soup bowl. The mushrooms come on top of the noodles, while the minced pork, pork slices and seaweed go into the soup. I recall he used to serve liver as well, but has stopped that in recent years. Each bowl costs $3.50.
The soup is rather bland, but it's comforting to know that it hasn't been over-salted.

The noodles come with bits of salted fish that add to the depth of flavour. There aren't the usual pork lard bits, and the amount of vinegar and chilli added is just right.
I didn't manage to get a photo of the stall (or the name) because I was sitting alone sharing a table with strangers, and when I left the place, there were too many people standing around the stall. Will photograph it next time. The next day on Sunday morning before church, I met friends at my next favourite bak chor mee off Short Street. It's at Selegie House, shown in the picture below. I've been going there for about 5 years now.

The bak chor mee stall is in a 2-unit coffeeshop and is the only one open in the morning. It's run by an older lady and a younger man, presumably a mother-and-son pair. Incidentally, the drinks stall is managed by a part-time TCS actor. I don't know his name, but he's usually featured in the drama serials about Chinese mythology.

The bak chor mee here is quite different - it's mostly lard based, and you can taste the pork oil in the noodles. The chilli paste is made in-house, and the auntie doesn't add ketchup (I personally think that adding tomato ketchup to bak chor mee is just wrong) which is a great thing. Each bowl costs $3.

Each bowl comes with minced pork, 3 fishballs, 1 prawn and slices of fish cake. And smatterings of fried pork lard : )

You can also add more chilli, spring onions and pork lard if you want.

Literally translated, the name of the stall is Jin Xing Teochew Fishball Noodles Soup. The auntie posed quite happily for me when she heard I really liked her noodles and was going to write about her.

Loon Seng Coffeeshop

429 River Valley Road

Coupon parking available along Kellock Road

Thye San Eating House

Blk 9 Selegie House

#01-19&20

Illegal parking available just outside the coffeeshop :p

Hyang-to-gol Korean Restaurant

Warning: Lots of pictures of meat. Not for herbivores.

Hyang-to-gol is located on the 2nd floor of Amara Hotel, tucked away in a small corner in between Silk Road and Than Ying. I had never known that Amara had a Korean restaurant, having been to Silk Road, Than Ying and Santaro several times. It was about half-full on a Saturday night, although there was a steady stream of customers.

They serve many varieties of meat, mostly fatty cuts. The meat is not cheap though - the beef plates cost $35 t0 $40 per plate, while the pork plates cost over $20. We ordered 2 serves of the beef rib, one serve of squid, one soup and one raw beef (yukke).

The standard appetisers

Ikan bilis - quite nice and crunchy

Kimchi

They give you 2 dipping sauces to dip the meat into, one which tasted vaguely of miso, and the other being a salt-sesame oil mix. I preferred the latter.

Raw meat being grilled.

The smell was divine!

We didn't expect help for the grilling.

Freshly grilled fatty beef...absolutely divine.

Raw beef with raw egg yolk and korean pear. Absolutely yummy!

Second round of beef being grilled

Squid

Soup

Hyang-to-gol Korean Restaurant

165 Tanjong Pagar Road, Level 2 Amara

Tel: 6220 7160

Open daily from 11.30am-3.00pm & 6.00pm-2.00am.

Poison Ivy at Bollywood Veggies

Saturday turned out to be a hot and lazy day - the sort where you want to try somewhere off the beaten track. We decided to try out having lunch at Poison Ivy, which is the eatery at Bollywood Veggies.

Everything at Bollywood Veggies appears rustic, natural and made from scratch.

The person pictured below is whom I assumed to be the co-owner of Bollywood Veggies...he didn't introduce himself but I was quite sure he was the Lim in Singh-Lim. I didn't see his (undeniably more famous) wife, but he was going around all the tables chatting with customers and giving recommendations on what to order. He made us feel right at home.

We ordered chicken curry ($4), papaya salad ($4), fish curry ($4), sweet potato leaves fried with chilli ($4), and brown rice ($1.50 per serve). Our consciences wouldn't have allowed us to order white rice.

The brown rice was surprisingly soft and fluffy. So good you can even eat it on its own.

I liked the sweet potato leaves but felt it could have been better with slightly more garlic.

The papaya salad was refreshing, but it was made using a recipe quite different from the usual Thai version. I'm not sure that I would order this again.

The fish curry with pineapple was pleasantly sour, with the right amount of sweetness to balance the tang. The fish was fried tempura-style, and then served with the curry poured over it. My mother enjoyed it.

We also ordered lemongrass tea (you can get it hot or cold, $2 each). It was nice and refreshing, and healthy too since there was no sugar added.

The bill came up to $23 for 2 people, which I felt was quite reasonable. The best part about eating there is that you have total peace of mind without needing to worry about MSG, hormone additives, preservatives and GM stuff. There's also a farm tour for $2 (free for senior citizens and caregivers) but we decided to give it a miss. Maybe next time.

Poison Ivy

100 Neo Tiew Rd

Open Wednesdays to Sundays (9am - 6pm)

Tel: 68985001

Guan Hoe Soon Restaurant

Guan Hoe Soon Restaurant along Joo Chiat Road has always been a very special place for me. When I was little, we used to visit my Peranakan grandparents who lived along Joo Chiat Road just up the road every Saturday. Guan Hoe Soon was one of the restaurants we would go to regularly, probably about once a month. My grandfather liked the hee peow soup there very much. For my grandmother to condescend to eat there, it must have been really good since she was (and still is) the best cook I know.

When I got married 2 years ago, we catered our lunch buffet from Guan Hoe Soon. I'm proud to say that until today, my parents-in-law are still receiving compliments from their friends about the food at our wedding (especially the bakwan kepeting and chendol). After making the booking then, I casually mentioned it to my mother, and she told me that Guan Hoe Soon had also catered the food at my parents' wedding as well, which was held in 1967 just up the road at my grandparents' place in a tok panjang style. It was a wonderful discovery!

[Side story: I was so dying to eat the food at my wedding that after I thought I was done with saying hi to all the 400plus guests, I plonked myself down with strict instructions to my friends to just sit with me and not talk to me at all so I could eat. The quality of the food when mass-catered, compared to eating at the restaurant, was still really good! I was most annoyed when people kept coming up to me to congratulate me :p Fortunately there were 2 spin-off parties in the weeks after that (2 of my friends at the wedding had decided to use them to cater for their babies' first month & birthday celebrations) so I got to eat my fill subsequently!]

Today, Joo Chiat Road has developed into quite a different place from what I remember as a child. My father would lament about how the place had degenerated from a stately Peranakan and Eurasian enclave to a seedy dodgy strip full of street workers and bars. When we went there last night for my parents-in-law's 32nd wedding anniversary, the street scene on the walk to the restaurant was fairly colourful.

The restaurant is run by a couple named Raymond and Jenny. Jenny is the granddaughter of the original owner who started the stop back in the 1950s. My father told me that the place was run by a Hainanese family - back in the early 1900s, many Hainanese chefs used to work in Peranakan households, and after picking up their cooking skills, would set up their own shops selling Peranakan food. The menu is pretty extensive, with dishes ranging from $8 for a small portion to over $20 for a large serving, depending on what you order.

I love the old school menu with the 1980s-style food pictures.
Their interior is fairly old school as well. They have printed napkins, and serve their Chinese tea in glasses. All the tables have marble tops, and you sit on coffeeshop-style wooden chairs.

What's a Peranakan restaurant without sambal belachan? Their sambal belachan is pretty good, with the right mix of chilli and prawn paste. You can also taste the limau perut in it.
They give you sambal timun salad with chicken gizzards as a starter. This dish is amazing. The bunga kantan flavour really stands out.
First up was hae chor.
Nonya chap chye

Bakwan kepeting. There was more bak than kepeting.
Assam pomfret. The husband liked it (I'm not a fish fan).
Ayam buah keluak. It was really good, with lots of assam and a pretty good mix of spices. My only gripe was that there were bits of buah keluak shells in the buah keluak filling. In cooking buak keluak for my family, my father used to clamp the nut, take a hacksaw and carefully saw off the edge of the nut. To ensure that there were no sharp bits, he would then sandpaper each nut. But guess that takes too much time for a commercial enterprise.

Hainanese pork chop. One of my father-in-law's favourites. I didn't try any...no self-respecting Peranakan goes to a Peranakan restaurant to eat Hainanese food : )

No matter how much you eat, you must must MUST save space for dessert. I was told by my parents-in-law that my husband's grandfather had no less than F O U R servings of chendol at our wedding. It is really the best chendol in Singapore. My friend told me that her diabetic grandmother used to sneak out of the house and take a taxi to Guan Hoe Soon to have her chendol fix, and casually arrive back home pretending nothing had happened. I don't know how that is possible. Eating Guan Hoe Soon's chendol is a life-changing experience!!!

Raymond told us that the brown syrup is not basic gula melaka, but gula melaka combined with 3 other types of sugar and boiled for hours. Even the way they soak the red beans is special - they don't just soak it in water, but also add some sugar to soak it before and after they boil the beans.
If you intend to go there on a weekend, make sure you get there early. On a visit to Guan Hoe Soon earlier this year on a Friday night, the place was packed solid and there were many people waiting outside for a table (they don't take reservations). We took the last available table, and were most gratified to see KF Seetoh (of Makansutra fame) standing in the five-foot way for at least half an hour waiting for a table. Since he was without his camera crew (and signature hat), it was good to know that the place was good enough for Seetoh to patronise during his day off.

Guan Hoe Soon Restaurant

214 Joo Chiat Road

Tel: 6344 7261

Open every day except Tuesdays for lunch and dinner (they close at 9pm)

http://www.guanhoesoon.com/

Edit (12 Jan 2010): They've moved to 38/40 Joo Chiat Place just round the corner. Their number and website remains unchanged.

Kaffe Krema

Kaffe Krema at International Plaza serves the best toasted sandwiches in town that I know of. It's a small joint housed in a tiny space near the building entrance, and every time I've gone there I've always crossed my fingers that there'll be seats available (I don't think there's much point in ordering a toasted sandwich to go and then letting it get soggy in a brown bag). There's seats available for about 10 people at any one time, and there's probably about an equal number of people in the queue concurrently.

The lady to the left in black is Kat/Cat (sp?). She's the lady boss of the place, and also makes all the sandwiches. She runs the place with Alfie (not pictured) who makes the coffees, salads, dishes out the soups and most importantly, takes the money. Some of the things she says are ROTF hilarious. In this picture below, she's probably scolding the poor chap for not being able to decide what to eat.

They have a refrigerated case out in front containing all the sandwich fillings as well as salads. They have quite a good variety of sandwiches - roast beef, ham and cheese, tuna melt, grilled vegetables, corn beef and hash, BLT, smoked salmon, rosemary chicken and just about any other standard sarnie that you could think of. The sandwiches range from $5 to $7.50 depending on what you choose to add.

Their shop is pretty small but somehow they manage to serve quite a lot of stuff. The salads are around $6 and are quite good as well. My personal favourite is the nuts and cheese salad. They also have homemade soup ($3 for a small bowl, $5 for a large one). The sandwiches are freshly made to order and toasted in the 2 toasters just behind Kat.

My smoked salmon sandwich ($7.50) with cream cheese, lettuce, capers and avocado on ciabatta.

Eating Companion No.1's grilled vegetable sandwich ($5) containing aubergines, carrots, zucchini and onions.

Eating Companion No. 2's chicken bacon sandwich on multigrain bread. Not sure how much it cost.

Alfie makes great coffees and if you're a regular, he remembers exactly how you like your coffee. Perfect every time! This cafe latte was $3.50.

Some time back in 2007, I was majorly depressed with work, fed up with what I was doing and wondering how to get out of the rut (or jail) that I was in. I was sitting miserably at the counter when Kat started talking to me. I will always remember her advice: she started making sandwiches because she was passionate about them, and as long as she was passionate about it, she would always make good sandwiches. So the solution was to find something I was passionate about doing, and to do it.

I've had a brief reprieve these 2 years, but this wonderful posting is almost over. Planning for March 2011 to do what I really feel passionate about : )

Kaffe Krema

International Plaza

#01-16

Tel: 6220 0105

Open weekdays for breakfast and lunch