Beng Thin + Beng Hiang

I love working at Tanjong Pagar because it's so easy to get to good eating places. Maxwell and Amoy hawker centres are just a stone's throw away are 2 amazing hawker centres. Walk about 5 minutes more and there's the Tanjong Pagar Hawker Centre or Kreta Ayer Food Centre. Then there's the abundance of great restaurants at Chinatown - Telok Ayer, Tanjong Pagar and Kreta Ayer - as well as China Square, Raffles Place and Shenton Way.

I have a bunch of lunch kakis that love food from the different dialect groups, and frequently make the effort to try out different restaurants in the vicinity. For Teochew, we tried Lee Kui (Ah Hoi) at Mosque St and found it good but a bit expensive. We also gave Huat Kee a miss since we used to host official meals there almost once every 2 months for almost a year.

For Hokkien food, there's the 2 Bengs - Beng Hiang and Beng Thin - close by. Beng Hiang, at Amoy Street, has a strangely comforting old school charm with its Chinese tea served in glasses and peanuts on a melamine plate. You would almost expect pink serviettes and beer served with ice cubes to appear on the tables. It's one of my favourite places for a feel-good pig out lunch with colleagues. The hae chor (prawn roll) and ngoh hiang are really yummy, served hot and crispy on the outside, succulent and moist on the inside. I love dousing them in the sweet sauce and vinegared chilli sauce.

The steamed herbal chicken was decent but not all that exciting. My absolute favourite - dark thick hokkien noodles with a very rich sauce.

The kong bak is also absolutely delicious, with the meat cooked long enough to almost melt in the mouth.

Fans of crispy oyster omelette will be very satisfied. Oysters galore too.

On another occasion, we walked to the OCBC Building to try out Beng Thin. The interior appears a little more upmarket than Beng Hiang, and it's filled with business lunch types (compared to Beng Hiang which had a few more tables of uncles and aunties). But the food was really good as well.

We had the duck salad, which had mango, cucumber, jellyfish and rockmelon.

All stirred up with a combination of plum sauce and peanuts - it had a very interesting flavour. It didn't exactly taste like yusheng, but was slightly more savoury. I enjoyed it very much.

Crab meat with fishmaw soup - always good! Especially with vinegar and pepper.

The hae chor and ngoh hiang were delicious too.

One dish that I was pleasantly surprised by was the braised duck - it was so tender and tasty.

The duck was amazingly flavourful, and the sauce was worth licking up as well.

Their Hokkien noodles are not as dark or full of sauce as Beng Hiang's, but also very rich in flavour.

The oyster omelette was very crispy, and they were also very generous with the oysters.

They have pretty good orh nee with pumpkin and gingko nuts too.

Both places are great, and if I don't recall incorrectly, Beng Thin was just a little more expensive. Beng Hiang has a less upmarket feel about it. I would return to both any day, making my choice on whether I was feeling more homely (read:ugly) or a little more presentable.

Beng Hiang Restaurant

112-116 Amoy Street

Tel: 6221 6695 / 6221 6684

Open 7 days from 11:30am - 2:30pm and 6:00pm - 9:30pm

Beng Thin Hoon Kee Restaurant

65 Chulia Street#05-02 OCBC Centre

Tel: 6533 2818/6533 7708

Open 7 days from 11:30am-3:00pm and 6.00-10.00pm

String Cheese

One of my favourite Japanese snacks is String Cheese, which is essentially soft cheese that can be peeled off in strings. One of these packs costs almost $10 at Isetan Scotts, while these cost around 150Y each - which is less than S$3. Made in Hokkaido, they also have a smoked-flavoured version, which is the one on the left in a brown pack had a smoked flavour.

Japanese dairy products are really the best - tasty, with a great chewy texture, and absolutely delicious. I could sit all day and polish off piece after piece by peeling off the strands.

On hold

I haven't been able to bring myself to blog since the Japan earthquake because it seems so callous to be blogging about food while so many people's lives have been devastated. The sister and her family managed to evacuate in time before the radiation fears started compounding, which we are very grateful for. Contrary to what press reports might say, I was told that the Singapore Embassy in Japan made absolutely no attempt to contact the family nor to provide updates on whether evacuation was necessary, which is a huge disappointment in my opinion (I must qualify this is my personal view only and this does not represent the views of my sister and her family). Expatriates from other countries were flown out almost immediately after the earthquake, with assistance provided either by their consular authorities or companies. The husband and I have just returned from a week in Europe - London and Brussels - so the updates on those eating sprees will be posted soon.

Macarons from Artisan Sweets

This is a belated post, but the macarons were so good that I could not not blog about them. They were given to us for Christmas by friends who know us well - that when in doubt about what to get us, food usually is the answer.

I loved the design of the box. And it was lovely opening it up to find brightly coloured macarons below.

So pretty it took a bit of time to bring ourselves to eat them. We've never been die hard macaron fans, and would normally never venture to Marmalade Pantry or Canele to buy them. So this was a very pleasant introduction to the dark side - it really got us hooked.

Even comes with its own legend so you know what you're eating

We carefully sliced every macaron into half so that we could try every single one. The macarons were extremely light, crispy and not too sweet. Lovely with a hot cup of tea.

Prior to 2 weeks ago, all I knew about Artisan Sweets was that it was the shop that my friend had bought the macarons from, and that I would go back there to get macarons if I was going to buy any at all. As it turned out, we happened to be randomly seated next to the baker-owner of Artisan Sweets at a friend's wedding, and after we started chatting we were extremely surprised but delighted to have finally met the genius behind these amazing macarons. For a while I could not stop gushing over how good they were - it was rather embarrassing - but she and her husband appear to be a lovely couple who are most sincere and genuine about producing top quality desserts.

They're at 32 Holland Grove Road, Henry Park Apartments. Tel: 64686700, closed Sundays.

Northern Indian Stall at Suntec City Food Court

The husband and I have found this gem of a stall at the Suntec City food court at the basement near the fountain. It's a Northern Indian stall run by the same chaps that operate Hazara/Kinara at Holland Village and Boat Quay. $6 gets you naan, chicken tikka, 2 serves of a vegatable dish and a curry. The quality is good, and the serving sizes are very decent. Two thumbs up!

Penang Road Cafe

The husband and I went with the mother to try out this relatively new Penang place at Novena that we had read about in another food blog. We weren't expecting very much, but were pleasantly surprised to find that the food was pretty decent.

The mother liked the hae mee, which I found to be quite flavourful also.

The assam laksa wasn't too bad either

The husband liked the lor bak very much because it was leaner than expected

The char kuey teow was average - the kuey teow was probably slightly over fried and it could have had a little more sauce.

The ju hee char was really enjoyable though. Lovely and sweet.

We also tried the rojak and nutmeg tea, which I enjoyed. On the whole, it's a pretty decent place for a quick lunch if you're not expecting the spectacular.

Penang Road Cafe

275 Thomson Road

01-08 Novena Ville

62563218

Open for lunch and dinner everyday except Monday

Foie Gras and Cheese and Girlfriends

A combination of good friends and good food is very difficult to beat. I had a couple of girlfriends over for dinner one evening, and after dinner, the real meal started.

One of them brought over a Mont d'or cheese from Jones the Grocer, with a bottle of Chilean dessert wine.

She proceeded to cut the top skin off, and poured a couple of tablespoons of the dessert wine onto the cheese before baking it in the oven for 15 minutes at 180 deg C.

It came out nicely warm and melty

Best eaten with small toasted bread pieces

There was also foie gras that a friend had given me

The mini bread pieces came in this bag
Out they come

The same friend who bought the cheese also bought dried pear

Amazing combination of flavours : )

A Tale of Two Pizzas

We both love pizzas that have a thin chewy base with just a slightly crispy crust. We've always loved Spizza since it opened a few years back, but only recently discovered the Calzone, after years of eating the Quinta (which comes with an egg and truffle sauce). The Calzone comes with a huge dollop of tomato sauce on the side, instead of the inside, which means you can choose how tangy you want the bites to be.

Stuffed with ham and cheese and artichokes; all you need, really.

The husband and I recently discovered Bella Pizza at Robertson Quay and loved it. We had this boat-shaped pizza with onions and Italian sausage, and it was wonderful. We'll have to go back for more.

In our younger days (meaning last year and earlier) we could each manage a large Spizza pizza. Now we have to share one :(

Katong Laksa

I don't know which was the original Katong Laksa, and frankly I don't really care as long as there's good laksa to be had. I really like the laksa at the junction of East Coast and Ceylon Road at No. 51 - possibly 328 - it's spicy, not too rich and very shrimpy - yums!

Sheng Cheng Char Kuey Teow

The husband thinks very highly of Leslie Tay's recommendations, and will earnestly seek out stalls featured on the ieatishootipost website when he has time. So when he read about Hill Street Char Kuey Teow at Bedok South market, he decided that it was so good that it was going to be worth the calories and effort spent getting there. Unfortunately, we forgot to check whether they were open at night and after driving for half an hour (and paying ERP) we arrived there last week after work only to find the stall shut. That little adventure however sparked off a char kuey teow obsession in the husband, and so after work today, we went off hunting down another Leslie Tay recommendation.

Cheng Sheng at Jln Bukit Merah is run by an old couple, and they have servings in 2 sizes - $2.50 and $3.00. We tried both the char kuey teow and hokkien mee, and were pleasantly surprised to find that they both were of a pretty high standard.

The char kuey teow came steaming hot, and after one bite, we were so pleased - it was every bit as good as Leslie Tay said it was, with soft fluffy kuey teow doused in sweet black sauce which was slightly spicy. It was very flavourful with bits of lard scattered throughout.
The hokkien mee was very tasty as well, the stock was a great combination of the prawn and pork flavours.

Sheng Cheng Char Kuey Teow 生成炒粿条福建面

Block 132 Jalan Bukit Merah

Apparently the stall closes randomly now and then. They're closed from 8 March 2011 until the middle of the month.

Kluang Rail Coffee

So after our lunch in Malacca, we decided to head back earlier to avoid being caught in the Causeway jam. On the way back, however, we saw the turning to Kluang and I couldn't resist asking the husband to turn off so that we could try the coffee at the railway station. Most of the Malaysians that I know have said that the coffee is really good...and since we were nearby I just had to try for myself.

How to get there? Look for the railway tracks, and follow them.

And yay! We found the KTM station, as well as a (free) parking lot right in front of it!

BUT..it was closed :( Upon a closer look, we realised that they were closed for lunch. It was 2.10pm. They were reopening at 2.30pm. Could we wait? After having driven 20km off the N-S highway, OF COURSE we could.

So they've been around since 1938. Pretty cool tagline :)

It was really nice to see a local train station and people scrambling on and off. It's actually quite sad to think that come July, all we'll have are memories of the train rumbling through the Clementi and Bukit Timah areas.

Finally the doors opened at 2.30pm sharp. We weren't the only ones waiting.
I wonder whether the locals would have regarded these prices as reasonable or not.

The back of house. Nothing much, very humble.

Man, it was absolutely full within 5 minutes.

They had mee goreng, nasi lemak and various curry puff thingys on the table, which we saw a lot of people eating. We ordered a cup of coffee each, which the mother immediately pronounced as "no big deal" and "not worth the extra 40km drive nor 20 minute wait". The husband felt it was good, but not worth the drive. I thought it was fairly normal good coffee, but not worth the diversion either.

The kaya toast was very enjoyable, but again, not really worth the extra 40km (that's Singapore from east to west) and time spent.

By the time we left there was a queue for both indoor and outdoor tables - so the locals must love it!

On hindsight, if we were Kluang locals, perhaps we would have enjoyed the coffee and kaya toast a lot more. Unfortunately, it was perhaps the high expectations that left us feeling a little let down. But if I was ever going to be in Kluang again for any other reason, I think that I would still be quite happy to go there again.