Xu Jun Sheng (Long Ji) Reprise

We headed back to Xu Jun Sheng one weeknight with a very old friend who was deeply interested in trying this old favourite family haunt, especially the cold crabs. They didn't disappoint us - but just in case, I decided to ring up to reserve 3 crabs, which worked out to 1 crab per person : )

Check out the vermillion-hued roe

We ordered a pork trotter with more meat less fat

Their hae chor is probably one of the best in Singapore

Otak was really good too - the right combination of lemak + spiciness, and not too soft and soggy.

Minced pork with salted fish - terrific with white porridge

We ordered tua tow which was slightly too fishy. Otherwise the black bean sauce was great

Sweet potato leaves with sambal - this was fairly ordinary, but still good

The lala was outstanding - the clams were fresh, and the sambal+taucheo+garlic+chinese wine sauce was so good we were drinking it straight

All that, for 3 people plus 1 bowl of muay each, came up to just over $100. And we managed to finish everything, down to the last clam. We did extremely well, I reckon.

And we headed off to One Twenty Six for peach lambic and dessert.

Xu Jun Sheng is at 121 Joo Chiat Road. Somehow the vibe at lunch is much better than at dinner time, but the food is just as good no matter what time of the day.

Post publish edit: Their closure was reported in Apr 2014 - a very sad day for all fans of real Teochew food and Joo Chiat residents. 

Xu Jun Sheng (Long Ji) Teochew Cuisine again

We hadn't been to Xu Jun Sheng (Long Ji) in a while, and were happy to head back there for lunch after church one Sunday.

We ordered a platter of chye buay, belly pork, and tau kwa, which was great with the porridge.
Their cold crab is always a winner. Loved the roe - but oh, so sinful!

We had a fried fish - not that Teochew, but nice nonetheless

Sweet potato leaves cooked with chilli and garlic

Another longstanding favourite - tua tow with black bean sauce

Pork ribs w bittergourd and black bean sauce

Hae chor - beautifully fried and wonderful with the sweet dipping sauce.

They've moved to 121 Joo Chiat Road Singapore 427140. Open for lunch and dinner from Mon to Sat, and only lunch on Sunday, but somehow better for lunch than dinner, me thinks.

Tonny Restaurant 利宝饭店

I had heard about Tonny Restaurant from a number of sources but had no impetus to visit the place until 2 of my foodie friends made plans to go. It's at the first storey of 2 shophouses and has the feel of an old school chinese restaurant serving zi char food. Eating with foodie friends is both good and bad - you know they're prepared to spend money ordering whatever, but you also have to eat things you wouldn't normally want to order.

One of Tonny's signature dishes is Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon ($8 each), described on the menu as "Medley of Lobstero (?) Egg White and Dried Scallop". It came in something like a wanton skin bowl. I thought this was nice but slighty overrated, since Imperial Treasure also has a really nice egg white and scallop dish with pepper and vinegar that costs about one and a half times with twice the amount.
Yam with truffle oil - shredded yam strips deep fried and topped with truffle oil. I can't remember how much this cost, but it really wasn't that exciting either. Interesting but not sure that I'd order it again if I was looking for something special.

Another dish that I wouldn't have ordered normally was the poached sliced beef with golden mushroom ($18). It was very ordinary.

Things started looking brighter when the "Double Egg Spanish (?) with Chicken Broth" ($12) arrived. This was very yummy - we drank up every last bit of the broth.

The other signature dish is the "Full Cream Crab Congee" ($8 per 100 g), or crab porridge. Now, this I found to be extremely amazing. Words cannot describe how rich, how good, how tasty, how heartwarming, how delicious the crab congee was. The milt of the crab was stirred into the porridge, resulting in a glorious blend of crab and congee.

They removed the crabs before dishing out the congee into separate bowls. There was a lot of crab : )

I have no idea what grains went into this congee, but boy was it good.

We also had the roasted spring chicken ($20), which was pretty good.

Dessert was Osmanthus Jelly with Wolfberries, which was nice but not outstanding.

Dinner for 3 persons cost a total of $150. We thought this was extremely reasonable given the crab and the volume of food, which the waitresses had initially discouraged.

Tonny Restaurant

325/327 Joo Chiat Road

Singapore 427582

Tel: 63489298

HP: 98152113

Open daily from 11.30am–2.30pm, 6pm–10.30pm

Xu Jun Sheng (Long Ji) Chao Zhou Mei Shi

In an earlier post, I mentioned that my father's family used to live in Joo Chiat Road. Since the lifting of the Rent Control Act in 2001, many families (including mine) and commercial tenants had to relocate elsewhere. Even though many of the buildings had been gazetted for conservation allowing the streetscape to be retained, the physical memories were meaningless once the old tenants gave up their leases due to inability to afford the higher rents. Far from being a link to the past, these conservation buildings actually stand as a bitter and painful reminder of how life in Katong used to be, and how different it is now.

While I was in school and up till university, my father would take 2-3 weeks vacation leave during the school holidays and we would bring my grandmother out to eat at various places around the East. I've already shared earlier that my Nyonya grandmother was a brilliant cook, which meant extremely high standards when it came to food. One of our favourite haunts was a Teochew food stall in a coffeeshop at the junction of Tembeling Road and Joo Chiat Place, opposite a URA open-air carpark. My grandmother would have to simultaneously hitch up her sarong higher, hold on to her walking stick, while trying to negotiate the uneven concrete slabs placed over open drains. But the effort was all worth it to eat at the Teochew food stall. When we were told a couple of years back that the Teochew stall had closed down to due the building being restored, we were honestly devasted since we didn't even know the name of the shop and had no idea how to contact the owners. All we knew was that it was run by 3 brothers.

Two weeks ago, I saw an article in the New Paper featuring a Teochew stall at Joo Chiat Place, and it was simply wonderful to read that our favourite Tembeling Road teochew muay shop had resurrected close to its original site. We managed to make it there for lunch on Saturday, but were slightly alarmed since the Business Times, of all weeks, had decided to do a zi char special that day and had also featured the stall. The stall is named Xu Jun Sheng (Long Ji) Chao Zhou Mei Shi (which kind of explains why we had no idea what it was called), and is now located at 59 Joo Chiat Place, at the junction of Joo Chiat Place and Tembeling Lane. We arrived there at 2pm, and almost every table was taken.

There are two stalls in the coffeeshop, one selling char kuay teow and the other our beloved Teochew stall. Don't let the empty table fool you, it had just been cleared before I took the photo and was quickly occupied after.

I love Teochew muay shops that are generous with their chilli.

Finally the food arrived! Chye buay and tow pok.

Otak (very yummy)

Cold crabs ($14 each) which are the best in Singapore. I'll never eat the yellow stuff at any other shop. Here, I'll gobble it all up.

Wonderful grainy teochew muay which is the stuff dreams are made of.

Hae chor (comes with sweet dipping sauce)

Sambal kangkong

Tua Tow

A loving parting shot at the remaining crabs in the showcase

The bill came up to $80 for 6 people, which isn't cheap, so be warned.

Xu Jun Sheng (Long Ji) Chao Zhou Mei Shi
59 Joo Chiat Place
Opening hours: Mondays to Saturdays - 11.00am to 9.00pm, Sundays - 10.30am to 3.00pm.
Closed on Wednesdays.
Phone: 9847 2946, 9030 8600 (Ask for Botak Koh)

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.