Friday, December 7, 2012

Woke up for nothing!

Reached the red hill porridge at 7.55pm. Queued for 20mins.

Abt another 8 people in front of us.


SOLD OUT!

Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Red Hill Porridge *favourite* - LOVE AT FIRST BITE!

Red Hill Porridge
#01-90
Red Hill Food Centre
85 Redhill Lane
S(150085)
- pork porridge
- fish porridge
- pork and fish porridge
- raw fish yu sheng

Mon-Fri
5.30am to 8.30am

(In any case, I'm sure that this porridge is already famous to begin with.  I won't be surprised if there are tons of reviews on this)

I don't remember being a porridge person.  I do have places I like though, like the Clementi central one (for the traditional taste), the Zhen Zhen porridge at Maxwell (for the yu sheng haha), and the one at Chinatown...I don't remember the name or even if the stall is still there.

In fact, my uncle recommended me to zhen zhen, and I kinda got hooked onto the yu sheng since then. 

Also, I do like the Sinma Frog Leg Porridge too.

Anyways, a few days back I decided to try my luck with chee cheong fun at Redhill Market, and I saw that at 7.45am in the morning, one porridge stall had like 8 people queuing, so I told myself that I'll be back.


And I was.

And I was shocked.  At around 7.50am, I was like the 29th in the queue!!!!  And even when I was served, there was like another 15 people waiting behind me!!!

And boy, did I NOT regret queuing!!!



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*I'm not a photograph person.  And obviously I do regret the seat that I chose, as you can see the shadows still there*

Being greedy, I ordered pork porridge, added egg, and a place of yusheng.

IT WAS LOVE AT FIRST BITE.

The porridge was SUPER thick, SUPER tasty!!!  After the first bite, I really spent some time deliberating if I should add more soy sauce to further enhance the taste.  But, I didn't, as I felt that the taste was just toooooooo good to eat it on its own!!!

It was so thick...even thicker than cantonese style porridge.  And maybe thicker than frog leg porridge!!  The smoothness wasn't as smooth at cantonese style porridge, but to me, it doesnt matter.  To me, porridge is about the taste, not the smoothness.  If a porridge was to be judged in terms of smoothness, then the one at Clementi would have failed terribly.



I then tried the yu sheng, which I thought was standard.  Nothing really special, and I do think I'd still prefer Zhen Zhen's yu sheng.

The more I ate the porridge, the more I loved it!!!


*From the photo, some parts of the porridge looks like there's this transparent water thing.  Which, happens to be the egg white.


Then came the mixing of the egg with the porridge.  Which gave me a little mixed feelings.

Why?

The first bite after mixing the egg, I immediately regretted!!  I couldn't get back the original taste!!!  ARGH!

But I was super amazed - most porridges, after mixing the egg, would just give a different taste which is a combination of egg and porridge (ok I can't find a better phrase to describe, but what I'm trying to say is that when mixed, most porridges would just give another taste.)

BUT NOT THIS!  The mix of the porridge and egg was something I've never experienced before!  Where the yolk's distinct taste not only blended with the porridge, it gave off a triple layered taste!  I could taste the yolk, the porridge, and then the mixed taste!

Excellent!!!

And that's how the mixed feelings came about.  I lost the the original taste of the porridge, but I found something that was on par!

The more I ate this mixture, the more I loved it!!!

The ingredients?

SUPERB.  EXCELLENT!  AWESOME!!!

The Clementi porridge, despite having the same ingredients, doesn't really bother with the texture of the ingredients.  ie.  the liver is overly though, the pork slices isn't tender.

This stall is just different!!

Liver was awesome!  Tender!  Cooked to perfection IMHO!  A little cooked on the outside and totally tender on the inside!!  Like the chef purposely cooked it a little raw, and let the warmth of the porridge do the rest of the work!

Pork slices?  Tender!  Tasty!

Pork balls?  Nice!!!

What's left, would be to see if the level of MSG used was insane to make it tasty. 

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And my verdict?

FAVOURITE!

LOVE AT FIRST BITE!
I have never been so awed by a simple bowl of pork porridge.  I am now a convert, though it will be really difficult to find the time to eat this again due to the unfavourable opening hours.  Oh wait.  I just mentioned crap.  Because my favourite kway chup opens around the same time too and it's even further for me to travel LOL.





I super regret ordering the $2 one.  I SHOULD HAVE ORDERED $3!!!
In fact, what I did notice is that they do sell plain porridge on its own; the ah pek before me ordered $3 and requested for a $1 extra porridge.  Maybe I'll do just that next time!! 


And lastly, I can safely say that it is not MSG that makes the porridge so tasty!  I did not feel thirsty immediately after that, and my lips did not crack (my lips will crack if too much MSG used.)

I'LL BE BACK!

Monday, December 3, 2012

End of the Bukit Merah Food Centre Project

Well, the Mei Ren Yu was the last of the project. 

There are like 2-3 more stalls I'd like to try.

Hopefully I get the chance in the near future!

Mei Ren Yu Yong Tau Foo *nice*

Mei Ren Yu Yong Tau Foo
#02-52
Bukit Merah Central Food Centre
Blk 163 Bukit Merah Road
S(150163)
- yong tau foo (obviously)
- laksa sauces


Not that I've never been a fan of yong tau foo (ytf for short), and not that I'm particular about ytf. 

There was, however, a period of time, when I thought that ytf was the healthiest food served at food centres, and I was quite hooked onto it.  Not that I like the taste, but more like it was healthy. 

In fact, my favourite ytf was the one that used to be at the kopitiam at Bedok Bus Interchange that sold $0.20 per piece.  And mine was like $4.80 LOL.

Anyways, for ytf, I normally look out for 1 thing:


The soup (do I see soy beans?  Does it taste of soy beans?  Or is it msg filled?). 

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If there was an option for a dry version or a soup version, 90% of the time I'd go for the dry version.  It's just a personal preference, and once again, I did go for the dried version.  And for ytf, I usually request for both the chilli and sweet sauces to be added. 


I probably mentioned this before, that I'd usually try the soup first before tasting the main dish.  And for this, I did like the soup.  It was somewhat salty, with a little soy bean taste.  And it didn't feel all MSG filled, so I thought this was pretty good already.








Then to the noodles and ingredients proper.


There wasn't anything special with the noodles, it was just normal, what you'd expect from any other ytf stalls.

Ingredients-wise, I thought it was a little more impressive.
First thing, this stall is a little more expensive than others I'd say.  It was $0.50 per piece.  HOWEVER, the good thing is that you can choose a minimum of 4 pieces, which is definitely better than normal ytf stalls, where they require minimum of 6 pieces.

The spread was normal, but why I said it was a little more impressive was that it had luncheon meat and fried chicken to choose from. 



And the best part?  The fried pieces that you choose from are served, not by dumping everything into soup and heating it up, but they really deep fry these pieces! 

Thus, the tao gua (tofu) really tasted nice!!  I felt that it was fried nicely and tasted good.  The external skin was crispy, while the inside of the tao gua was soft and nice!

Finally, I thought the sauces were ok.  The chilli was a little spicy for ytf standards, but I could still catch the taste of the sweet sauce. 

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Taste is ok overall, but im biased. Im rating this nice, for the effort put in frying the fried ingredients rather than dumping into soup and "heating"

And obviously, food tastes better after being fried!

Fong Sheng Cooked Food *not bad*

Fong Sheng Cooked Food
#02-13

Bukit Merah Central Food Centre
Blk 163 Bukit Merah Road
S(150163)
- Char Kway Teow

As far as I can remember, Char Kway Teow wasn't exactly one of my favourite foods growing up.  I do recall that I didn't like cockles, oysters, and most forms of shellfish growing up. 

Some time in 2005, my uncle introduced me to Margaret Drive Char Kway Teow, and that kinda sparked off my love for Char Kway Teow, and I did go around Singapore looking for "the best" Char Kway Teow.

Fast forward to now, that Char Kway Teow, which is Hai Kee, remains my favourite, despite trying a better tasting one while at the Ultimate Hawker Fest this year.

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Before I even tried this stall, I was looking forward to it already.
Reasons being:
1.  Every time during lunch, the frying was kinda non-stop.
2.  Not sure because of the poor ventilation of the food centre, but the sector will always be filled with the smell from this place.
3.  A lot of people eating!

Well, I wasn't exactly sure why, but when I ordered, I kinda deviated from my norm - asking for extra lard pieces even though this was my first time trying this stall.

And, not sure if I should be glad that I didn't get my way, or should be surprised at the response...but the stall people were saying that there was no lard, and they don't use lard.

This came at a huge surprise!!!  How can a delicacy like Char Kway Teow be cooked without lard????
 
Anyhows, I still ordered, and had to wait a while before my order came.


The colour of the Char Kway Teow was quite light, in terms of looks I'd prefer a darker (more dark sauce used) version.

The taste had a little chao tar taste, which I do favour.  However, the wetness was a little drier that what I'd have preferred.

One thing I realised, is that most Char Kway Teow stalls don't cook their beansprouts as much as Hai Kee.  Thus, there's a little crunchy and raw taste overall.  Which I find it acceptable.  And same goes for Fong Sheng.  

Overall, the taste is abit hard to describe.  Because it does remind me of the fried kway teow that was sold in my primary school canteen.  Not to say it's not good, but it does give me a nostalgic feeling.

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I'd rate this stall as not bad.
I do like the chao tar taste, but it's not exactly spectacular or nice in any special way, just a little nostalgic.

Also, my friend did point out that there's another Char Kway Teow stall hidden at another corner of this food centre.  A quick search on the internet revealed that that stall had been reviewed by a famous food blogger, though the rating wasn't that high.

I guess I'd look forward to the trying the other stall soon.  


Changed Colour Scheme

I didn't exactly like the previous colour scheme, other than sharing with my gf that I chose yellow to make people hungry, as showed in a study of the colours used by companies in their logos.

And I did notice that the more popular food blogs used pretty basic colours. 

So I took this chance to slightly revamp the outlook of the blog. 

It's still not exactly what I want, but I guess it's better than the previous one.