Battle of the Bak Chor Mees at Fengshan Food Centre

With Cactuskit and ToothFairy

No. 7's Bak Chor Mee

Ok, many people know about this two Bak Chor Mees at Fengshan Food Centre. But which one is better? Before we set out to answer that question, another interesting thing of note is that when we talk about Bak Chor Mee, most people refer to the dry version with vinegar, chilli and whether they want liver or not. But somehow when they talk about the Bak Chor Mee here, everyone seems to know that we are referring to the soup version of this dish. It almost seem as if this is the only place to eat Bak Chor Mee soup.

So back to the question of which is better. Both stores have got its fair share of accolades but the inner stall (No. 7) seems to get a longer queue of people. So, is this a case of people simply following the crowd or is No. 7's Bak Chor Mee really significantly better than No. 8's?

In true ieatishootipost fashion, we sacrificed our money and calories so that you, dear reader, don't have to.


No. 8's Bak Chor Mee

Just by looking at the 2 bowls of Bak Chor Mee, one notices that No. 8's bowl is bigger. However, the contents of the noodles look quite similar. Perhaps No. 8's has just slightly more minced pork than No. 7's.


No. 8's Bak Chor Mee

Tastewise, the noodles of both stalls were similar. (I wouldn't be surprised if they shared the same supplier!). The soup of No. 7 is just slightly more tasty then No. 8 but the difference is so small that unless you ate them side by side, I doubt that you will be able to tell the difference.

Conclusion

So there you have it. The herd mentality works! The stall with the longer queue does have a better bowl of noodles. However, if you asked me, I would just order from whichever stall has the shorter queue on my next visit.


Xing Ji (Inner Stall)
No. 7
5pm to 1am plus
Closed Mondays

Seng Hiang (Outer Stall)
No 8
5pm to 12.30am Open daily
Fengshan Food Centre
Blk 85 Bedok North Road

The ieatishootipost East Coast Lagoon Satay Challenge!

One of the things that really frustrates me every time I visit East Coast Lagoon FC is the fact that I never really know which of the 10 Malay style satay stalls is really the best. I always end up ordering randomly from whoever does the best touting that night. Sure, there is Haron 30 satay (Stall 55) which is the one that a lot of people recommend, but having tasted it a few times, I remain unconvinced that it is really the best one there. I have this niggly feeling that there is a better Satay around just waiting to be discovered.

So, being a Scienty Fienty(as opposed to Arty Farty) type of a guy, there was only one solution to the problem and that is to do an experiment -- A Randomised, Double Blinded, Controlled Trial (yeah right) to find out which Satay is indeed the best.

Test Design

What I did was to mobilize a dozen test subjects, order Satays from every stall there and taste test each one to find out whether there is a clear favourite. Our unwitting but intrepid test subjects are all experts in their own rights, each with at least 20 years of experience in eating. Of course that's just counting biological age. The true "eating" age of some of them far exceeds their biological age as evidenced from the subcutaneous storage of unused calories.

Unfortunately for us, 3 of the stalls were closed that night, so we sampled Satays only from the following stalls: 49, 50,51, 55, 56, 58, 60.

We decided only to taste test Chicken Satays since that is the most popular choice. 10 sticks of Satays were ordered from each stall and each judge graded both the Satay and the quality of the peanut sauce.



Here then are our panel of Satay judges: From the far left: who, jems, khim, Melbournite, TeochewHKer, carnineviand, khim(again!), holydrummer, holybunny, holybro, J-star and Dodo. Big round of applause for them who unselfishly sacrificed their calories so that you can save yours! Clap clap clap clap!


The Aftermath

You would think that with 10 Satay stalls all competing for the same customers, that competition would be stiff. But the unfortunate truth is that a lot of them taste quite similar and most of them were quite lack lustre. Our judges were penning down more phrases like "terrible, no taste at all, not marinated enough", than adoring accolades.



There was however a real difference in the quality and style of the Satay gravy that was provided. These ranged from "watery, burnt nutty taste to "consistent" and "can taste peanut" You can appreciate from the picture just how wide a difference there was.

Three of the seven stalls sampled procured their Satays from suppliers, but some make it a point to cook their own peanut sauce. It seemed to me that the sellers are trying to differentiate their products with their sauces rather then on the Satay itself.


Chicken Satay from the winning stall

The good news is that there was a clear winner that night (with only a minority opposing). Our judges rated this Satay as "Tender and plump, grill taste good and can taste the chicken".



The accompanying peanut sauce was thick and chunky with generous amount of coarsely ground peanuts. The interesting thing is that the Satay from this stall comes from a supplier, but they do cook their own peanut sauce. And the other interesting thing is they are actually an Ikan Bakar cum Satay stall rather than a specialised Satay stall!

So, without much ado, let me present Musa Ikan Bakar Stall -- winner of the ieatishootipost East Coast Lagoon Satay Challenge. 4/5

Musa Ikan Bakar Stall
51 East Coast Lagoon FC
Open 4pm till late
Closed on Mondays
64422976



Post Mortem

Personally, I still feel that the overall standard of the Satay here can and should have been better. The problem is that there are so many stalls and no clear favourite, each stall does well enough just by enticing the passersby with their perfunctory "Satay sir?". They don't see the need to put in effort on their part to improve their Satay. Think about it, every stall we ate at literally serves the same chunky thigh meat Satay. No one thought about maybe adding the chicken skin, or even doing Chicken Mince like the legendary Fat Man Satay of the old esplanade Satay club. It is just complacency mixed with contentment - a lethal concoction for blah food.

Then, there is this funny thing amongst Singaporeans about not wanting chicken skin in their Satay. I am not saying that eating chicken skin is good for you. You should not eat too much of it especially if you have high cholesterol levels or are overweight. What I am saying is that the same people who frown at eating chicken skin in Satay are also happily munching away at BBQ chicken wings, chicken rice and wagyu beef . It's a form of gastronomic hypocrisy that has permeated our society.

I think that is what most Satay sellers assume.

As a result, you don't see any chicken skin in Satays in Singapore whereas they are still widely available in Malaysia. And then we all complain that the Satay is better across the causeway.

Satay is one of the "must try" dishes in the minds of many tourist that visit Singapore. Yet I can't even name one great Satay in any of the "Satay Clubs" at East Coast Lagoon or Lau Pa Sat! It is truly a great disappointment, but also a great opportunity for some enterprising young entrepreneur to rise to the challenge and give us a "die die must try" Satay for us all to enjoy.

Kim's Hokkien Mee: The Hokkien Mee Experiment

With Damien, smart, sumosumo, bashful hunter, holydrummer, fashion foodie, khim and friends

Special Claypot Hokkien Mee $5 per person

This pot of Hokkien Mee was one and a half years in the making. For those who can still remember, one of my earliest posts was about my fantasy of putting Sio Bak in a claypot of Hokkien Mee. However, on that occasion, I had to bring along my own Sio Bak and it wasn't really braised in the claypot, but merely tossed in with the Hokkien Mee. So it wasn't quite what I wanted but it was still pretty shiok. Since then, I have looking for a Hokkien Mee Hawker who is adventurous enough to accommodate my wacky ideas.

So after putting the idea in the back burner for over a year, along comes the enigmatic Mr Tan Kue Kim (The original Kim) who quite readily agreed to do a Sio Bak Claypot Hokkien Mee for me. Finally, I will get to experience a real Sio Bak Braised Hokkien Mee! And when my makan kakis got wind of it, they also wanted to come along for a piece of the Sio Bak!



This Claypot Hokkien Mee is not for the faint hearted. Its got all the good stuff in it including Sio Bak, crispy pork lard, pork balls, prawns and sotong. A Cardiologist's dream to be sure. Comon', I know many Gastrointestinal Surgeons who love Kway Chap, Cardiologists who love pork lard and Respiratory physicians who smoke. Doctors are human after all. If you prick us, will we not bleed? Thankfully, we are the ones who usually do the pricking.

Tastewise, the opinions were divided. Those who where looking for a very good Hokkien Mee felt that braising the Hokkien Mee in a Claypot did not add value to a standard fried Hokkien Mee. There were others like Bashful Hunter who liked it because it was a novel way to enjoy Hokkien Mee. Personally, I was slightly disappointed that the stock that day did not quite hit the umami spot although the simmered Sio Bak was still quite shiok. Majority of the makan kakis however felt that the traditional boiled Pork Belly, sliced thin would still be better.

Ok, the bottomline from me: I would still go back and order it as is because I just love all that extra ingredients but it is not something I yearn to eat again the following week. I can't help but wonder how it compared with the Claypot Hokkien Mee that he used to dish out in the 80's? Ratings range from 3.5 to 4.25 so you'll have to try it yourself and make up your own mind.



Kim must have mellowed down quite a lot if you believe all the stuff that was said about him years ago. He was very accommodating and knowing that we are a bunch of foodies, he said he would specially fry for us his dry version that night. The dry version is fried with thin bee hoon and eaten with cut chilli, so it is similar to the Nam Sing and Hainan Hokkien Mee version.

The verdict: Being seasoned foodies, the dry Hokkien Mee did not quite give us that rush of excitement because we were comparing it with Nam Sing and Hainan. However, it was still a good plate of Hokkien Mee and definitely better than average. 4/5



To complete our Hokkien Mee Trilogy, we had Kim's standard Hokkien Mee which I have already reviewed in my previous post. Most of the kakis felt that this was better than the dry Hokkien Mee. 4.25/5

Conclusion

So that concludes our great Hokkien Mee experiment! I still feel that the Claypot Hokkien Mee has got potential and with a bit of tweaking, this can be one of those dishes you would travel across the island to eat. Kim tells me that he will be stocking Sio Bak at his stall, but if you are planning to go, it is still better to give him a call first.

Kim's Hokkien Mee
62-B Jalan Eunos
Jn of Jalan Kechot and Jalan Eunos
67478766
www.kims.com.sg
Opened 11.30am till 1am daily

Teh Tarik: The Teh Tarik Experiment

With Tag, iwatch_ueat, liverpool and introducing camemberu


Remember in my last Teh Tarik post I asked whether "Tariking" the Teh actually made a difference to the taste of the Teh? Well, I decided to put the question to the test. So in true quasi-scientific fashion, I put the question through a totally unrigorous randomised uncontrolled trial. The type of trial that can never be published in any respectable journal.



Here then is the experiment:

The Hypothesis:

"Tariking" the Teh actually affects the taste of the Teh, making it more delectable to the palate.

The Subjects:

Camemberu, Liverpool, Tag, iwatch_ueat and ieat. Two females and three males who are totally unbiased, unsuspecting and most importantly, have nothing to gain from lying about whether Tarik or No Tarik is better. Except maybe for Liverpool who as you know owns a cafe and he does only Teh C but no Tarik. He has promised to be totally unbiased..... yeah right.

The Design:

Two cups of tea are prepared using a common container so that the amount of condensed milk, tea and water are the same. One cup is then decanted into a mug without "Tariking". The other one undergoes three Tariks at a distance of a man's arm. The tea is than decanted into another absolutely identical mug.

The subjects where first asked to taste both teas with their eyes opened. Next, the subjects were blindfolded (ok we just asked them to closed their eyes and hope they don't cheat) and asked to taste test the 2 cups of tea and then to tell the rest if they perceive a difference in the taste. A bottle of mineral water was provided to cleanse the palate in between tastings.

The Results:

Tag was given 2 sips of the Non-Tariked Tea. He claimed that the first one tasted better then the 2nd.

iwatch_ueat was given the Tariked one first and the Non-Tariked one 2nd. She claimed the first was the Non-Tariked and the 2nd one the Tariked

Camemberu was similarly given the Tariked one first and non-Tariked one next. She got it right the first time, but could not repeat her feat the second time.

Liverpool was given 2 sips from the Non-Tariked tea. He said the first was Tariked and the 2nd the non-Tariked.

I was honest enough to just say I could not tell the difference.

The Trial Conclusion:

There is no doubt that we have proven the hypothesis to be false.

"Tariking" the tea may lower the temperature a bit and make lots of foam and maybe trap a few flying insects and dust particles in the process, but it does not significantly alter the taste of the Teh such that ordinary makankakis can discern the difference.



Back to the Teh Tarik itself.

This non-descript "Hole in the Wall" little stall in Kampung Glam is a favourite amongst Taxi Drivers because of the convenient parking and the cheap prices. A cup of Teh Tarik here is still only 70 cents. I was told that it was only 60 cents before, so they might have increased the price recently due to the shortage of milk.

It was a good cup of tea. The tea was strong but we felt that it was not creamy enough that day. And, unless you specially ask for lots of foam, the Teh actually only goes through a "half arm" tarik once. Then again, apart from making more foam, it does not actually affect the taste that much as we have shown in our experiment. 4/5

Conclusion

Good and cheap cup of Teh Tarik. The ambiance of this unassumingly quaint little un-named shop, manned by 2 elderly men with distinguished beards really adds to the whole Teh Tarik experience.

No Name Sarabat Stall
Baghdad Street
Kampung Glam
6.30am to 12mn daily