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With my Teochew Ah Di, Wahcow Mee Pok Tah $3 Here's another one of those stalls that you better be quick to taste because the original hawker is already past 72 and even though he still looks like a "Lao Yankee", and behaves like one, he himself admits that at most he has 10 years of Mee Pok Tak left in him. Actually, he still looks quite good for a 72 year old. When I asked him why he wears a long sleeved shirt while he cooks his Mee Pok, he simply replied, "Cos I want to look good!"
Talking about the subject of aging, I know for most of our readers, hitting the eighth decade might still be quite a long time away. For us who are hitting middle age, it is like "Oh my, I am more than half way there, and the 2nd half is going to go quicker than the first half". I once heard a preacher (An Anglican Bishop in his 70's) say that every morning when he wakes up he goes, "Ay! I am still around!". It is almost as if after you cross the life expectancy age (78 for men, 82.8 for women), every day is a bonus. Are there anyone here that fall into this category?
Anyway, if you do have the fortune of passing the life expectancy age, then it really does give you the passport to do whatever you want, right? I mean, who cares if your Doctor tells you to stop smoking? "Ay, Doc, been smoking for 50 years and my bus still arrive at the interchange. You asking me to stop now?" Well, if you are in that category, then when it comes to food, I guess you can also just indulge in a bit of Mee Pok Tar which has a chilli made with good old Pork Lard.
Mr Liang proudly tells me that his chilli is made from Pork Lard, Buah Keluak, Hae Bee and Dried Chilli. For a person who always orders Mee Pok Tar mai Hiam (no chilli), I can tell you that this is one stall that I would ask for extra chilli. You see the main problem I have with Chilli is that most stalls just want to make their chilli hot hot. However, the chilli here is not overly spicy but the flavour is oh so addictive that you can just sit there and just pick on it with your chopsticks.
The other "champion" item is the Fish Dumplings (Her Giao) which Mr Liang still proudly makes himself. The slightly gooey texture of the meat filling is very good and it is one of the most memorable Her Giao that I have had.
Too bad the Mee Pok itself was not as QQ as I would like it to be. Otherwise it would have scored a higher rating. 4.25/5
Conclusion
Very good bowl of Mee Pok Tar and you get quite a big bowl for $3! Do yourself a favour and order a bowl of Giao Soup and try the chilli especially if you are the type who don't usually take chilli. It might just make you change your mind.
Mr Liang, 72 and still wants to look good!
 Ah Hor Teochew Kway Teow Mee
12 Verdun Road
Bet Sam Leong and Syed Alwi Roads
7am to 4pm
Wed closed
81274249
Mr Liang
Recommended by ice. Read her review here
With Cactuskit, liverpool, keano, smart, jems and damien Tofu with BeansproutsIf you are hankering for some really shiok dishes to make you eat more rice, then you can try heading down to the Smith Street Food Centre to check out this little Mom and Pop Cze Char who specializes in Cantonese style cuisine. Actually this stall is quite famous for its Beef Hor Fun and I have been wanting to check them out for the longest time. But when I eventually got there, they ran out of Hor Fun! Sigh! So I had to settle for the Cze Char dishes which turned out to be quite a treat.
Now this couple are pretty old school, so they don't believe in a "low salt" diet so the dishes all come out pretty tasty (salty). The homemade tofu with beansprouts is a simple dish but there is something about the texture and taste of the tofu that made it go very well with rice. 4.5/5
Stir Fry Kai Lan with Sliced Beef
Since I couldn't order the Beef Hor Fun, I settled for the Beef Kai Lan. The beef was tender and the dish was good. But lacking the Hor Fun with Wok Hei, it just didn't have that ooomph I was expecting. Still, it was a commendable dish. 4/5
Salted Fish Chicken
I don't take much salted fish nowadays but by golly, when you actually get to eat it, it is quite shiok. Again this Salted Fish Chicken dish is a great dish to down that extra plate of rice with. 4.25/5
 Conclusion
Humble little stall that is churning out really great Cantonese homecooked food! Well worth a visit.
 Yuet Loy
Smith Street Food Centre
#02-151
Open for lunch and dinner
With Amagada If you are looking for a truly traditional Hokkien Mee, then this is the place to get it. It's got it all. The opeh leaf, the crunchy pork lard, boiled melt-in-your-mouth belly pork, cut chilli and most importantly, a stock made from Sea Prawns or "Sua Lor" as it is called in Hokkien. Yes, the taste of farmed prawns still fails to meet up to what God originally created prawns to taste like. When you bite into a "Sua Lor", you can immediately make out that extra sweetness in its flesh which you don't get with the farmed tiger prawns. And when they are used to make the stock, it adds that special old school taste to the Hokkien mee the fills the air with the aroma of anticipation when the Hokkien Mee is being fried.
Chomp Chomp is a Hokkien Mee lover's paradise. Aside from this particular stall and Ah Hock which I blogged about in the previous post, there is yet another stall which is a branch of the famous Kim's which is not bad, but it can never compare with these two owner run stalls.
I think that there are going to be fans of both Hokkien Mees here. I ate both at the same sitting and in my opinion, Che Jian edges out Ah Hock in terms of the taste of the noodles, the use of sea prawns, the addition of belly pork AND the fact that they have crispy pork lard when you request for it. So for that, it deserves a 4.5/5. And on top of that, their signboard is also quite old school, as is the old man's 555 all cotton T-shirt!
Conclusion
Two great hokkien mees in the one Food Centre! So how many are fans of Che Jian and how many of Ah Hocks?
 Che Jian Fried Hokkien Mee
Chomp Chomp Food Centre
Left hand side towards the back
Open 5.30pm till 1am
 Carrot Cake $3 portionI found it! I found it! The best carrot cake I have tasted is just a stone's throw away from home and it took me so long to find it!
 You know, I haven't eaten any outstanding carrot cake that I can really put my finger on until I came across this one. What makes it special is that not only does this lady fry the carrot cake until it is crispy on the outside, but she adds in these delightfully crispy Ikan Bilis and Pre-Fried Chye Poh as well. The Chye Poh is really like manna from heaven!
OK, classic carrot cake connoisseurs might cry foul over the use of ikan bilis in the carrot cake, but I am telling you that after tasting this one, I feel that everyone else should be adding ikan bilis as well.
Aunty buys really good quality ikan bilis and prepares it herself twice a week. She fries them till they are super crispy and flavoursome. The chye poh is also pre-fried and she adds a little bit of sugar into them to give them that extra edge. The combination of the crisp savoury ikan bilis with the sweetened chye poh, soft carrot cake and fried eggs is something I just can just sit there and slowly savour with my eyes closed.
This stall used to be selling fried Hokkien Mee when the Aunty's husband was still around. But since his passing, they don't sell fried Hokkien Mee anymore. In fact, it was her late husband who first suggested that she added the ikan bilis for extra kick!
Truth be told, the first time I met her, I almost thought she was a bit of a Food Nazi. You see, I ordered my carrot cake without chilli, but when it arrived with chilli, I made the excuse that my kids don't eat chilli, and she grumpily changed it for me. What to do? I was scared that if I said I don't take chilli, she might just ban me from the stall! (I did offer to pay for 2 plates of carrot cake in the end but she refused to take the money albeit still grumpy)
But luckily, she turned out to be quite a nice lady when you get to know her. Just be nice to her okay? And when you ask for extra chye poh (Power Up to get Max Ooomph!) offer to pay extra 50 cents for it and keep that smile on her face.
Conclusion
Best carrot cake I have had for as long as I can remember! It's a 4.5/5 for the standard plate but when you add the extra chye poh it becomes a 4.75/5
 Golden City Carrot Cake
1 Telok Kurau Road
Open 7.30am to 2pm
Closed Tuesdays
What to do next:
Check out the Fang Choy next door
Go down the road for Seng Kee Bak Chor Mee
There's a Charcoal Fried Hokkien Mee opposite
Check out other Carrot Cake stalls
Check out other stalls run by little old ladies and gentlemen
With Cactuskit, Wahcow and smart Well, we Singaporeans are an honest bunch. We know our faults and we openly admit them. Impatient, rude, unforgiving and downright Kiasu. We sigh in frustration when we experience graciousness in other societies and lament that we can't be the same. Hey, all is not lost. Deep inside each and everyone of us, there is that spark that just needs to be ignited. We all have it in us and it is just a matter of expressing it so that we can make a difference. Why do I say that? Because there is still a lot of niceness and goodness out there! And it is as close as the hawker that you buy your food from everyday. Take this little old lady selling kway chap for instance. You could go up to her, order your $3 kway chap, pay your money and sit down and eat. Or, you could do what our friend Cactuskit did and start showing real interest in the lady, chatting with her frequently and even going to the extent of inviting her to one of his church functions. It's no wonder she treats him like a son and cooks a special chilli stingray dish for him when she found out we were coming for breakfast on a particular day!
That is why I feel that if you want to see more graciousness in our society, it starts right where you are. And one of the first people you can start with is our humble hawkers who work so hard everyday to feed us but often don't get any credit and very little thanks for what they do. A big smile and a simple word of praise for their food usually gets things going and I assure you that you will go away feeling much better about life too! In fact, if I were a Director in the Ministry of Community Development, I would even declare an official "Hawkers Appreciation" Day to try to spread some goodwill around. Happy hawkers make yummier food and yummier food make us all happier.
This little stall in Haig Road Food Centre does not have any newspaper clipping or awards of any sort, but they have been cleaning out pig innards for more than 30 years. Ever since Cactuskit mentioned them in the forum, it has been winning approval from our forummers including our venerable uncle Smart who declared that the lady makes the best "Da Chang" (Large Intestines) and pig skin in Singapore.
I think the thing about their "Da Chang" is the fact that they managed to get it so clean that you don't have any "smelly" taste in it. Now, here is the secret which I immediately spotted, thanks to my years of studying histology and anatomy in Med School. (Yeah right). Notice from the picture that they stripped off the layer of mucosa (innermost layer which is in contact with the fecal matter), thus exposing the inner layer of circular muscle? That is the secret. The old lady laboriously turns the large intestine inside out and painstakingly strips off the mucosal layer. This extra step results in a clean tasting "Da Chang" which even someone (like me) who doesn't usually eat "Da Chang" can appreciate. Smart gives it a 4.75/5 and says that the texture and taste is almost perfect.
So here's the nice little old hawker Aunty who has been stripping off pig innards for 30 years. Be nice to her and to your favourite hawker Aunty and Uncle today!
Conclusion
If you like "Da Chang" and pig skin then according to our kway chap experts, you should give this stall a try real soon!
 Yong Li Cooked Food
Haig Road Food Centre
Open 7am to 2pm daily
Closed on Monday
What to do next?
Read about other Kway Chap stalls by clicking here
Like to find more Mom and Pop stalls? Click here
Find out what else is there to eat at Haig Road FC. Click here
Don't miss the Putu Piring that is just round the corner! Click here
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Remember to vote today! Click here
With Cactuskit and liverpool Chilli Crayfish (deshelled) $12Although this blog is about great food, you all realize that the stalls that we frequent do not necessarily sell THE best food. No, there are several other factors that influence how we decide where to eat our next meal, right or not? At least for myself, the decision to eat at a particular stall is based on convenience, value, whether one if familiar with the stall owner and of course, taste. So what makes this Cze Char one of Cactuskit's favourite haunts? He told me that he once ate here thrice in a fortnight! Well, the food here is good but it is the price that will draw anybody back again and again. Plus the fact that you will definitely find a table to sit without having to stand in front of someone with your most pathetic "hungry puppy" look to pressure them to finish their bowl of chengtng and get their butt off the chair.
Hong Shao Tofu $6
Cactuskit tells me that in its heydays at Lau Pa Sat, Lu Tian commanded a long queue and at the time the owners were quite a Food Nazi. Nowadays, the stall occupies a single hawker space in Amoy Street Food Centre and is only one of a few stalls which open at night. So you get to choose to sit at any table you like.
The food here is still pretty tasty although I would not say it is die die must try. The crayfish in chilli had an excellent texture. It was perfectly cooked so that it was still tender and moist on the inside and was not dry like a lot of other crayfish I have eaten before. The chilli sauce was quite unique and the addition of cilantro gave it a refreshing "grassy" flavour. 4/5
The Hong Shao Tofu will appeal to anyone who likes eggy "Sap Kum" hor fun. The sauce has that "really makes you want to eat more rice" quality about it. The kids loved it. For 6 bucks, I was really surprised to find that it still had quite a few mid size prawns and other seafood in it! 4/5
Jacket Fish $12
Lastly we had the jacket fish without its jacket. The sauce is similar to that of the crayfish. Not a big fan of Jacket fish and chilli, but my kakis seem to enjoy it. Cactuskit who eats this all the time gives it a 4.25/5
Conclusion
The food here is quite decent but it is the bill at the end which will make you go back again. For 5 dishes which included quite a bit of seafood, we paid less than $40. Coincidentally, SCS butter was there with a group of 8 people and they paid less than $80! So if you are after good food, excellent value and not needing to wait for someone else to finish their cheng tng before you can sit down, you'd be very happy if you visited this place.
Lu Tian
Amoy St Food Centre, 2nd Floor
(The opposite end of the POSB ATM)
Opened till 3pm for lunch and 10pm for dinner
Closed on Sundays
Remember to vote today! Click here
With ieatjr Tucked in a small corner coffeeshop in the East Coast is an elderly couple who are still making chicken rice the same way they have been for 30 years. If you have ever wondered what chicken rice tasted like in the old days, you better get here quick, cos these good old mom and pop shops are getting rarer nowadays.
So just what makes a particular chicken rice "retro" and what makes it "modern"? Well, for one thing, the traditional way of preparing the rice is to fry the grains in garlic and ginger first before boiling the rice in chicken broth. Not many people do it nowadays and certainly the large chains will not be able to do it because of the volume of rice they have to dish out. So the only place to find such rice is either at home if you are fortunate enough to have a Hainanese Grandma OR you have to look for other people's Hainanese Grandma to cook it for you. In case you do not have Hainanese friends or if your Hainanese friends are sort of half Hainanese, quarter Teochew and quarter Cantonese, then can I suggest that you come to this stall where you can find a purebred Hainanese couple.
Another thing that makes this a "retro" chicken rice is the way they cook their chicken. Traditionally, Hainanese do not soak the chicken in cold water after cooking. Trust me, I know. I have a Hainanese MIL who has refused to soak the chicken in cold water for the 20 years that I have known her. Now, soaking the chicken in cold water quickly stops the cooking process which results in nice crunchy skin but at the expense of losing all that nice chickeny juices. If you don't soak the chicken then it takes a lot more skill and experience in order to get the timing just right so that the chicken flesh is still tender.
Now, for those who like chicken with a strong chicken taste, this one is just right for you. The flesh is still amazingly tender but of course the skin is not as crunchy as if it was soaked in ice water. I am sort of quite undecided whether this is the one for me but I know that the traditionalists will love it. 4/5
As I mentioned before, this is one of the few places where they fry the grains first before cooking the rice. They also make a point of not adding the chicken oil into the rice so the rice is not so oily. I am sort of wishing they would as I think it would have made the rice even more shiok! 4.25/5
Conclusion
I must make it a point to find and blog a few more of these mom and pop shops before they all disappear!
 Twe Kee Hainanese Chicken Rice
Coffeeshop at the jn of Jago close
Open 6.30am to 4pm
Closed Tuesday
Recommended and gently persuaded to blog this place by Cactuskit and supported by Smart in the forum
You can read their comments here
Where to go next?
Another place you can find traditional "non-soaked" chicken is Yet Con
The other place that still fries the grains first is Thien Kee
Read about other chicken rice stalls by clicking the "Chicken Rice" label - 21 stalls blogged and counting!
Join the Forum and see where our forummers are eating chicken rice! Click Here
Have a read of the other mom and pop shops!
Remember to vote today! Click here
With smart and bashful hunter Poh Piah is just great. It's healthy (relatively) and tasty and it is a really good side dish with whatever you are ordering. If you think about it, it is just the Chinese version of the Donar Kebab or the Burrito and the way I see it, it should originally be eaten whole rather then cut into bite sized pieces. Why I say this is because the nature of the "wrap" is such that it is designed as food on the go, meaning that you can grab the Poh Piah in one hand while the other hand is being used to hold onto the reins of your horse. It is supposed to be Chinese fast food, if you know what I mean. However, nowadays, it is the custom to cut it into bite sized pieces and eat with your chopstick which really doesn't make sense as quite often, some of the filling will drop out during the transit from the plate to your mouth. Smart (more precisely, his wife) recommends this particular Poh Piah stall in Toa Payoh. So far, very few of the Poh Piah's in this blog has hit the threshold for me except for the Qi Ji which at one stage really did it for me. But I found recently that the standard of the filling had fallen a little. For me the ultimate Poh Piah has got a nice, soft, chewy skin which leaves that sweet carbo aftertaste, packed full of the savoury turnip filling and most importantly, packed with lots of the crunchy stuff. I must say this particular Poh Piah tastes rather good. The balance of flavours of the ingredients is just right. The only problem is that it is a little limp and the skin (handmade but procured from elsewhere) just lacks that chewiness of which the Qi Ji one is still currently the gold standard. Perhaps the next time I could ask the Uncle to make a specially turgid one for me! 4.25/5ConclusionTry to see if the Uncle will sell you a Poh Piah with extra ingredients (you'll have to offer to pay more of course). That might well turn this from a very good to great Poh Piah.  ABC Poh Piah Blk
93 Food Centre #01-204
Toa Payoh Lor 4
9am to 10pm
Monday closed
 After over a year of blogging, I must admit that I am getting a little spoilt. It is getting harder and harder to find dishes that really make me go "Phwa Say!!" I guess the threshold to delight keeps getting higher and higher because once you have tested the best, the rest just don't thrill anymore. Fortunately, there are still many gems out there just waiting to be found. And finding this satay was a "Holy Grail" experience after quite a long lull period.   The elderly couple manning this stall told me that they have been dishing out their satay for almost 50 years. The uncle started out by helping his father sell satay when he was just 5 years old along the streets of Geylang. Back then, satays were 5 cents per stick and they were not as popular as they are now. This is traditional Hainanese style satay which means Pork Satay served with a peanut gravy that comes with a pineapple slush. The flowery bouquet from the freshly grilled skewers was too much of an unbearable tease and the first bite of the satay was like getting infatuated all over again. The meat is really tender and coated with spicy golden syrup that hinted strongly of lemongrass and coriander. Fantastic. 4.75/5 I remembered as a kid, pork satay used to come in 5 sections. Meat, fat, meat, fat, meat. This one only had 3 sections. Meat, fat, meat. I thought it might be because they cut down on the fat because of health concerns, but the uncle told me that this is the "pattern" that they have kept for as long as he can remember. Ok, the fat makes the satay really juicy and delicious but do remember to always eat in moderation ok? ConclusionHeavenly pork satay. I must admit that I have not eaten such tasty Pork Satay, at least not for a very long time. Now before I get carried away, I must warn you that the waiting time on the weekend is around 45 minutes and while I was queuing, a young lady was bitterly complaining that the chicken satay she just had was not worth the wait. OK, so I am only vouching for the Pork Satay not the chicken. My advice is to head straight for the stall, order your satay and go eat other stuff while you wait. And make sure you order more than enough. It was so good, I came back to reorder some more and that meant more waiting!  Chuan Kee SatayOld Airport Road Food Centre#01-856pm until sold out around 10pmClosed Mon and ThursSunday opened at 1pm
With smart, liverpool, bashfulhunter, iwatch_ueat, damien and PowerAunty Beef Kway Teow Dry $4According to Damien, this stall sells the BEST beef kway teow in Singapore. Better than all the rest. So we had to make our pilgrimage down to Toa Payoh to try it. The stall is supposed to be opened till 7pm, so we thought that 2.30pm should be quite a safe time to visit. Lo and Behold, there was a queue of some 20 something people lining up for the Beef Kway Teow! It so happens that the day we went there was exactly the day after Channel 8 featured the stall. So by the time we got to the front of the queue, they were already sold out on the gravy for the dry version! I wasn't going to give up so easily, so I made a return visit the following week just to try the dry Beef Kway Teow. This time I got what I wanted. Or did I?  I was undoubtedly impressed with the stewed beef tendons which were so soft it explodes in your mouth, coating your buccal cavity with its soft and gooey goodness. The beef slices were tender but the beef balls were outsourced, so they were not that special. The sauce itself was good, but maybe my expectations were too high, it did not have that oomph if you ask me. However, one lady who was a regular at the stall confirmed that the gravy that day tasted a bit watered down. I suspect that it could be due to the higher volume sold during the past week. But for now it rates a 4.25/5. Damien and other regulars of this stall might beg to differ.  The beef soup on the other hand was wonderfully robust and sweet and definitely one of the best I have tasted. 4.5/5 This Hainanese man has been selling Hainanese Style Beef Kway Teow for over 40 years. He is still remembered as the Beef Kway Teow stall from Cuppage Centre. When I asked where he learned his recipe from, he simply said that he derived it through experimentation. ConclusionAnother Beef Kway Teow to add onto the Top Beef Kway Teow list! Definitely one of the better ones around which I am sure many fans will write in to support.  Hai Nan Xing Zhou Beef Noodles
Blk 22 Lor 7 Toa Payoh #01-06
8am to 7pm
Monday Closed
 Poh Piah is like the snack food that you buy to accompany your main meal right? I mean, does anyone here simply go out there and eat Poh Piah and that's it? Usually, we would order a few Poh Piahs as a common "share-share" type of dish.  I sometimes think about hawker dishes along the lines of Darwin's theory of Evolution. Hawkers that have been around for a while tend to have food that is pretty good. It is survival of the fittest after all. And the evolution of Poh Piah has really come to a standstill. There has not been much evolution in the Poh Piah since I was a kid. Does that mean that the Poh Piah is perfect and nothing else can make it better? There are some things like that you know. Like the paper clip. It works so well that nothing can be added to it to make it better. Do you think this applies to Poh Piah as well or can it be further improved?  Poh Piah $1 eachThis Poh Piah is almost legendary so I am sure there are many fans out there. The skin is homemade, so it is nice and chewy, the ingredients are fresh and the crispy bits are really crispy. A good Poh Piah, but is this as good as it gets? Or can it be better? 4.25/5ConclusionBeen searching for the ultimate Poh Piah since the beginning of the blog. Still looking for the 4.75 one.  Long House Popiah
Blk 22 Toa Payoh Lor 7#01-03
Closed Mon & Tues
91717157 Elvin Ng
 Wanton Mee $2I was at ABC Brickworks eating at Fatty Cheong's when I happen to bump into one of our blog readers, Tarzan (cos he's married to Jane) who also happened to be eating at Fatty's. However, I noticed that he had a plate of Wanton Mee which was from another stall, so I asked him if he thought it was good enough to be featured on the Blog. Not willing to put his Tarzan underpants on the line, he merely said it was the 2nd time he was eating there in a fortnight. OK Tarzan, let's see if this Wanton Mee has got that "Orh Yi Orh Yi Orh" or not.  The stall was operated by this friendly elderly couple (which I have a soft spot for) who have been operating the stall for over 20 years. They proudly showed off their trophy which they won for "Best Food Stall - Henderson Junior College". Since when was there a "Henderson" Junior College? After chatting with them for a while, I found out that they were at Anderson Junior College from 1985 to 1999, selling their wanton mee and also rice dishes. I think that AJC alumni should be quite glad to find your long lost Aunty and Uncle eh? Time to go back and pay them a visit, and tell them about how you all have progressed and how many kids you have! Now, I remember that RJC used to have a killer Nasi Padang stall way back in the 80's. Anyone know where they went? The one Hawker that I would desperately like to find is that Char Kway Teow man from St Andrew's School in the 70s and 80s. That would really bring back fond memories! So, if you all know about any of your favourite hawkers who have subsequently left your school canteen to set up their own stall, do write in to let us know!  This old couple still take pride in serving up quality noodles at School Canteen prices. No kidding, at $2 per plate, this has got to be one of the cheapest Wanton Mee in town. And they don't skimp on the quality or quantity either. They use a full egg noodle which are thinner than usual. It is the type that "Hong Kong" wanton mee is supposed to be. The Home-made charsiew is tender and quite generous and you get three good sized Wantons. Being "Hong Kong" style, they don't add tomato sauce, but instead have a specially brewed anchovy based sauce. The texture of the noodles were excellent, and although the Char Siew still cannot compare with Fatty Cheong's, they were still quite competent. 4/5ConclusionGreat value for money Wanton Mee and a "Must Visit" for AJC alumni, I should think!  Hong Kong Wanton Mee
ABC Brickworks Food Centre
#01-41972764925am to 2pmRecommended by Tarzan
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Ah Hor Teochew Kway Teow Mee
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