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With Holydrummer, Holybunny, Wahcow, Cactuskit, Khim, Amagada, Denniz Kwong's Premium Pork Belly Satay $1eaI had a dream. I dreamt that I was eating Pork Belly Kushiyaki (Butabara) and all the wonderful juice was bursting out in my mouth as I sank my teeth into the springy flesh. But in my dream, instead of the plain salt and pepper marinade, the pork was marinated Hainanese satay style and I enjoying the sweet fragrance of the cumin, coriander, five spice powder and saffron....yummm... Then I woke up right at the part where my pastor said: "And in conclusion......."
Pork Belly Satay on the grill (note size of the normal satay beside it)
Now that I had that dream, I just couldn't get it out of my mind. Somehow, I had to find some Satay seller who is willing to take on my idea. As if by divine intervention, I stumbled upon this blog whose author just happened to be the daughter of Kwong's Satay whom I blogged about a while ago. In her blog post, she said that she was pleasantly surprised that one day, person from one of Singapore's major organizations called up to place an order for a large function. She found out later that they had found out about them from reading my blog post! So since I knew she was happy, I decided it was an opportune time to try my luck and see if they would agree to my idea of a Kushiyaki style Pork Belly Satay.
So that is how our group of Makan Kakis ended up in Geylang Lor 29 one evening to taste-test the latest "ieat creation". The majority of the makan kakis including myself gave it a 4.75/5 for being the juiciest and best tasting satay (certainly the largest). Cactuskit was not as ecstatic as he did not like fats in his satay (where got pork satay with no fats?) but still gave it a 4.25/5. The satay is almost 2 and a half times their normal Pork Loin Satay, so I guess the price of $1 is justified and furthermore you are getting Pork Belly meat which is more expensive than Pork Loin.
Original Pork Satay 40 cents each
Don't miss out on the normal Pork Satay (40 cents) as well as the two meats are different. The normal Pork Satay is more tender compared to the Pork Belly which is a little more chewy but more flavoursome and juicy. One of the secrets of Kwong's satay is that he still insists on using Saffron ($6000 per kg) in the marinade which made it very aromatic. 4.5/5
The peanut sauce comes with crushed pineapple which would please most foodies. However, I did feel that the sauce could have been more "peanutty" to make it even shioker. The Ketupat is very nice as they use pandan leaves instead of coconut. Have a bit of a sniff before you pop it into your mouth when you try it.
Somehow, I felt that the Satays here at the original stall taste better than the one that I blogged earlier at one of the franchisees. It could have something to do with the high turnover of the satays as well as the person who is actually doing the grilling.The original owner, Mr Kwong has since passed on the everyday running of the stall to his disciple whom he has trained in the art of Satay BBQing. He now concentrates on supplying his satay to various stalls around Singapore (as well as home parties). However, he can still be spotted at the stall occasionally since it was where he first started his business in the 80's.
Conclusion
One of the most memorable Satay experiences for me and, I hope, for you too!
Post Script:
This is already quite a popular stall on weekends, so be prepared to wait for your satay!
 Kwong Satay Geylang Lor 29 (Geylang side)
5pm - 11pm
closed on alt Wednesdays (This wed open)
Home orders available from Kwong's
Call 6565 0002 Judy
www.kwongsatay.com.sg
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 Big MOG and Power|MOG Single scoop Vanilla with Warm Chocolate Cake $7.80++For Superman, it was Kryptonite. For Samson it was Delilah. Yes, every man has a weakness, something that would make him crumble to his knees. For the Big MOG, that happens to be ice cream. (His wife can also have the same effect sometimes, but that is not relevant to this story.) It just so happened that when the Big MOG visited Singapore this time round, I also got contacted by Seventh Heaven to review their "Adults Only" ice cream. I thought that this was an opportunity too good to miss! You see, Seventh Heaven is the latest player in the growing homemade ice cream market. But rather than going the "Homemade = Low Fat, Low Sugar = Good for You" route, they have gone directly opposite and are offering a "No holds barred, Sinfully Creamy, Don't tell me what the Doctor told you, just eat first and suffer the consequences later" type ice cream. So I was really excited to see whether this would literally send the Big MOG to Seventh Heaven.
Chocolate Coffee Crunch Single Scoop $5.80++ (brandied cherry in shotglass not shown)
The lady behind this ultra sinful dessert turned out to be quite an unlikely candidate. Rather than someone who looked like she really enjoys eating lots of pastries and desserts, she turned out to be a rather petite ex-English lecturer from NUS. And the place this cafe is situated is just as unlikely, being tucked away in "no-man's land" at the Marketing Institute of Singapore (former Gan Eng Seng School) where there is hardly any human traffic.
Big MOG in his moment of Epiphany
This ice cream really is for the true believers. There is no fancy sundaes here and you won't find them giving you a choice of toppings. The ice cream flavours are served as they are with just a wafer. Afterall, when so much effort has been put into each flavour of ice cream, it would be a waste to add anything else to it.
The one flavour that really stood out from the rest was the Chocolate Coffee Crunch which had hand pounded Arabica Coffee beans in chocolate ice cream made from Italian Amedei chocolate and Expresso. Big MOG was so ecstatic about it that he wanted to give it a 5/5 but but I had to moderate it a little. Having tasted the various homemade ice creams around town, I must say that this one is quite exceptional and coffee lovers will appreciate the pieces of crunchy coffee beans in the ice cream 4.5/5. Another one that I really enjoyed was the Chocolate and Scotch Whisky which is has a wonderous chocolate flavour and leaves that bit of Scotch Whisky aftertaste at the back of the palate. This one was my personal favourite. 4.5/5 If you like Kahlua, you should not miss out on that flavour as with all the ice cream here, they don't skimp on the amount of alcohol added, so the Kahlua taste really does hit home. 4.25/5
Lemon Granita
For those who like something a little lighter, you can try ordering the Lemon Granita which is essentially a hand crushed ice lemonade topped with their Vanilla ice cream which is made from a combination of four different Vanilla pods. When you visit, you should ask Dr Sein Chan, Phd herself why she went to so much effort to make a Vanilla ice cream. To me it was a good Vanilla Ice Cream but I don't think I could appreciate the difference that the four types of Vanilla pods made over other premium Vanilla Ice Creams. But eaten together with the zesty crushed lemon ice, it was quite addictive. 4.25/5
Conclusion
Quite a different class of homemade ice cream altogether. You are not going to find your usual Durian and Black Sesame here. Instead, they have the more "Grown up" flavours with a lot of them spiked with liquors and other stuff with fancy European names. Well worth a visit if you are an Ice Cream fan. It would be interesting to see if the "Ulu" (remote) location will play to their favour as the inaccessibility might add to their exclusivity.
Post Script:
I returned to Seventh Heaven with our regular Makan Kakis just before posting this to get their opinion on the Ice Cream. The majority ranked Chocolate and Whisky the highest (which was my personal perference as well) so I am upping its rating to 4.75/5. The other thing that we all agree was very very good was the warm chocolate cake ($7.80) which is probably the best value dish you can get there considering that a single scoop is already $5.80, that means that for an extra $2 you get a freshly baked warm chocolate cake with molten chocolate in the middle to go with your Ice Cream! We all gave that one a 4.75/5 as well.
Seventh Heaven
10 Raeburn Park, (Former Gan Eng Seng Sch)
#01-24/25/26
Marketing Institute of Singapore
Singapore 088702
Tel: 62277787
Mon - Thurs 11am to 8pm
Fri 11am to 11pm
Sat 1pm to 11pm
Closed Sundays and PH
Disclaimer: Please do not overindulge in this if you are suffering from conditions such as diabetes or high cholesterol. This blog does not in any way advocate underage drinking or excessive alcohol consumption.
 Butterfish Sir?I know a lot of Vegetarians do go for buffets (where there is a nice salad bar), but I wonder if a Vegetarian would actually go to a restaurant called Carnivore where the main attraction is "all-you-can-eat" meats that are carved right on your table? Even if they do, wouldn't the sight of so much celebration of meat be a turn off for those who choose to be Vegetarians for the love of animals? Anyway, when the Channel 8 producers asked me to recommend a buffet to film for their upcoming Channel 8 series, I picked Carnivore as the more interesting choice. I seldom go for buffets nowadays because Calories are precious and rather than going for quantity, I prefer to go for quality. So for me, I'd rather spend my money and calories on a nice steak rather than on a buffet. However, Carnivore was a bit more than your run-of-the-mill buffet, I thought it would be a bit of a fun dining experience for the family.
Beef Hump (This guy quite drama!)
Carnivore does have a ring of authenticity about it. For one, their passadours (the guys cutting the meat) are really from Brazil, and they also have stuff like Beef Hump which you is a cut of meat that is common in Brazil but not found in our usual Aust or American beef. The Beef Hump is found in the Zebu breed of cattle which the Brazilians rear but not on the Angus which is the common breed in America/Aust. It is essentially a hump of muscle just behind the neck of the cattle.
Sliced Beef Hump
This is the first time I am trying beef hump and I must say that it is quite nice. You can see from the picture that the meat is quite fat and it has been roasted over a slow fire for 6 hours. So you can imagine how juicy and melt-in-your-mouth the meat is. It has got a little of that "Corned Beef" kind of taste. 4/5
The other meat that I was quite impressed with was the Butterfish which was smooth and buttery without any hint of fishiness. 4/5
Having so much meat is a tad heavy, so the roasted pineapples was a nice interlude between meats. You must admit that the sight of wonderfully charred and caramelized pineapple can be quite inviting even if you consider yourself a staunch carnivore!
Conclusion
Personally, I would rather have a nice steak rather than all-you-can-eat meat. However, I can see how this place can appeal to a platoon of national servicemen who have just been eating combat rations for 2 weeks. I must say however that the beef hump was interesting enough if you have not had this cut of meat before and it would be an interesting family outing if they have never been to this type of restaurant before.
Postscript:
Carnivore will be featured in the first episode of Buffet Buffet which will be aired on 2 Oct, Channel 8 at 8pm. I really hope that they will do a good job editing my spoken Mandarin which many have already said was "CMI" (Cannot make it) the last time.
 Carnivore VivoCity1 Harbour Front Walk, #01-161/162, S 098585 63769939
Lunch $28++ Weekend $32++
Happy Hour (5.30pm-6.30pm) $36 Weekend $39++
Dinner $42++ Weekend $45++
With ieatjr 12 inch Pizza $8Following up on my Hawkerpreneurs at Golden Mile Food Centre story, here is another young Hawkerpreneur that is trying to burst into the food scene by offering Cafe style food at hawker prices. If you are hungering for your pizza fix but don't want to spend more than $8 on your meal, this might be just what you are looking for.
The pizzas here are probably the thinnest and crispiest in Singapore. It is almost like eating "Jatz" crackers with tomato and cheese. The toppings are also modest, you get your basic ham, chicken sausage, mushrooms, pineapple and seafood. None of the fancy stuff, no parma ham or freshly chopped herbs, just staightforward freshly made pizza base with your choice of topping.
I find the crispy, super thin pizza base surprisingly nice although it is not really your traditional Napoli style pizza. As I said, it is almost like eating baked water crackers with tomato and cheese. For $8 for the large 12 inch pizza, it is the kind of thing you can eat and then proceed to have an Ice Cream over at Ice Queen and spend around $10 for a lunch that might cost you closer to $20 at a cafe. 4/5
Conclusion
Cheapest way to get a pizza fix but not for those with a big appetite as the thin crust is not going to fill you up.
 ROC (Relax one Corner) PizzaGolden Mile Food Centre #01-109 96846908 12pm to 9pm Closed Monday except Public Holidays
 Minipot Shabu Shabu sets starting from $15 (All proceeds donated to Operation Smile)I recently complained to a TV producer that she should not continue to make TV shows that glamourise $2 hawker meals. I mean, do we really want to encourage more hawkers to compete just price rather than to focus on quality?
With food prices going up, our hawkers are all suffering from lower profit margins but at the same time still under pressure to provide meals at cheap cheap prices. Our friend Liverpool of
Good Morning Nanyang Cafe is still forced to sell his cup of Kopi for $1.10 just because he is selling "Kopi" (Ya Kun already increased to $1.50 btw) while the same people won't even blink an eye to pay $5 for a cup of cappuccino at a cafe.
What we need is to change our mentality and reward hawkers who are willing to give us quality stuff rather than cheap cheap stuff. Either we do that or we risk all the good hawkers not being able to pass down their skills to the next generation. In the end we will all lose out.
I have made it my personal mission to support hawkers who are opened to new ideas and to providing better quality hawker food for us all. The fact is that even if they increase their prices, it is still cheaper than eating at a restaurant, but you derive more shiokness out of it.
So I am very happy to announce that Tina from Hock Lam Beef Kway Teow and taken on my suggestion of introducing a Shabu Shabu style Beef Kway Teow which I hope will do for Beef Kway Teow what Big Prawns had done for Prawn Noodles.
The premise is very simple. We like Beef Kway Teow, we like good beef and we also like our beef not too well cooked. So the solution to this is to provide nice Sukiyaki Grade Beef with a Mini Hotpot of stewed beef tendon, balls, tripe and you can cook your sliced beef yourself!
How often have you eaten Beef Kway Teow and wished the beef could be better?
Needless to say, the longer you cook the soup, the more "Tok Kong" (addictive) it is going to get and the slices of beef that you cook yourself just melts in your mouth and is even more shiok with Hock Lam's famous chilli sauce! 4.5/5
I prefer the soup version to the original dry version here. But you should try Tina's new "Gorn Lor" Hor Fun which is fragrant and the kway teow just leaps into your mouth. 4/5
Hock Lam will be introducing their Minipot Beef set on their 97th anniversary which is on 1 Oct (Hari Raya). And to commemorate their anniversary, they will be donating all the proceeds of the day to Operation Smile which is a worldwide movement to fix cleft palates in kids. So that is an added incentive to go down and try this very special way of enjoying one of Singapore's truly heritage foods. And, if it is well received, they might even put it on their menu!
Conclusion
I have tried very hard to convince Tina that there will be a market for better quality beef, but she is worried that consumers might not want to pay for it. How do you all feel about it? Would you like to see Wagyu beef or Karubi on the menu? Or do you want to just stick to the traditional $4 Bowl of Beef Kway Teow?
Please Note:
This special dish is only available on 1 Oct 2008 to commemorate their anniversary. However, if the feedback is good, they might decide to put it on the menu.The ieat kakis will be going there for lunch at around 1.30pm, do come and join us and at the same time support Operation Smile!
They will be opening from 10am to 3pm on that day itself.
 Hock Lam Street Beef Kway Teow
22 China St, #01-01
Far East Square
62209290
90180508 (Tina Tan)
What to do next:
Read what others have to say about Hock Lam Beef Kway Teow! Very heated indeed!
See which other kakis are coming in our Forum.
 One of the things that I often get asked during consultations is whether the condition they are suffering from is a result of "heatiness" (Juah). And it is not just the elderly who ask me this question, I also get asked by teenagers at times.
Now, we never learnt about the antidote for "heatiness" in medical school, so I must admit that I don't know the intricacies of Chinese Medicine. Suffice to say that there are now 1.3 billion Chinese in the world so even if I don't understand how it all works, at least I have to admit that it has somehow helped in the successful propogation of the Chinese race.
Anyway, what I know is that if one is striken by a condition caused by "heatiness", then the remedy is to take something that is "cooling" (liang). I guess everyone knows that. Unfortunately, there is nothing in my dispensary that can be prescribed as "cooling" medicine, although if one is suffering from, say, a bacterial sorethroat, I would prescribe a suitable antibiotic to remedy the ailment. So, can antibiotics be also called "cooling" medicine? On the other hand, we often try to do the reverse and understand Chinese Medicine in the context of having anti-inflammatory ingredients and antibiotic effects. So maybe calling an antibiotic a "cooling medicine" might make sense to those who practise Chinese Medicine.
Back to this "Cooling" tea that Cactuskit told me about. As you all know, our roving food photographer eats quite a lot of hawker food, so every now and then, he feels a bit "heaty" and needs to cool down. That is when he pays this particular stall a visit to get his dose of "Bitter First Sweet Last" (Xian Ku Hou Tian) Cooling Tea.
For $3, you get a bowl of powdered bitter herbs mixed with a tonic which you have drink first and then counter the bitterness you follow with another sweet concoction. Like all medicines it is bad to take but good for you. Like I said, I don't know how it works but at least you feel that you have taken something that will enable you to continue eating all that yummy food at Old Airport Road FC!
Conclusion
So are you a fan of herbal tea?
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Kwong Satay Geylang Lor 29 (Geylang side) 
