More Marine Parade Hawker

So, this is a little startling, even to myself, but I have just realized it has been six months since I last wrote about the food here at Marine Parade Hawker Center.

The last time I wrote about all the food here was way back in January. 

I can't believe it.

Where has all the time gone? 

A privilege it is, I should say then, that I have had the chance to run around and try different foods at different places.

It isn't that I have nothing new to try over here at the hawker center.

It's just that I have been running around to the coffee shop side more. 

But there have been a couple of new plates here at this hawker center since I started eating there in January. 

So I'm just plonking them down. 

You know, I never thought about it before, but if there is one thing I've noticed about these plates, it is that they are very colorful. 

One doesn't think much about it when you're working through your food on the day to day, but put them all together in a collection like this and you suddenly realize that nearly all my plates have been yellow.

Those that aren't have a story of their own. 

Like the green one which was a plate of beef nasi goreng that we ordered from one of the halal Malay stalls, and which I had been curious to try. The rice was tasty, a little peppery, I thought, but it was a good portion and there was more than enough beef slices distributed around.  

Then there's the black bowl- this one a Japanese style don bowl which, if I'm not wrong, we ordered salmon fillet, and which came with an extended squeegee of Mentaiko sauce on top. 

Thinking about it now, I am so glad for the food here. 

There are places where stalls serve food which aren't appealing, and which, after spending that amount of money, make you wonder just what you have spent it on. 

Doesn't happen here.

One of my favorite food stalls here is the roasted meat stall. 

I don't know its name, but it's close to the restroom area, along the same row as the long-standing Neptune dim sum stall, and which always has a queue. 

Why exactly people queue for, this, very likely it is the way the meat has been roasted, the generous, skillfully cut portions, the soup, and the abundance of rich sauce that they drown your rice in. 

People who like their roast ducks, char siews, and roast pork will find this appetizing. 

I myself like the way the meat has been cut. 

I don't have to worry about bones. 

I also like the char siew. 

It's tender with just that little bit of fat. 

When it comes to the rice, all I have to figure out is where on the big mound of rice I should arrange the duck skin so that I can have it after I've finished the duck meat. 

We tend to get a shared plate here, my friend and I, where there usually will be roast duck, with either a serving of char siew or roast pork. Sometimes he gets two separate plates, where on both plates there will be the roast duck, with char siew on one, roast pork on the other.

He likes the sauce and the soup. 

I like the sauce. 

There are times when the stall is closed, however, and so on those days we go for either the chap cai png, or the China-style dumplings, both stalls which stand at opposite ends of the L-shaped hawker. 

The China-style dumplings I've written about before. 

But, don't underestimate this stall of the chap cai png, by the way.

It's legendary.

Prices are what they are, but the food- it can be said- is good. 

I'm always excited by what my friend brings back. 

Sometimes he brings back a plate containing a fish fillet. Sometimes he brings back a plate of prawn fritters, which, shall I say, are a rare find when it comes to a hawker economy rice stall. I like the prawn fritters, but I am also not particular. Whether it be the vegetables or the chonks of braised brinjal pieces, I take a fancy to them all. 

In recent days we have found ourselves attracted by the Western food stall close to the MRT side. 

I don't know its name, but it serves up a flat filet of really well breaded fish. There're also chips and coleslaw, with a generous amount of mayonnaise. 

Uncle never hesitates to give you more if you ask him. My friend and I like our mayo, so I always ask for another. I usually get a bit paisei asking for too much, so I mostly get just one extra. 

Between the two of us who share one plate, splitting the fish into two makes for a very light, nice, meal. 

I have grown to like other dishes too in this hawker center too, like the char kuay teow done dry style, isn't very oily and easy to pick up with chopsticks. It's not a renowned stall, this one- the well known one closed down a couple of years ago- but this dish is pretty good, and I'll order again when the feeling hits next time.

There're still other dishes in the hawker that I want to have, and go try.

Like the ban mian stall. 

The other chap cai png stall. 

The popiah stall. 

The bak chor mee stall. 

The Peranakan food stall.

The Korean style samgyetang ginseng chicken soup stall. 

I'll make sure to take pictures of them when I go eat them, but for now, I'm suddenly thinking about this bowl of century egg lean meat porridge that you see up there. 

You can see the grains, but mistake it not, the porridge is actually very smooth. Cantonese that I am, I tend to be very particular about the way I like my porridge. Best way I like it is when the taste is consistent throughout the entire bowl, and the texture thick and smooth from the top of the bowl all the way to the bottom.

The porridge here meets those hopes. 

Thick, creamy, smooth, and full of flavor, it is made with a recipe passed down four generations since 1958. Reassuring, comforting, and homely, it is a bowl that warms the stomach, lets you have a generous serving of your favorite ingredients- I love how the yolk of the century egg is smooth- and keeps a person's mood cozy and satisfied. 

Oh, and the price is good too. 

The Sides of Roxy

Not gonna lie, it isn't every day that I get the right frame of mind to take pictures of the place around me.

It's not because I don't see her beauty.

It's also not because I don't see her charm.

It's just that there's always a lot on my mind and I don't look around and about me on the day to day. 

But sometimes- like on this particular afternoon a couple of months ago- I do.  

It was one of those afternoons where I'd decided I was going to take a walk around, so, I did.

My first picture however wasn't of the terrace, or the patio outside, but of the view opposite from the balcony. 

It doesn't look very significant, the sight of the condominiums opposite, but consider that this view is one that can only be seen from a position on this very spot six floors up, that changes everything. 

I'm not quite sure the name of them two towers of white painted residences, but I think they are the Marine Blue condominium, with the western facing wall of The Flow seen diagonally in front of it.

What makes this picture unusual is the angle.

Both properties actually don't stand next to each other, and there wouldn't be such a picture at ground level six floors down.

Can't say the same for the wall outside the balcony though, not when the whole exterior of Roxy I and Roxy II has the same style of tiles shaded with rich colors of seashell holographic especially when seen in the light of an afternoon sun. 

There's something about evening here at Roxy I and Roxy II that makes things look particularly beautiful. 

I'm not kidding.

You don't get the same atmosphere in the morning or in the afternoon.

Maybe the very early morning= I don't know- I haven't had to wake up that early.

But the evenings hit different. 

It is the rays of the late afternoon sun, I should say, that switch up the whole environment. 

I love how they slant so gloriously over the brown tiles of the terrace floor outside.

I love how they cast a special golden glow on the surfaces they land on. 

Suddenly the bicycles under the staircase don't look the same. Suddenly the stuff outside on the wall with the big cupboard and the trolley and the ladders don't look the same. 

Everything gets enhanced, thrown into different perspective, into different light. 

The whole place transforms, becoming calm, pensive, reflective, thoughtful.

I like to think that the evening light grants her a voice of her own that only surfaces during at that time, and not anytime else. 

Someone once told me it were the saturation of the tiles, the richness of the colors. 

It might also have been the structure, the layout, the way the place had been arranged. 

Honestly I don't have the right words to describe it. 

Even after all these months, I cannot determine if the atmosphere is captured by the rich red of the tiles, the way the tall palms with their skinny trunks wave ever so gently in the breezes from the north and south, the sturdy tables and benches, or the slight of green that the bushes and shrubs by the wall hover. 

I just know that there is a quiet strength of beauty about this terrace and patio that is hard to describe.

Sometimes I think of it as a canvas where, with fairy lights and wooden benches the place would look cheerful bursting with energy and life. 

Sometimes I think of it as a space where children might ride a tricycle or adults might play a game of badminton, risking the shuttlecock dropping all the way down.

That, however, doesn't happen, doesn't usually happen. 

She has a quiet dignity, a quiet discipline that makes it difficult to be disturbed, impossible to be intruded. 

That doesn't mean she's not happy, or that she doesn't have character.

No, character is determined by the energy of the people who dwell there. 

It is determined by the personalities of the people who make the place their own. 

Which is why I say that in the last few months she has become more of a canvas than last, especially with her newly fixed ceilings, and her newly painted walls.

Fort Canning-Clarke Quay

Most of my pictures of the walk this afternoon are of Clemenceau Avenue. 

Why it is I didn't take any of the route before this walk, well, I suppose I were too busy chatting with my friend to actually take note of the surroundings, and the view. 

Thinking back, it is a bit of a pity to have missed out on the scenes from the stroll that began at SOTA. I might have taken a picture of Hotel Rendezvous. I might have taken a picture of SMU- the Singapore Management University. I might also have taken a picture of the Orchard Road Presbytarian Church or the YMCA Building next to it. 

There is much to see along this stretch before you hit into Clemenceau Road. 

There is the Istana Park. 

There is also the Tan Yeok Nee House. 

And Singapore Shopping Center, with the hotel of Citadines now in the vicinity right behind it. 

Perhaps I had been too busy talking about the meal which I'd just had earlier.

But Chonkycam came out only after I'd started walking right by Fort Canning Hill, and realized I was missing out on these slopes, and these trees.

Don't laugh. 

These pictures are important to me. 

Last couple of months haven't made me able to go around taking pictures of places with trees. 

Not as much as I like, anyway. 

Hardly has it been that I've been able to go to, say, East Coast Park, or Lower Peirce Reservoir, for an urban hike and some pictures. Hardly too has it been for me to be able to go to Pearl's Hill, much less the further places like Changi Village or Pulau Ubin. 

I didn't want to miss out on these here. 

This side of Fort Canning Hill looks the same as I've always remembered. 

One actually feels kind of small standing at the foot of the hill gazing up. 

From here, it doesn't look as high, but get up there to the summit near where the reservoir is, and the view- let me tell you- is completely, utterly breathtaking. 

Not only will you get a view of the Singapore River, you also get a view of Chinatown, Outram, Bukit Merah, and a bit of open sea on the southern front after the CBD and the port harbor. 

Looking up at the bulge of the slope now I wonder if the bunker side is here, or if it is on the other side, but this slope looks steep enough to house a WWII concrete bunker beneath- supposedly 9 floors down. 

It is the gradual slope after the bulge that gets to me. 

That doesn't appear everywhere.

Somewhere around this spot too I took pictures of Clemenceau Avenue, and the landmarks on the opposite side. 

It would've been nice if I had taken pictures of the church- the Church of the Sacred Heart- but all I managed to get was a bit of a blurred glimpse of the Ngee Ann Kongsi Teochew Building- at the back of them trees lined along the middle of the road. 

Ironically, the nice picture I took from this very spot turned out to be the still Under Construction property that locals born and bred often refer to as Daimaru, or Liang Court. If I'm not wrong, it's now called Canninghill Rise. 

How far the construction of this property has come, I don't know, but it looks like it's close. 

In this picture too- the first one- at the back- was the glistening white grid exterior of the State Courts as it seemingly looked around from the back. 

Perhaps what made this walk pleasant- despite the heat and the light- were the shadows. 

I loved how they stretched over the pedestrian path, and the ground. 

It were the shadows that attracted me to the owners themselves- the big trees- on the sprawling beautiful slopes of Fort Canning Park. They created a song in themselves, these trees, and their shadows, making me feel like I were not along a road in 2026, but another time before. 

Had they been there all this while, I wonder? 

Or had the necessity of horticulture taken over?

There'd be much more to write if I knew what the names of these trees were, but I don't. 

Perhaps one day I should visit this Jubilee Park. 

Anyway, I haven't gone to Fort Canning in the longest time. 

This afternoon we were heading towards the river and Clarke Quay, so too, I only managed to stroll past. 

We didn't go up, we didn't go in.

The only thing we did was to stop long enough to admire the huge space of field and her meadow-like energy. 

It isn't just the space that intrigues me. 

It is that there are not that many large open spaces in Singapore which do not feel like abandoned land, or unused empty space awaiting new owners. 

This one felt like it had been deliberately kept there. 

Like it had been there a long time, maybe during colonial times, maybe during Japanese Occupation times, maybe during pre-independence times. 

We won't know. 

We won't know why this space is now this way.

Or whether this space awaits something else. 

The answers, I presume, we'll know in time to come. 

This afternoon however, we just went on. first turning left onto River Valley Road, then crossing it, then going into Clarke Quay via Tan Tye Place where some of the newest haunts on the block included the supermarket of NTUC. 

It's gotten quite popular, this supermarket. 

More than the rest of the clubs and pubs, it seems. 

Maybe it speaks to a market that doesn't need the ambience of the pub to boost interaction. Maybe it speaks to a market that knows what goes into their drinks, what they are happy with, what it is they are willing to pay for, and what it is the actual amount they actually open their wallet for.

No one ever thought a supermarket in a clubbing area would have the boost it enjoys now, but it has, and a growing influence it has, too. 

We didn't stop to take a look at the cocktail menus of the places now just opening in the late afternoon. 

Instead we simply went on, first crossing the Read Street Bridge, then walked along the bank of Clarke Quay where Paradox Singapore Merchant Court is, heading towards Clarke Quay Central. 

Duku Road's Food

When I first came here, I had thought that I would only be writing about the Mutton Briyani. 

But as it stands, I have come back here a couple more times and so now, not only do I have a Mutton Briyani to write about, I also have a bowl of soup, two Murtabaks and a special dessert in a very small, cute bowl. 

It is a blessing. 

It is a blessing that I have this place not too far from where I am that I can have a meal so substantial, and so filling. 

It is also a blessing that the food here is cheerful, bright, full of flavor, and cheers me up almost instantly every time it arrives at the table. 

The first dish here that made me smile was the Mutton Briyani.

It wasn't because I hadn't had it before.

But because I like my basmati rice to be more on the dry side and this one plate here definitely met the mark. 

I liked the portion.

I also liked that the grains didn't look like they had been soaked in oil. 

How the rice is made here I don't know. 

Different places do it differently, but briyani rice in general requires spices like cloves, cardamom, star anise, cinnamon and bay leaf. Some places put onions or garam masala or ginger-garlic paste. 

I can't tell what it is that goes into this plate but there's definitely a bay leaf- I found it at the side of the plate- there're definitely onions- they were in the achar- and maybe there're cloves hidden amongst the rice grains as well. 

But it wasn't just that the rice that I liked. 

There was also the sour pickled vegetables achar that served as a palate opener. This one had cucumbers, carrots and onions, all of which gave a special crunch and a sour, tangy taste that made the briyani rice taste lovelier. 

Of course there was also the chunk of mutton. 

There have been place where there's more bone than meat. 

Not this one. 

This one not only had more meat than bone; the meat was also tender enough that it fell off the bone when I cut it through with my fork and spoon.

My meal this afternoon came with a special surprise- a bowl of complimentary dessert that the staff gave to me. 

Maybe I looked like I needed the sugar.

But it was good, and I loved it. 

Problem is, I don't know for sure it is. 

I asked, but didn't quite get the word. 

So I've Googled, and the Internet tells me that the closest description might be a pudding made from semolina called Rava Kesari. A South Indian dessert often eaten at breakfast, it is made from semolina, ghee, saffron, nuts and sugar. 

This one had the sticky texture of semolina, the sweetness of sugar, the color of saffron, and both raisins and nuts stirred into the mix. 

It might be it. 

Perhaps one day I might work up the courage to ask the staff again just what this was. 

Perhaps my poor ear too might be more inclined to get the word correct at that time. 

Thing is, I have been looking out for this dessert the last couple of times I were back at the coffee shop, but I haven't seen it. 

I haven't ordered the briyani either. 

Instead we've gone for the Murtabak. 

Two times. 

First time we wanted mutton but they had run out of mutton so we agreed on the chicken.

Second time we wanted mutton and got the mutton. 

Does it make a difference?

Technically, no, but the mutton is nicer than the chicken. 

Softer, with more flavor, and more appetizing than some places that I have been to. 

What I like about the Murtabak here is the portion, the way it's done, and the crepe itself. 

Yes, they do take a bit longer to make it as compared to prata, but it is one very big a** rectangular piece, the filling inside every square is chock full of meat bits, and every bite I take has more taste of meat than that of crepe. 

I certainly don't mind. 

It's kind of interesting that they don't serve the Murtabak with chili sauce or mayonnaise or any other condiments. 

What they do bring you is a dish of fish curry and a dish of mutton curry.

My friend prefers the mutton.

I prefer the fish. 

The slightly sour, slightly spicy taste of the curry goes well with the crepe and the mutton bits inside. 

I am always left feeling very full every time I finish a Murtabak. 

Not just on the palate, but also the tummy, and the heart. 

I'd like to try their dessert pratas next time I go there. 

Dessert pratas are a charm of coffee shops like these, especially in the late evening hour when the body feels it is the right time to have something sweet. They've got banana, strawberry, chocolate, and the regular condensed milk. 

I might have the banana and the regular condensed milk. 

But I don't know if it's smarter to make it a meal, or a post-meal.

If I make it a post-meal, then the meal will have to be light.

For that, their sup kambing is good. 

It has the signature bright orange color that seems to define much of this meal. 

Sure, it does make you feel like you're sipping on a curry soup, but it has a thickness, and the richness of taste that can only come with the effort of boiling the meat of goat inside a pot together with a bunch of spices that altogether work well to make the soup aromatic. 

Tim Horton's Lunch!

Second, no, third attempt at writing this post. 

It's funny, but this doesn't usually happen to me. 

I am the sort of person who can usually get her thoughts flowing comfortably and smoothly most of the time without getting the melody chopped up. 

But somehow, for some reason, these two plates of sandwiches seem to be so difficult to write. 

Why, I wanna know?

Why is it so hard?

Why am I finding it so hard to write about the Truffle Egg Mayo sandwich and the Raisin Bagel that my colleague ordered for us from Tim Hortons over at Parkway Parade this afternoon? 

What is it that is holding me back from talking about the perfectly toasted Truffle Egg sandwich that has a lovely spread of chopped hard boiled egg with truffle-infused mayonnaise, and nice, soft spinach that gives that wonderful mush of a chew? 

I don't know. 

I don't know why I couldn't write about it earlier.

Especially since there're a contrast of textures and flavors in this one sandwich alone. 

On one hand you get the crisp and crunch of the perfectly toasted bread. 

On the other hand, you get the soft of the chopped up egg, and the cream of the mayonnaise that comes along with it. What's so cool about this bread is that the bread isn't hard to the bite, but the crust isn't very hard either. 

I had worried- at first- that the crust would be difficult to eat, like how the crust of a baguette is, but no, it softened after a while, and I found myself peeling it off the bread to slather with the egg. 

The spinach made for a nice touch, by the way. 

It's not often that a piece of vegetable blends so well with the filling that every bite leaves you with just a hint of the juice that only a gently warmed vegetable can bring. 

Out of all the sandwiches, I think I probably like the Truffle Egg Mayo more than I will like the meat, meat ones. 

Maybe because it takes a bit of trouble for me to boil the eggs, peel it, mash it up, and then spread it all over the bread. 

Here it's all industrially done. 

The egg probably comes up all prepped in its mayo anyway. 

But it isn't just the sandwiches that I like.

I also like the bagels.

Bagels are, and always have been, my thing. 

It's one of those foods that always appeals to me anytime of the day, whether it be for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. 

Perhaps it is the chew.

Perhaps it is the slightly burnt kind of taste the bagel gives when it gets lightly toasted. 

I don't really know what it is that appeals to me.

I just like how the flavor is, how this piece of donut-shaped bread gives me a satisfying, wholesome feel every time I take a bite, and it doesn't matter whether I spread the cream cheese or not. 

If I use the cheese, I hold it up and bite.

If I don't, I pull apart the bagel same way someone would pull apart a challah, crumb by crumb, piece by piece.  

Either way I love how it feels like and how it tastes, very much like a snack more than it is for a meal. 

This particular afternoon I decided to bring back the cute-looking Arla brand cream cheese (it's so rare!), and save half of the bagel. 

It's still in the fridge. 

I'm presuming it can keep...?  

The Reds of Mi Bibimbap

I might have said this before but I don't mind saying it again.

This place has become one of my favorite post-caregiving meals in recent days. 

It may not be everyone who understands the impact of what unlimited rice, unlimited kimchi, and unlimited seaweed soup is, but for someone who has spent several caregiving hours doing physical chores, with nerves and heart on high alert, it is important, critical, almost a life-saver. 

It has come to a phase where I can actually have just the kimchi and rice alone. 

Which, before our orders come, I do. 

There is a pattern we've established every time my friend and I come here.

I tell him what I wish to have, he makes the orders, I go get the soup. 

Two bowls of seaweed soup I bring to the table, then I go get a small dish of kimchi. The rice I wait until the dishes come, if not it gets cold. 

There are a couple of dishes that I like to have whenever I come here. 

One is the dish I call Sliced Angus Beef which comes served in this charming bronze, golden color pot and has a huge portion of tang hoon vermicelli underneath all that meat inside a lovely, tasty sauce. 

The other is this dish of braised chicken pieces and braised potatoes that are soft and mushy and tasty and come with more potatoes than pieces of chicken. 

Most of the time we come here for the Angus beef. 

The portion is large enough to share.

But in recent times when my friend and I decide that we want two dishes instead of one, we go for the chicken and potatoes, then get an additional order of mapo tofu, which portion, and size of tofu is more than enough for two. 

If there's one thing about the food here at Mi Bibimbap, it is that their portions are large. 

I don't mean the size of the plate.

I mean the size of the food itself.

When it comes to the chicken, the pieces are of the perfect size. Small enough to pick up with the chopsticks, big enough for the bite. Same goes too for the potatoes. They're soft, cut into thick sliced rectangular shapes, so not only is it easy for the chopstick to pick it up, it's easy to bite, let it mush around on your tongue, and have together with the rice.

I have tried squishing the potatoes to eat together with the rice.

I have tried eating the potatoes on their own. 

Either way it is the sauce that gets to me. 

Honestly the gravy of all their dishes here are great on their own.

Even if it be a common one like the mapo tofu. 

Generally I am quite selective of the tofu I eat- there are certain kinds I prefer, there are certain kinds which I try not to have, if possible- but this one is of the silky type which texture I don't mind. The tofu is cooked so soft that it crumbles right away, and the tofu, together with the bright red, slightly spicy, slightly tasty sauce goes perfectly well with each spoonful of rice as well. 

Perhaps what I like most about the food here is the balance I get out from one single meal. 

The seaweed soup provides a warm, palate-cleansing start to the meal.

The kimchi gives me the spark and kick I (genuinely) need. 

And the food, whichever I order, however it is prepared, grants me the much-anticipated warmth and comfort that settles down wonderfully in my tummy. 

I like how I can alternate the warm rice and warm food together with a little bit of chew from the spicy kimchi. 

I also like how I can still go and get another dish of the kimchi on its own after the dish is finished. 

If I do, I eat it without rice, without anything else, just plain cabbage kimchi on its own. 

There's no contrast of taste. 

It doesn't wipe out the lingering flavors of my meal. 

There have been times when I've gone for two bowls of rice.

There have been times when I've gone for three servings of kimchi and three bowls of soup.

Doesn't usually happen, I tell you, but the food here is such a charm for those days when my senses need both the stimulation and the comfort that I wish I could have this every week just so long as there are them caregiving hours to attend to. 

Ah Ma Chi Mian @ Serangoon

A friend brought me to this particular coffee shop at Serangoon Central, eager to show me where the stall selling his weekly pig trotter rice was, and how it looked like. 

Now, I am not a very huge fan of the ter ka pig trotter.

What that means is that I don't mind eating it, I don't mind the rich, herbal flavors of the gravy that the trotter is usually served in, and I do happily eat it, but the dish will not be first up in my mind whenever I want to go downstairs coffee shop for a meal. 

It's a different thing for my friend though.

He likes bak kut tehs and pig trotters.

He likes the herbal flavors of the soups and the gravy that they come in. 

And as long as the meat is tender, the gravy is nice, and the price is right, he'll go for it.

Me, I like my variety. 

At this coffee shop there were a couple of stalls that had a variety of food that I did look at. There was a zichar stall, a prawn noodle stall, a fish soup stall, some other stalls on the other side, but there was only one that really caught my eye. 

Ah Ma Chi Mian. 

Ah Ma Chi Mian is a franchise of nine outlets all over Singapore. When it was they started, which is their first stall, I don't know- I haven't paid much attention- but only one time a few years ago had I ever had their noodles, and it was at a coffee shop at Hougang Avenue 8.

Mr. Radioman had recommended it to me, said he had seen the queues at the stall whether evening or late night, and since the picture of bak chor mee showed like it was worth a try, that late evening we ordered. 

I have not ordered it since. 

Today seemed like a good day to have the noodles. 

Not so much for the fact that I was already here at Serangoon Central, but because I was truly me right here, right now, wearing what I wanted to wear, eating what I wanted to eat, in the middle of an afternoon waiting to go for a meeting at NEX after. 

Fishball noodles isn't always my identity, but it is one that I can choose to go for, and so this afternoon I did. 

I'm glad I made the choice. 

It isn't always that I get to have firm, springy QQ noodles that come stirred in a sauce that is more than just tomato sauce and vinegar. What's more, I had thought that the noodles would be dry and sticky, hard to chew, hard to swallow, with a distinctive yellow noodle taste. 

But, no.

They were smooth, mixed well with the sauce, and every spoonful had a wholesome, shiok kind of feel that brought out not just the texture of the noodles but also the flavors all at one go. 

I don't know if I were supposed to mix the fishballs with the sauce or were I supposed to eat them separately. Different people have different ways of mixing their ingredients, I guess. Some people eat their fishballs plain on its own. Some people roll the ball around in the sauce, take a bite out of it, roll it around some more. 

I know of people who have their balls with just the soy sauce and the chili. 

Then there are those who are expert enough with their spoon and chopsticks that they manage to carve up the whole ball into pieces and swirl it around with the sauce. 

I don't know how to do that.

So this afternoon I did what I always do- take a bite out of the ball, take a couple strands of noodles, take another bite of the ball again.

In between all of that I swooped around the soup looking for the bits of bak chor minced meat swimming around inside. 

The white, clean-looking balls were springy, by the way. 

Simple they might appear to be but they're like a go-to comfort food when one wants something soupy and light but doesn't want fish soup or porridge or ban mian.  

The fishball soup was tastier than I thought it would be. 

Some are really clean-tasting and light.

Not this one.

I've no idea what went in, but there was that bit of rounded flavor- you tasted that distinctive warmth that comes only when soup is boiled with meat as a base- and then a small piece of salted fish at the bottom, and there was that clear, clean taste which, honestly, I dont' know what makes it so, but leaves one feeling cozy and comfortable.

Maybe that's why some people just go for the soup, nothing else. 

Me, I liked the combination of everything- the presence of minced meat, the fishballs, the really good sauce beneath the noodles, and that big piece of lettuce which is one of my favorite vegetables when it comes to soup.