A while ago I wrote about a BKT place near Paya Lebar which my friend had recently discovered, and recommended to me.
Those who know me would know that this would never have happened couple of years ago.
Especially since I'm not the type who will automatically think of BKT when I'm hungry.
You can say that BKT was never very much on my radar.
That is, until recent years ago, and now, even more, when I find new places to go.
We've been to Sin Heng Claypot Bak Kut Teh at Joo Chiat a couple of times.
Not as much as Song Fa or the Klang-style BKT place at Geylang, but more than enough.
What's funny is that we had in fact actually gone past this place quite a bit (usually on our bikes on our way to East Coast Park) but had never stopped over for a meal.
But the first time we did, we got hooked... and we continue to be.
It's a little hard to define what exactly it is about this soup that attracts me.
Much of it, I think, is that it's the black herbal-style.
Not that I don't fancy the clear peppery ones- I have refills when I go Song Fa- but this one here, even if it be black and dark, is clear, not thick, and because of its texture, becomes an easy soup to drink.
There's a sense of warmth, a sense of comfort when sipping the hot soup, and were it not for the solid heavy claypot too heavy for my hands, plus required dining decorum, I might have just picked up the whole pot and drunk it straight.
The fact that the meat falls easily off the bone is of course a given.
I like that the bak comes in chunks of solid meat on bone, not so much of the tendons or the fat, and what's more, few of their pieces thus far have been hard or dry.
And their pieces are big.
Same too can be said of the ter ka, which, by the way, I was even more adverse to years ago.
Now, I still can't say that I've become a huge fan of braised pig trotters- the sight of bouncy pig skin in the pot still gives me a wee bit of shivers- and I usually cover it with a big piece of vegetable green- but I'm not adverse to the stewed (braised?) pork and I relish the meat as well as anyone else just so long as there's a lot of gravy zhup, and I don't have to look at the skin.
Gotta admit, I don't know how still to describe the taste of the ter ka.
I just know it's got something to do with the gravy, which is, by the way, one of the most nutritious dishes in the arsenal of TCM. What exactly it does to the body, I don't know, but it balances out your body a little bit, and is great when you're needing some sort of a boost to your overall system.
This is the dish to go for when you need to replenish your iron.
This is the dish to go for when you're in a cold period, or have been ill, and need to build back up your strength and health.
Women go for a stronger version of this as part of their post-partum confinement diet.
Women also go for this when they want to regulate the flow in their systems and bodies.
It is a dish good to regularly have, and I'm intensely glad for it.
I love it when the piece of pig trotter is huge.
Bouncy skin or no bouncy skin, to the very least, I know I'm gonna have a huge chonk of meat to go with my rice, and I'm going to be warm and comfy and satisfyingly full for a couple of hours after.