Okay, so, I've been trying to write about this plate of chap chye png from the corner stall in Marine Parade Hawker Center, but guess what, I'm failing very badly at it.
I don't know why.
Technically it shouldn't be too difficult.
Chap chye png is one of the most popular foods in Singapore, and so ubiquitous it is to the local dining scene that there's one in nearly every coffee shop and hawker center, where, more often than not, it is the very first stall you look to whenever you're down there for lunch, or dinner.
It doesn't matter whether you've set your mind on duck rice or fish soup or wanton noodles or cai tow kuay that day.
Somehow you'll still peek at all the different foods glistening under the bright lights of the stall enticing you to change your mind.
There are no bright lights at the counter of this stall here at Marine Parade Hawker Center.
It's just an upright counter with trays of food stacked vertically from one shelf of the display to the other on top.
There's no special arrangement.
One tray might be having stewed vegetables. Another tray might be having stewed pieces of chicken or stir-fried kangkong. Still, another tray might be holding all the fried stuff that customers, depending on their appetite, can choose.
There's hardly a shortage of queue whenever this stall's open.
It might be because it is the only chap chye png stall in the whole hawker, or it might be because the food reminds one of zichar dishes you have from the coffee shops, except that here you can pick and choose all your favorite dishes (whatever's available) without splashing $10 minimal for the a whole hotplate of braised egg tofu.
I think it's the taste.
I think it's also the portions.
You know how most places chop up the food into smaller pieces and mix them all up so that you get bite size pieces of whatever you choose?
Here they're all big piece big piece.
They dont' chop it up for you.
It is one whole piece, one whole chonk.
This afternoon my friend got for me a plate of bee hoon- he had seen some of the morning's economic noodles still on sale- and knowing my love for economic kuay teow and noodles, got me some.
Food wise, there was egg tofu, sweet and sour pork, one big slice of a braised eggplant, a bean curd wrap, and what I think was a ball of ngoh hiang stuffed with something but didn't taste like one.
What's really cool about the food here is that some of them will not taste how you imagined them to be.
It's like I had thought the bean curd wrap would taste bland.
As it turned out, to my surprise, nope, not at all.
Not only was the skin marinated (with a rather unique flavor, don't ask me what it was), the fish cake, or something, inside the skin, had its own taste too.
That wasn't the only food that tasted unique.
The brinjal- huge piece that it was- I had also at first thought it would be heavily soaked with chili and oil (as most brinjal dishes at these stalls do) but even though the center was sleek and mushy with a slight bit of chew, even though it was savory, there was hardly any oil, and there wasn't much chili at all.
The tofu had a special QQ to it that I liked.
And the sweet sour pork, whilst a wee bit hard (I thought) wasn't overladen with synthetic sweet, nor were it bluff-you pieces of fat masquerading as meat.
I wish I knew just how they prepare their dishes.
There was must be something that keeps people coming day after day, time after time.
Really, I think it's just their zichar flavors, and their hearts.