My friend and I have in recent weeks begun to appreciate what I call the "NTUC meals".
They're not gourmet meals.
They don't come served on pretty crockery with pretty cutlery.
But they are hearty, appetizing, flavorful meals, at a gorgeous price most of us can appreciate.
I first discovered these meals when I began patronizing the NTUC Xtra here at Parkway Parade. At that time I thought they were only meant for takeaway, not permitted to be consumed within the supermarket.
But then my friend found out we actually could, and so one afternoon we found ourselves seated at a table in the dining area of the supermarket right at the back with two plastic boxes of Korean cuisine in hand.
It was a deliberate choice.
The Xtra here offers a variety of instant ramen, Korean meal boxes, Japanese meal boxes, sushi and sashimi.
It also offers platters of meat served up by Indoguna where you select your meat, decide how you want to have it done, and then have the chef at the in-house counter prepare it for you.
Perhaps one day we might order a full plate of steak, ribs and sausages the same way I saw a couple of diners once do.
But for now we're sticking with what we've been having.
First time we went, we were already familiar with their sushi and salmon sashimi.
What we hadn't ever tried before, however, were the Korean meal boxes, so we decided to get that.
The food turned out to be better than I thought.
If you think the chicken looks very red, well, it was.
It was deliberately chosen.
There are times in life where I want bright color and sugar and some nice spicy flavors.
And since I don't always get to have yangnyeom chicken, this afternoon became one of them.
The chicken was good.
I had thought it might be very spicy as some yangnyeom sauces tend to do, but this one was made just right, plenty of sweet and savory with only just a little hint of the spice. Also the meat inside each piece tasted clean, making every bite well-rounded and satisfactory.
One thing that surprised me was just how generous with the sauce they were. So plentiful was it inside its little square that there was enough for my friend- who had chosen the regular fried chicken- to slather his fried chicken with mine.
So delighted with our lunch on this particular afternoon that we have since then been coming here to this Xtra a couple more times.
One afternoon we chose the Aburi sushi.
Another afternoon we tried out the yakitori from the Japanese plate.
Most of the time however we just go for the Korean style dishes, like this one that I call the cheese powdered chicken which I have actually taken a fancy to.
Okay, the quality might not the same as those we find in Korean fast food places or the dedicated Korean fried chicken restaurants, but the cheese powder is evenly distributed, and the flavor of cheese is rich enough for me.
In particular, I like the bits that fall off the piece of chicken every time I hold it up with my chopsticks. They make for very nice snacking after the main pieces of chicken are finished.
I only wish the portion- the one that came with the rice- had more.
These days we've begun to form our own meal time pattern when it comes to this place.
Some days we take one meal box that has rice and chicken.
Some days however we opt for the bowl of cheese powdered chicken- it has no sides, and no rice- then add either a soft, easy to eat, Korean-style omelet, or one of my favorite Korean dishes ever to date- japchae.
