Hedgehog's Birthday

It has been close to four months since we celebrated Hedgehog's birthday in July.  Honestly I can't believe that it has been that long; that four months have already passed in this manner, and that time is just carrying on in a somewhat day on day pattern which can feel like a tremendous blur. 

But I have finally managed to consolidate all of his birthday (food) pictures.

You know, it is with a heart of thankfulness that I look at these now. Life is such that you may not always enjoy celebrating a person's birthday- even though you are obligated to.

But Hedgehog and I have been friends for 28 years. 

And for the last 20 years there has never been a birthday which I don't enjoy celebrating with him. 

The celebration this year included a hotpot, a Mookata, a burger, a Tom Yum Fried Rice, a Butterfly Pea Rice and a Roasted Meat rice. 

We began this year's celebration with a hotpot at Paradise Hotpot. Gentleman wanted meat, and because he knew I had a love for hotpot with vegetables and noodles and all the other foods- cooked, included- it made for a good choice. I can't remember whether he brought his own concoction of yogurt dip this time, but I think he did. 

Greek style yogurt.

Of course I took a picture of my own bowl, noodles, meat, vegetables all. 

Plus the cooked food, which at Paradise Hotpot is a must. 

The next buffet we took was a Mookata at a coffee shop in Bedok North. 

I don't quite remember the address but it was a reputed mookata franchise and he had been wanting to try it out for quite a while. 

We got a fair bit of beef slices here, as well as a good portion of pork belly. The meat here was relatively good. Chilled, nicely cut, fresh, and with plenty of variety, all their meats made excellent ingredients to the mookata grill. 

Same too were the rest of their ingredients for the moat at the bottom of the domed mookata grill. Here I helped myself to a fair bit of vegetables, including Chinese cabbage. I also added a packet of sweet potato noodles, a couple of quail eggs, and cheese tofu pieces, which have, in recent times, become a favorite hotpot ingredient of mine whenever I see it in the trays. 

I liked seeing the purple of the sweet potato noodles in the moat. 

Thought it looked pretty. 

His birthday itself we headed out to Bras Basah Complex for a burger meal at this cafe which I had seen on the site sometime earlier. Original plan had been to go for the waffles, or some other item on the menu which I'd thought he might like. But he chose a burger. A pork katsu burger with Mentaiko sauce. It was pretty good, especially the brioche bun, pleasantly toasted, and soft. 

Dinner on the same day we went to Orchard Towers for Thai food. 

Walked all the way there from Bras Basah with a few air-conditioning stops in the shopping malls along the route. 

We ordered an egg omelet and a plate of Tom Yum Fried Rice, both of which were prepared to the same style as we'd eaten in Thailand at some of the downtown cafes.

Flavors that we liked and remembered. 

Even the atmosphere of this place here in Orchard Towers was reminiscent of the basement diner in Ploenchit where I'd had a Pad See Ew for lunch once, and which warm lights and rectangular tables I still can remember.

The celebration did not end here. 

Next day we decided to have roast chicken rice and roast pork rice from one of his favorite stalls along Tanjong Katong Road. 

Hot weekend afternoon, but we walked there, had our meal, and left. 

This place holds a bit of special memory for Hedgehog, and in a tiny way, for me too- although, if you ask me, I can't quite place it for certain when. Might have been a few years ago, might have been more than a few years ago. 

Our last celebration meal for his birthday this year turned out to be back at Bedok, but on the Kaki Bukit side this time. Peranakan food, we had, for the beef rendang and the butterfly pea rice. 

And the cafe, a very homely cafe at the void deck of a public housing HDB block, gave him two slices of kueh lapis to celebrate his birthday. 

Sin Heng Kee Porridge

Am seriously missing this right now, legit. 

Don't ask me why.

It's just one of those things that you don't realize until it happens. 

I didn't think I would be missing a bowl of porridge from Sin Heng Kee here in Toa Payoh so much until now, when I wish I could have this together with their signature youtiao. 

One doesn't put it to mind when you're having a meal there, but their youtiao has to be one of the best that I have eaten thus far. 

It isn't just that the youtiao is pong pong bulky and fluffy soft and freshly fried hot when you go collect it from the counter.

It is also the fact that I think there is a bit of flavor (salt, maybe, or something) added to the flour before they drop it into the bubbling oil to fry.

I don't have a picture of the youtiao I had this evening. 

But I have some of the porridges we ordered. 

My friend and I had our own bowls of porridge for our dinner this evening. 

If you're wondering what that means, well, we sometimes share. 

But tonight he wanted more pork and I wanted century egg. 

So he got his bowl of pork porridge add egg, and I got mine with century egg and pork. 

You know, I've never had any other order since day one when I started having porridge here at Sin Heng Kee. 

That, despite the fact that they have plenty of other porridges on the menu. 

I'm not sure which the most popular one is. 

It might be the Sliced Fish Porridge or the Intestines Porridge. 

It might be the Pig Liver Porridge or the Meatball Porridge. The Cuttlefish Porridge and the Seafood Porridge looks good too. 

The one thing I've noticed is that they don't have beef. 

However, they do have Frog Porridge, Sliced Abalone Porridge, Hokkaido Scallops Porridge and Fresh Prawn Porridge.

It's funny, but to date I haven't seen anyone have the Fresh Prawn Porridge or the Ginger Onion Frog Porridge. To the very least I haven't seen prawn shells or frog bones on the table. 

Makes me wonder a little what it is that the others order.

The Sliced Fish, perhaps, or maybe Peanut or Meatball. 

It doesn't matter that I only want the same bowl every time I come here. 

I've always loved century eggs with porridge. Doesn't matter what stock the porridge is cooked in. It all tastes good to me. The soft, mushy yolk, in particular, adds a hard-to-describe taste to the dish. The warmth of the rice mellows down the tartness, chemical taste of the egg. When eaten together, one gets a comforting, earthy taste that you don't necessarily get with any other combination. It's unique on its own.  

Portions of meatballs and sliced pork inside the bowl are generous as well. 

What makes this especially lovely is that none of the ingredients are undercooked or overcooked. I never get a chewy slice of pork that hasn't been cooked right. I also never get a slice of pork so hard and dry that it is impossible to appreciate. It's not just the sliced pork that is good. 

The meatballs, all of which are the right size, have a lovely salty taste on their own and feel like they're handmade- not the small small frozen kind that you buy from the supermarket. 

Even the porridge itself has a flavor that warms my mood and my tummy up. Everyone has their own palate. Some people prefer a rice porridge on the outright salty side. Others like theirs tasty but a bit more mellow. 

Me, I like the mellower one like how Sin Heng Kee do it here. 

And their portion is always more than enough. 

I'm always full by the time I am done with my bowl. 

Even if I still want another stick of the dough fritters youtiao to go with a cup of hot kopi. 

Tiong Bahru Bakery

This doesn't always happen to me, but there aren't many pictures of this singular (and rare) visit to Tiong Bahru Bakery over at the SIT flats of Tiong Bahru. 

It's not that I have no inkling for the place nor the food. 

It's just that I haven't had the inkling, nor the need to come all the way here to Eng Hoon Street for a pastry and coffee when this particular brand bakery has so many outlets closer to my side of town here and there. 

I mean, it's not that I don't have interest in having a coffee whilst sitting amongst charming pre-war apartments, but it makes no difference to me whether I'm having it here, having it at the outlet downtown in Orchard, or at the shop house on Crane Road not too far from my home. 

But here we were today for a meeting.

And so since we were here, decided we'd hang around a bit to grab a pastry and a bun whilst getting some work done.

Sitting here at the cafe, it was easy to see why this place is so loved by fans. 

I'm not sure if it were the ambience, the crowd, or the food. 

To some diners, ambience is a critical factor. They who like warm, sunny vibes with soft, muted tones on walls and furniture will love it here. The whole place is bright and cheerful but cozy and inviting at the same time. 

It encourages conversation and friendly chatter. 

It also encourages self-expression in the form of art, whether through music, watercolor, sketches, or journaling. One cannot help but let one's own thoughts run whilst sitting here with a coffee, a tea and a bun or pastry in hand. 

I didn't see it before but the ambience here does make one slow down. 

Better yet that you are in the vicinity of a neighborhood whose presence has continued all through the decades, beginning from the 30s all the way till today. No one knows how much of each home has been renovated, or not at all. 

But here's where at this cafe, and everywhere else close by, life will carry on. 

This morning my colleague ordered a Spring Onion Cream Cheese Shio Pan (minus the spring onions) for us to share. He had seen it at the display trays and thought a savory bun would make for a good mid-morning fuel. He wasn't wrong. The shio pan was good. 

The salted shio pan itself was both buttery and salty blended so well that you couldn't distinguish where in the bread you tasted the butter or the salt. It made for a very wholesome feel, a kind of moreish savor that had you wanting more. 

I found it great fun pulling the bread apart with my hands and sliding the filling off the bun. More like a snack than a meal, it let me savor the cream cheese way more than had I bit straight into the shio pan itself. 

We both liked the cheese, my colleague and I. 

But he was a bit surprised by the texture of it.

He had not expected the filling to be this thick, this creamy. 

Not that he minded, he said, he just thought it would be less of a cream cheese texture.

So good was this that we decided to order a croissant after. 

It felt like the natural thing to do when everyone around us was having croissants of all varieties on their plates. 

To be honest, I hadn't known that there were so many croissants to choose from. Some of the more popular ones included the Almond Croissant and the Green Tea Croissant. The Almond Chocolate Croissant and the Maple Pecan Pear Croissant seemed pretty welcome to. Most of their croissants belonged to the sweet side, like this one that caught my eye- the Lychee, Strawberry and Rose Croissant. 

At another time, I would have ordered it. 

I like the combination of lychee and rose together. 

At another time too, I would have considered the Four Cheese Corn Bacon Croissant.

Today, however I decided to just stick to the plain croissant. 

I wanted to know how it would taste like. 

If a place can't do the kosong one well, anything else will just be a mask, not a complement. 

Thankfully theirs was good. 

So delicious was it that I didn't even need to eat it with butter like how I normally do. I just pulled it apart with my hands same way I had done with the shio pan. And I didn't leave any flaky crumbs behind. I got them up with the fork and knife. 

Too good to waste. 

Perhaps next time I'll go for their Brie & Mushroom Croissant Sandwich. It sounds like a good combination. Definitely I'd love to try the Smoked Salmon & Cream Cheese Croissant Sandwich- one of the best combinations ever. 

And perhaps the Wasabi Egg Mayo. 

I've never actually had the flavor of horseradish with egg mayonnaise but I think it will taste good. 

I'll try some of their other offerings too. 

The Apple Kouign Amann looked good. 

So did their Apple Crumble, their Lemon Tart, and their Lemon Drizzle Cake. 

More Thumbs Up Mainland Food

There actually aren't that many pictures of the recent meals we have had at Thumbs Up's Mainland Chinese food place downstairs. 

But I am not someone who goes through a season where I don't write about the foods that I have had, and like. 

So here goes. 

Summer season of this year saw us have a lot of a dish featuring beef slices, black beans and vegetables over rice topped with a fried egg. 

This time, however, we decided to go for the dishes that speak close to us, dishes which we had missed. 

My friend had a crave for Guo Bao Rou- a Northeastern dish of thinly sliced pork tenderloin battered in potato starch, fried till crispy, then served over a pool of bright, shiny, very sweet sauce. 

I, on the other hand, missed the zero-spice kiddy version of La Zi Ji where, instead of numbing mala chilis scattered all over the plate, the fried chicken chunks were served coated with Salted Egg powder. 

This version is an under-12 dish, I know, but I love it. 

I love how all the chunks are chopped up so well, how each piece is so evenly covered with the salted egg powder, and how it all comes together to make it so fun and snacky. 

I don't care if people find it childish or unexciting. 

I don't care if people find that the dish gives no kick. 

I love the slightly salty, slightly sweet taste of the salted egg, I love how easy it is to pop it into the mouth and chew, and in actual fact, I don't need rice to go along with it- although I usually do.

The other dish that both of us favor here at Thumbs Up is the Guo Bao Rou. 

Not only is it a dish my friend misses, it is also a dish that speaks to me. 

Although somewhat differently. 

My friend likes the crisp crunch of the thick potato starch batter over each piece and the chew of the pork. 

Me, on the other hand, I like the shiny sauce that comes in a bright, but faint orange color.  

By the way, the sauce is exceptionally sweet, I tell you, so much so that first-time diners could easily get confused if this plate here were a dessert or a main. 

You know what's interesting? 

I am a Cantonese familiar with sugary sweet sauces accompanying my meats- we're talking sweet and sour pork, sweet and sour fish, and Cantonese-style Peking Duck wrapped in thin crepes dipped in sweet plum sauce- but even I found this sauce very, very sweet. 

But I don't mind. 

On the contrary, I anticipate it. 

Ordering this dish means I am down for cheerful dining. 

It means I will have an enjoyable mealtime where I know I will get a bit of carefully tenderized pork together with the bouncy, crispy chew of the batter. 

It is a dish I look forward to even as I anticipate the skewers that my friend always orders together along with the main. 

There will come a day, I think, where I will want to go ballistic- order ten of these things, maybe some of vegetables as well, and just work through skewer after skewer with cans of Coke alongside me. 

Don't laugh at these seemingly tiny chunks of meat. 

They are impossibly hard to resist. 

This batch here had what I think was lamb, chicken skin, and one of quail eggs, specially ordered for me as one of my favorite foods. 

All of them were marinated the same. 

With what, I honestly don't know, but there appear to be cumin seeds, salt, dried red pepper flakes, black pepper and sesame seeds. 

I always manage to taste the red pepper. 

I also always manage to taste the sesame seeds and the black pepper. 

What I am interested to find out is how they manage to make them so perfectly grilled and so perfectly marinated that you can literally see all the spice on the top of the meat. 

Best part, none of them are oily. 

And they're incredibly fun to eat. 

More ChaletYums

We have been having a couple of lovely meals at home in recent weeks that I think I ought to write about now, rather than to wait, wait, wait, and then forget to write about it until months later. 

These meals are good.

All of them. 

They might be simple, yes, but they represent gratefulness and thankfulness and a quiet prayer of thank you for Faithfulness and Manna provided every day. 

The first meal here is one that I will remember for some time to come. 

I don't mean it to be a bad meal, mind. 

Pad Krapow for $6.10 is not, and cannot, be a bad thing. 

Not when there is substantial rice, not when the minced pieces of pork are well fried with just the right blend of spice and holy basil leaves, and the fried egg is done so beautifully that the yolk simply runs all over the rice when you break it with your spoon. 

By all counts, it was a blessed box.

But two tired adults with appetites will find a single box insufficient- and that is where we were today. 

Let's just say it was one of those days where the wallet and calculator needed to work overtime and mind, those days were tiring and not so kind.

I'm pretty sure I cooked myself a bowl of noodles after this was finished.

But I didn't take a picture. 

The pictures of ChaletYums this time include some new dishes and new foods that we have made. 

Like this bowl of porridge that I have now come to appreciate and love. 

It was quite unexpected, really. 

I had not thought that minced chicken porridge cooked in the Little Black Grill could actually be this good. The texture was a bit like mui fan, but with oyster sauce, fish sauce, spinach, some other sauce and without the gravy. 

The addition of frozen spinach in the porridge made a whole lot of difference. 

Not just visually, taste-wise as well. 

Same too for the handful of frozen mushrooms which we add into our plates of beef fried rice. 

This is another dish that in recent weeks I have come to genuinely appreciate and love. 

There is something satisfying and delicious about the fragrance of beef fat tallow when it gets mixed together with rice. The fragrance, very much like grilled meat, is filling, comforting yet clean all at the same time, with a warmth that is actually quite hard to describe. 

To put it simply, I love how the beef slice is crisp and the rice grains smooth and oily all wrapped up in the oil of the warmed-up fat. 

Every bite is delightful, made better by the crunch of organic pumpkin seeds that add texture, plus that very slight hint of burnt burnt taste that goes into the rice, creating even more variation to the already rich and fragrant meal. 

Besides the beef fried rice, another new addition to the meals these days are the organic chicken nuggets ordered frozen from Redmart. 

These are so good, I tell you.

I am the kind who doesn't mind a chicken nugget when I can get a good one, so having these in the oven really made me smile. There is something charming about seeing a childhood snack arranged so prettily on a plate with the jars of mayonnaise and truffle paste waiting by the side. 

Come to think about it, I wonder if there are variations of McDonalds' sweet and sour sauce that one can have. 

Will plum sauce taste just as good, I wonder?

We have had our chicken nuggets all on their own. 

But we have had them with leftover Hong Kong Noodles as well.

Of course, there can be no ChaletYum meal in the house that does not include instant noodles. 

This one I think is Indomie with loads of chili oil, no seasoning, a sprinkle of pumpkin seeds- it makes a difference- and a dash of pepper. 

Sin Heng Claypot Bak Koot Teh

You know, looking through my pictures earlier, I realized that out of the many times that I have been for a meal at this place on Joo Chiat Road this year, of pictures, I have only four.

I don't know why.

I don't know why I never took a picture of the yam rice or the youtiao which my friend makes sure always to order. 

By right, there should be more.

Especially of the food. 

But I guess I am usually quite hungry by the time the rice and everything else at the table. 

So all I have are these.

Sin Heng Claypot actually offers more than just bak kut teh and ter ka. 

On the menu there are a couple of zichar style dishes- prawns, poultry, vegetables, fried rice, claypot noodles, vermicelli, even opening appetizers like prawn rolls with sweet sauce that you generally would not find alongside with bak kut teh.

But here they are.

And quite popular they are too.

I've seen people order the cereal prawns. 

I've also seen people order two kinds of vegetables to go with their claypots of soup and gravy. 

For my friend and I, our orders tend to be regular. 

What we usually get is one dish of bak kut teh, one dish of ter ka, one bowl of yam rice, and one bowl of youtiao. 

Depending on the appetite, sometimes we order just the bak kut teh. 

But sometimes we order both. 

In recent months I have come to appreciate the servings and portions that this place serves. 

This isn't a bias.

It's true. 

See, all along I had thought that everyone served up their portions of pork ribs in regular-sized, near-rectangular shapes. I mean, Song Fa does that. Founder does that. Ng Ah Sio also does that. 

But, as I found out not too long ago, it is not an absolute. 

There is no law, spoken or unspoken, that states your pork ribs must be of a distinctive shape and distinctive size before it is brought to you. 

So it is perfectly acceptable that your bowl of soup come served with ribs chopped up so small that- whilst easy to pick up with chopsticks- make you wonder what you are paying for, how much of a portion are you supposed to have for your meal, and where all the shiokness has gone. 

Bak Kut Teh, like frog porridge, and some other dishes, is one of those meals that you have to feel shiok about when you're eating it. 

There is no two ways about it- you either feel like you've eaten a full, satisfying meal with plenty of meat, or you feel like you've consumed drips and drabs of meat that had been left hanging from the bones. 

I prefer the full, satisfying meal- and Sin Heng here does it well. 

Their ribs are regular sized, their meat is tender, and so easy does it fall off the bone that all I need to do is to take a single bite, tug, and the whole piece comes off straight away. 

I don't have to chew and chew and chew. 

I also don't have to tug and pull and tug and pull. 

What's more, the pork has a nice, slight warmth nestled within, so much so that the meat actually feels warm inside your mouth as you're eating. 

The dark soy sauce in which you dip the meat into takes away nothing of the taste.

Best part of this dish, however, has to be the soup. 

At first glance, one might think that it be more like a thick concoction of the medicinal kind, but a few sips in, and you will soon realize that it is clearer, cleaner, and more refreshing than it actually appears to be. 

I like having at least one and a half bowls of soup whenever I am there. 

It makes for a great complement to the gravy of the pig trotters.

Which, by the way, is my favorite part of the dish. The gravy, rich with vinegar, goes well with everything- the trotter meat, the pork from the rib, even the youtiao and the yam rice. 

It isn't that I don't fancy a nice, big trotter. 

It's just that I am not so good at the sight of the trotter in the pot itself. My mind flies to the pig, to its foot, and then at the now thoroughly cooked leg simmering in the pot right in front....

I'm not very brave. 

Never was. Chances are, never will. 

Doesn't matter whether I have been enjoying the trotter meat for a few years, or that I can take a bit of the collagen-rich skin- the sight of the pork leg itself is what scares the heck out of me. 

What's more, the inexperienced me can't seem to distinguish between the bone, the meat, and the skin unless my chopsticks poke around the dish. 

However, etiquette doesn't permit me to do that, so normally I wait for my friend to break open the trotter and then I try to hunt for the meat, or ask him for help to see where on the leg it is. 

From time to time, the sight gets a bit too overwhelming. That's when I take all the vegetables and dump them on top of the trotter. 

Out of sight, out of mind. 

But only for a little while.

I do eat them parsley- or is it coriander- with a bit of the trotter meat over a spoonful of rice. 

The tastes and textures work together really well!

The White Tiffin

This place here at one corner of Toa Payoh Hub I have walked past often a time, but out of all those times, I have only come here twice. 

That's two times. 

It isn't because I don't like the food. 

It's just that Toa Payoh Central is one of those places where one has lots of other options, and somehow my feet, appetite, and stomach have always gone there. 

But The White Tiffin is one of those cafes that you have to take special notice of- even if it be at least once. 

At first glance it looks like nothing more than an ordinary cafe serving local food- no different from many other Singapore-style cafes that have sprouted up in the country over the last couple of years. 

But study their menu a bit and you will soon realize that there is something unique about them that separates them from everyone else. 

I'm not sure if the menu is the same across all their outlets in Changi City Point, Toa Payoh Hub, Woods Square or Esplanade XChange, but their one here at Toa Payoh carried a certain confidence I don't always see elsewhere. 

Perhaps it is the decor.

Perhaps it is the food.

Perhaps it is the price. 

Whatever it is, there is something that speaks to everyone, never mind whether they come here for a meal, a snack, a coffee, a dessert, or otherwise. 

First time we came here, we had the Babi Pongteh. 

Afterwards on our second visit, we decided to try their Nasi Lemak, and their Curry Chicken. 

The Babi Pongteh was a deliberate choice.

I had seen it on the menu. 

It was something I wanted to have. 

Not just because the non-Peranakan me found it to be one of the most difficult, if not impossible, dishes to replicate at home, but because it came in a single-person portion at a happy price. 

You know how it is that nearly every Peranakan restaurant around the island tends to make their dishes huge? 

At The White Tiffin they are not.

You can do communal, of course, like how Peranakan meals traditionally are, but more often than not, it is a Nyonya or Baba who pops into the place and orders a plate for his or her own. 

I have seen them have their own plates each.

I have seen them armed with big plastic cups of kopi peng and kopi-c peng. 

And I have seen them sharing a box of dessert and a piece of cake each. 

The one thing that I appreciate about the food here is the aesthetics.

The kitchen did not compromise. 

I had expected my food to come in a bowl. 

But my Babi Pongteh of braised pork belly and pork trotters in a sauce featuring fermented bean paste, gula melaka, shallots, garlic and soy sauce came served in a cute little pot reminiscent of the big enamel pots often used in the kitchens of many a family home.

And the gravy.

In all honesty I had thought that (for this price) the gravy would be watered down.

But, no.

It was thickly textured, richly flavored, full of the flavors a perfectly cooked pork stew gravy is supposed to be. I wish I could distinguish which part of the sauce had which, like where in the gravy was the fermented bean paste or the herbs of cinnamon and cloves?

But my skill lies only in the appreciation, not anything else. 

Just imagine, I couldn't even tell that the sweetness came from gula melaka, not cane sugar. 

And let's not even go down the line of how the shallots and garlic came in, and where... 

This is where a dish like this means much to me. 

Where else would I be able to have my own plate of Babi Pongteh pork belly chunks in such a delicious gravy otherwise? Where else too would I be able to have a lovely side dish of my favorite vegetable dish Sayur Lodeh served together with the meal? 

And what about the Nasi Lemak? 

I had wanted mine to come with a piece of chicken. 

Which, yes, it did, along with a serving of beautiful blue butterfly pea rice shaped into a cone, a single hard boiled egg cut into half, a piece of crunchy pappadum, and a serving of achar, fried ikan bilis and peanuts. 

The chicken was good, but for the life of me, I now cannot remember if I had the Prawn Paste Chicken Cutlet or the Ayam Goreng Berempah. If I'm not wrong, I think it is the latter. It didn't taste like prawn paste chicken, and the picture looks more like Berempah rather than Prawn Paste. 

Next time I order this dish I might mix the rice up with all the other ingredients and not eat them separately. A piece of ayam goreng with a bit of egg yolk, achar, rice and a single ikan bilis in a single mouthful would go down quite well. 

We'll see.

I'll also want to go for some of their kueh kuehs, cakes and the desserts.

Both times I'd been there, both times I had been quite attracted by their variety of Nyonya kuehs all neatly packed into plastic boxes. Besides the Ubi Bingka (I wonder if that is the tapioca kueh) and the Kueh Lapis, there was Kueh Salat, and what some of us call the colorful Nine-Layer Kueh. On the shelf near the counter, there were the cakes- I saw Coffee, Peanut, and Pandan Kaya. And on the menu they had Pulut Hitam with Coconut Milk and Bubur Chacha. 

Will I order back the Babi Pongteh?

Probably.

But there are other dishes I want to try.

Like the Mee Siam Goreng, the Wok Fried Bee Hoon, and the Nyonya Curry Chicken. I also wouldn't mind the Nyonya Chap Chye. I like Chap Chye. 

And if I'm sharing, maybe the Buah Keluak Fried Rice. 

Early Morning Prata @ Mrs. Mohgan's

This is one breakfast that I will be remembering for a very long time to come. 

Not because I haven't eaten a morning meal at this coffee house along Dunman Road close to Koon Seng Road and Joo Chiat Road before, but because in all these years I have never- not once- come here this early for a morning breakfast meal. 

Don't ask me why.

It just never happened. 

This morning, however, I woke up bright and early at 6am. 

Well, I wouldn't say I was feeling really bright. 

More like, I couldn't fall back asleep. 

After discovering that my friend was also in one of those can't-sleep modes, we decided to make a change of routine and go out for breakfast instead. 

It wasn't difficult to make a decision. 

I mean, between McDonalds on the Marine Parade side of the road, the hawker center on the same side, or Mrs. Mohgan's, of course Mrs. Mohgan's prata won hands down.

Her prata is well known all around the country after all. 

Life is such that you don't perceive just how much of a privilege you have to get all these at close access until you shift away from the area- and then you realize.

Until a couple of months ago did it dawn on me that we hadn't had prata at this place in at least three years. Somehow things happened that we did not have much of a chance to come back, and even when we did, life became a way where we had contemplate.

Maybe we contemplated too much. 

I don't know. 

But here we were- after what seemed like a very, very long while- at the coffee house of Tin Yeang right at the junction of Dunman Road, Koon Seng Road and Joo Chiat Road. 

If Mrs. Mohgan was surprised by our early presence, she didn't show it. 

Just did what she always did- wrote your orders down, gave you your number, and asked you to sit down. 

This morning we ordered three different kinds of pratas. 

One was what we typically call a egg plaster where a prata kosong is first made then added with a fried sunny-side type of egg on top. Some people call it a sunny side up. Some people call it a fried egg. It is very subjective what it is. 

People are sometimes surprised when told that fried egg can go very well when eaten together with the crepe of flour.

But it's true. 

Somehow the taste, and texture, of the fried egg white goes well when eaten together with the prata in one bite. 

Same too for the yolk, never mind whether it is runny or otherwise. 

Mrs. Mohgan's egg yolk here is done in the runny style, so out it flows onto the prata once you cut into it. Egg yolks and crepes do combine together exceptionally well. 

Second order of the day was plain prata, which, like always, did not disappoint. 

One thing about it though- you must eat it warm. Dont' leave it to the last. The taste doesn't change, but the crisp somehow disappears after a while. 

Not that it changes the taste though. 

Dipped with mutton curry, it tasted great all the same. 

In hindsight, I wish I had had this prata with sugar. 

So some people might consider it a very childlike way of eating it, but sugar does make one happy, does it not, and especially on a Saturday morning with good food? 

Think I'll do that next time. 

Our third order for this morning here at Mrs. Mohgan's was the cheese prata.

That one was a surprise. 

Most of the time I am very happy with two types of prata, or even one- doesn't matter what sort it is- but having a cheese prata here was a first, and I was glad. 

Maybe I'll order it again another time. 

Maybe I'll have it with sugar too. 

Mainland Food @ Toa Payoh

We have come to this place here at Toa Payoh at most only one, or two times.

It isn't because the location is inconvenient, or that the food isn't good.

It's just that my feet tend to lead me elsewhere whenever I am at Toa Payoh Central, but today was a day when we had to decide between a bowl of thick Cantonese-style porridge, or a claypot dish of braised meat with rice. 

We chose the latter. 

There are times when you want something warm and comforting, yet stimulating enough for your stomach, and today was one of them. 

Someone once told me to never underestimate a full bowl of rice.

I used to not understand.

But now, after having come to places where diners can get unlimited soup and unlimited rice, I get what they mean. 

At most places, one has to wait for the dish to be prepared and brought to your table before you can start to feed. 

Not here. 

At this place all you need to do is to place your order and you can go get your rice and soup. You don't have to wait for your dish to come. 

I like the feeling of having more than enough. 

And there is nothing more satisfying than seeing both of your dishes arrive at your table almost one after the other. 

If you're thinking that both dishes look really red, well, yes, they did. 

One of the best things about having Mainland cuisine is that you get to experience what they call the chili oil, chili, or Mala spice, to the degree that your taste buds can tahan. 

At most places you get to decide your level of spice, which, for me, is either zero, or one. 

I am not a chili person. 

But what makes these two dishes here interesting is that whilst they look really, really red, in truth they weren't really very spicy. 

You get the first spark, the first sharp intake of breath with the Mapo Tofu, but a couple of spoons in- with the help of rice- and you're good. 

The sight of these big, cube-shaped pieces of tofu bean curd bobbing about in the pot of bubbling gravy was actually delightful. 

There are places where they make the cubes of bean curd too small or too hard, none of these smooth silky stuff, so glad we were that not only were these pieces bouncy, bite-sized all of them were too. 

I loved how each piece felt so full, as if you could really taste the smooth of the bean curd mushed between your rice as it slid around your tongue.

The best part about Mapo Tofu that gives it the spark is the gravy. 

Rich with douban of fermented broad bean and chili paste, and douchi of fermented black beans, the gravy transformed what was originally a plain-tasting dish into one full of vibrance and flavor. 

This dish wasn't all vegetarian though. 

Mixed amidst all the red were bits of minced beef which I actually didn't notice but until much later and so spooned it together with my bean curd. 

I like Mapo Tofu. 

But the most memorable part of this meal (for me) however has to be the Hong Shao Rou. 

Not only was pork belly a dish that I had hardly ventured to try before, this was also a dish I had never had a chance to have. 

But the pictures here looked good. 

And I remembered the Mainland-style mukbang videos I'd seen on Facebook and Instagram. 

Hong Shao Rou is translated as Red Braised Pork Belly in English. A classic dish from China that features pieces of pork belly braised for long hours in a sauce of ginger, garlic, spices, star anise, light soy sauce, dark soy sauce, chili, and rice wine, it comes in many variations, with the most popular being the style hailing from Hunan. 

What exactly it is that gives the dish its signature bright red, I can't tell- it might be the spices, it might be the chilies- but I am pretty sure it were the rice wine that gave the dish a tangy burst the same way you'd have had you been drinking a glass of alcohol. 

I was absolutely charmed by the melt-in-the-mouth texture collagen of the pork belly. 

It felt exactly as how I had imagined it to be. 

Those videos always had the dish look so delicious and appetizing on camera, what with the rich red sauce, the big chonky pieces of pork belly, the hard boiled eggs, and the vegetables all soaked in a bright, cheerful red. 

This dish didn't have hard boiled chicken eggs. 

It had small, cute-looking quail eggs peeking out from the sea of gravy instead.

But I didn't mind. 

I love quail eggs however they are prepared, whether they are served savory or sweet, whether they are hard-boiled or grilled. 

And I can eat a good many of them.