Western Chow @ Bishan

Western Chow is a fusion of Western and Hainanese cuisines which starts off their 1st stall in a coffe shop. Now they have 2 outlets and 1 restuarant in Singapore located at Bedok Road (New Restaurant), Lor Ah Soo and Bishan. Their Bishan outlet at the S-11 coffee shop where they offer similar menu like the main restaurant. We order a set of their promotional set meal that comes with Soup, Main Course and Dessert that cost S$7.90 which is quite a good deal for the serving portion.

  Yummy Mushroom Soup with thick and creamy texture that serves together with slices of button mushroom.
Price: S$2.50 per bowl

  Each main course comes with two sides of your choice and the waitress has mistaken my orders and swaps one of my sides of this "Chicken Chop with Mushroom Sauce" set from coleslaw to rice. Overall we find their chicken chop is quite tender and it goes pretty well with their mushroom sauce.
Price: S$5.90 per plate

Some of my twitter friends who tried their main course over at Bedok Road Restaurant suggest that this “Dory Fish with Assam” is a good catch to try out. The grilled herb dory fillet taste fresh and moist with a twist of their Assam sauce that goes well with rice as side.
Price: S$6.00 per plate

Complimentary dessert for the set meal perhaps can be something better than these miserable slices of peach cocktail in syrup.


Western Chow's food is definitely suitable for everyone as it is Halal which means all Singaporean can enjoy it according to their preference  of choices from the menu.

Western Chow

S-11 Coffee Shop
Block 504 Bishan Street 11
#01-444
Singapore 570504
Telephone: +65 8188 1901
Website: http://www.westernchow.com/

Chong Pang Nasi Lemak

Chong Pang Nasi Lemak starts from a stall in the former rustic Chong Pang Village Hawker Centre way back in 1973. Growing as a Kampong Kid around Sembawang area, I still remember clearly that my dad used to bring us to that old Chong Pang Hawker Centre every weekend to eat our favourite hawker dishes as well as replenished our groceries at the same time.

Today Chong Pang Nasi Lemak has relocated at a coffee shop along Sembawang Road that is next to the Chong Pang Camp. And to be honest even though the stall is just about 5 minutes away from my place I don’t really patronize it that often.

During the previous two occasions where we dine-in at the stall around 6pm in the evening (despite of whether weekdays or weekends) there were already crowds queuing up to get their dinner from their wide range of homecook dishes and signature “coconut rice”. You would also notice from the take-away orders or those customers eating around at the tables, everyone is almost having almost the same items such as Otah, Fried Egg and the "Deep-fried Chicken" which is marinated with specially spices that is so crispy and fragrant to taste. And most importantly I am sure everyone loves their signature sweet and spicy "Chilli Sauce" that makes you return for more.

Apart from the common fried chicken wings, egg and otah, this stall also offers a wide variety of homecook dishes to go with the nasi lemak such as Sambal Sotong, Spicy Long Bean, Sweet and Sour Pork, Ngoh Hiang, Fish & Prawn Platter and etc. But personally I think the dishes are too pricey for example; the two plates of Nasi Lemak shown above that consists of 2 veggies and 2 meats cost a total of S$9.80. And compared to a few years back, we find that the taste of their “coconut rice” seems to be different from what it used to be perhaps due to the cut down of coconut milk for health conscious.

Although for many people this might not be the best "Nasi Lemak" in Singapore, but if you are staying around North area I am sure it is still worth trying some of their signature items. To avoid the crowds of parking diffiuclty you have to be there either before or after dinner crowds in order to find seats and parking spaces.

Chong Pang Nasi Lemak
447 Sembawang Road
Singapore 758404
Telephone: 6756 0048 / 9655 1868
Website: http://www.chongpangnasilemak.com/

Opening Hours:
~ 5.00pm until 7.00am on the next day.

Keng Eng Kee Seafood

For this year Singapore Food Festival, if you want to have a more fulfilling and enriching event, perhaps you can consider to attend some cooking classes from the "Makansutra SFF Culinary Master Classes". In this classes you will be able to learn the best-kept secrets from some well-known Singaporean Chinese Dialects dishes and as well on how to prepare and cook those dishes.

The Master Classes also give you an insight into the culinary culture of some of these mulit-award winners, which inlcude the Makansutra Street Food Masters and Legends Awards. You can at the same time discover interesting cooking tips from choosing the right ingredients to whipping up a delectable Singapore Chinese Dialect dish.

Yesterday evening I am so excited to visit one of the Chef, Mr Liew Choy who is one of the 4 chefs conducting the "Hands-On Master Classes" for the Mankansutra SFF Culinary Master Classes event. During this Hands-On session, the participants will be visiting a local wet market to learn on how to pick out the right and fresh ingredients to be used in Chef Liew’s class. And the dishes that will be featured in his class are:- Ming Zhu Roll, Marmite Crab, Steam Kampung Chicken with Ginger Sauce. In this reivew, I will be sharing their signature dish, “Ming Zhu Roll - 明珠卷” too.

Chef Liew has being working in the line for about 38 years since his Father-in-law generation and I noticed that he always put on a very genuine and friendly smile when the customers or his staffs approached him. And from our conversation, he reveal to me that out of all the dishes that he has concoct over the past years, his favourite dish is actually something simple and yet full of addicting flavour, “Cuttlefish with KangKong - 鱿鱼应菜”.

Since "Cuttlefish With Kangkong - 鱿鱼应菜" is one of Chef Liew's favourite dish, we definitely give this a try. Just like what he told us, the sauce is kind of sweet and spicy (but not really hot) and infused with crushed peanuts and sesame fragrant. Honestly, this is a delicious dish with that crunch and "Q" texture of fresh cuttlefish which goes pretty well with steam rice or even blanch bee hoon.

From Jiamin, Chef Liew's daughter, "Prawn Roll (Hay Chor) - 虾枣" is one of their hot selling items too. And we are so in time to witness the staffs preparing, rolling and steaming their special homemade Prawn Roll, which is an extra knowledge for me. Their Prawn Roll consists of ingredients such as:- minced meat, prawn, water chestnut, carrot and etc that wrap with beancurd skin. It is steamed till cooked before deep-fried with coated batter. There is a special sweet and fragrant taste in it, do give it a shot for small plate @ S$8.00 for about 10 – 12 pieces.

月光河粉 or translated as Moonlight Hor Fun..... is such a lovely name for this "Fried Hor Fun" dish. The speciality of this dish is customer has to stir the raw egg into the fried rice noodles mixture while served in order to use the heat of the noodle dish to cook the raw egg. According to Jiamin by mixing the raw egg into the fried noodle, it actually give this dish a smooth and delicious taste. Readers, if you do try this dish, bewared that there are actually deep-fried pork lard in it to give this dish it's unique traditional taste. But if you prefer something healthier, you can always ask the chef to omit the pork lard on special request too.

After the 3 appetisers mentioned above let us start off with today's food sampling items. First to be served is their signature dish “Claypot Pig Liver - 姜葱炒猪肝”. In order to maintain the taste and texture of the pork liver in this dish, the chef must be able to control the heat well as claypot tends to get the pork liver cooked faster in its high temperature.

When this "Claypot Pig Liver - 姜葱炒猪肝" is served, the waitress will give the mixture a quick stir in front of the customer in order to prevent the pork liver for being over cooked or certain portion being stuck at the bottom of the pot. I was so delighted to be able to sample this dish because it has always being one of my favourite childhood dishes since young. Although this dish does not have those strong cooking wine taste compared to some other Cze Cha stalls, but it the traditional claypot cooking method definitely brings out another type of fragrant and taste in it.

Finally, here comes the long waiting "Ming Zhu Roll - 明珠卷" dish that is going to be featured in SFF 2010 Makansutra hands-on Master Class on Sunday, 18 July 2010. (Click HERE for more details) Chef Liew's wife shared with me that they actually prepared this Ming Zhu Roll a day ahead, keep in the fridge to further developed the taste before deep-frying it when customer request the order. The name “Ming Zhu Roll - 明珠卷” comes from actually the colour of the salted egg yolk, which reflects like moonlight on the shredded shittake mushroom. As you can see from the photo, there are other ingredients such as Prawn, Salted Egg Yolk, Ham, Parsley that are stuffed in the Beancurd bag (Tau Pok) and wrapped tightly using beancurd sheet.

This dish is sure to be their top "Signature" dish that is full of multi color, ingredients and flavour. Imagine biting into a mouthful of this crispy outer skin, which burst out that juicy and sweet inner filling with combination of ham, fruit, vegetable and seafood in it. A small serving of this dish comes with 6 individual pieces at S$9.00 which is just nice for 4 person to share with.

Chef Liew runs Keng Eng Kee Seafood Restaurant together with his family members, which make it a family business. Currently the main chef handling the kitchen will be his second son while Chef Liew will help out during most weekends or festive season where they are crowds. Keng Eng Kee occupied almost the entire coffee shop area at Block 124 and with another air-condition space directly opposite the shop which can act as a mini function room for private function. This area can hold about 48 - 60 people with 6 big round tables. This restaurant is always packed with people during Friday to weekends so is best to give them a call to make a reservation or dine during weekday to avoid the weekend crowds.

Keng Eng Kee Seafood Restuarant
Block 124, #01-136
Bukit Merah Lane 1 (Alexandra Village)
Singapore 150124
Telphone: 6272 1038
Handphone: 9748 7054


There are 4 Hands-On Master Classes which are availbe at Restaurant Assocation of Singapore (RAS) Kitchen on these timing:-

Sunday,18 July 2010
Time: 10:00am - 13:30pm, (Chef Liew's from Keng Eng Kee featuring Ming Zhu Roll and etc)
15:00pm - 18:30pm

Friday, 23 July 2010
Time: 18:00pm - 21:30pm

Sunday, 25 July 2010
Time: 10:00am 13:30pm

For more information and pricing on the classes above, please click HERE to direct to the SFF 2010 official website.

Wild Turtle Soup Restaurant

"Wild Turtle House" located at Jalan Tampang, just opposite Sembawang Shopping Center. Due to the recent rainy weather, we hope to grab something comfort that might warm-up our body, so instead of their famous "Wild Turtle Soup"(which we don't dare to try by the thought of eating "turtle") we decided to try out their "Herbal Crocodile Soup - 砂煲药材鳄鱼汤". In this herbal soup, the chef used fresh Crocodile Meat instead of those dried type that you can find in most Chinese Medical Hall. Overall this soup taste great with it lightly herbal fragrant that cover up the "fishy" smell from the Crocodile Meat.

Yam Rice - 芋头饭 is one of our "Teochew" signature rice whereby most of the Teochew housewife can whip up this dish in their own kitchen. But for modern working mum like most of us, unless is during weekends or our leisure time, I guess we won't be sweating in the kitchen just to prepare all these traditional food. If you are not picky about specify taste, the yam rice served here was rather good with it's ingredients and seasoning.

Claypot Bak Kuet Teh - 肉骨茶 is one of the dish that is recommended by my 3rd aunty who is dinning there with her friend when we pop by the restaurant. Although their Bak Kuet Teh does not taste fantastic compare to those famous stalls in Singapore, but they do have their homecook style standard that attract customers to order this dish.

Stir-fry Chinese Spinach with Century Egg & Ikan Bilis - 江鱼仔苋菜 was quite similar to what my late father used to cook for us. But we find this vegetable dish was kind of overcooked and which overall makes it look kind of not appetising.

Claypot Pork Liver - 焖猪干 is always one of my favourite dish since young and I can have two bowl of rice just to go with this dish alone. The Claypot Pork Liver served in this restaurant was those very homecook style and the pork liver are so tender to bite as it is not overcooked.

Finally after a long wait, here comes their homemade Ngoh Hiang - 肉枣圆 which taste great with the sweet dipping sauce. The Ngoh Hiang served is cut into individual pieces then deep-fried till crispy on the outer layer but soft and juicy inside.

Wild Turtle Soup Restaurant
20 Jalan Tampang
(Opposite Sembawang Shopping Centre)

Xin Zhao Yang Seafood Garden

Soup! This is always the first category that I will look for before ordering any other dishes from the Zhi Char - 煮炒摊 Menu. From the menu, we ordered this “Kau Khee Soup - 九杞菜汤/枸杞菜汤” which is cooked with slices of pork fillet, minced pork and egg. This is a very quick and easy soup that you can also whipped it up at home with simple ingredients such as egg and minced meat. The soup itself is infused with light ginger fragrant which it very refreshing. Look at the amount of ingredients in it, this bowl of soup cost S$4.00 which I think is worth it's price.

Xin Zhao Yang Seafood Garden - 新朝阳海鲜 is a Zhi Char Stall located at a corner in the coffee shop near Yishun Bus Inter-change at Block 921, Yishun Central 1. It is usually packed with crowds during weekends from as early as 5.30pm onwards.

This is our first time patronising this Zhi Char stall which is quite new in this coffee shop. But actually a few weeks back we had actually tried their “Hor Fun - 河粉” which mum has bought for us. And because of the good review we had from the hor fun, today we are here to try more on their dishes.

From their staff’s recommendation, we ordered two of their signature dishes which are “Thai-style Deep-fried Fish Fillet - 泰式酸甜鱼片” and “Braised Spare Ribs - 红烧排骨”. The “Thai-style Deep-Fried Fish Fillet” was kind of different from what we expected from the usual one that is cooked with those refreshing ingredients such as shredded cucumber and mango. This is dish is rather some deep-fried fish fillet that serves with some chilli sauce. Overall the taste is not too spicy or sour but we just feel that it’s still not towards our liking of thai-style sauce.

A few minutes later, our “Braised Spare Ribs - 红烧排骨” are served together with some "Deep-fried Mantou - 炸馒头". According to the staff, they only have limited plates of this signature dish available each day and from what I have observed, most of the customers do order this dish on their table. The texture of the spare ribs is very tender and it is well flavour by the seasoning and gravy which makes it a "hot" ordering item . You can also use the fried mantou to dip with the sauce or sandwich the meat from the spare ribs which is easily fall off due to the long hour of cooking time. This dish cost S$10.00 with about 6 spare ribs and 4 deep-fried mantou.

This Zhi Char stall still has a lot of interesting dishes that we would definitely go back and try out some of it soon. So if you are staying around this area or happen to pop-by, perhaps you might also want to give it a try too!

Youtiao & Fried Butterfly

What is your favourite local snack whenever you walk past the hawker centers or coffee shops? For me, sometime I love to get hold of either one of these "Youtiao - 油条" or "Butterfly Bun - 麻煎／花煎" together with a cup of Black Coffee(Kopi O) to start off my day before attending those piles or work.......

Youtiao - 油条 is a deep-fried dough stick which has a crispy crust on the outer surface, tender and fluffy when bite. Usually this is eaten during breakfast together with congee or soy milk but some of the people like me would love to dip it with Coffee before eating. There are also many other ways of eating this snack, for example:- Youtiao Rojak(a kind of salad dish that is commonly found in Malaysia and Singapore) or Deep-Fried Sotong Youtiao and etc.

Butterfly Bun - 麻煎／花煎 has a similar texture like Youtiao but it is smaller in size and it is coated with some sesame seeds to give it that extra fragrance and taste. This butterfly bun has a slighter sweeter taste compare to Youtiao and I love to eat this while it is still hot which will give it a better taste.




P/s: Anyone can recommend/share your view on a good stall selling these in Singapore?

Happy Kampong Seafood

Happy Kampong Seafood located in a coffee shop somewhere near the road junction of 81 Jalan Malu-Malu where they are a lot of terrace/semi-detached house. This coffee shop had being there for more than a decade or so and other the "Zhi Char - 煮 炒", this coffee shop also has a very popular Prawn Noodles stall which opens from morning till lunch hours.

This coffee shop is always crowded with customers as early as 5.30pm during weekends. From a glance of it, they have rather about 25 tables range from 4 to 10 seats. And sometime during festive season such as Chinese New Years, they even have wide varieties of seafood which is available for your choice.

Today's dinner we bring mum to try their signature Nonya -style Fish Head Curry which is common dish found on each patronisers table. The fish is very fresh and sweet in taste which goes well with their special nonya sauce. The fish head is pre-steam till done before they braise it with some lady finger, tomato, pineapple cubes and special sauce. It costs about S$18.00 for half a fish head.

We also try one of their egg dish which is this "Furong Dan". The inner layer consists of shredded red onion, carrot and chilli and shrimp which is being covered by a layer of egg skin. Usually you can find different fillings for this egg dish, some stall even add in "Char Siu - Roasted Pork(叉烧)", capsicum, minced meat and etc.

This "Braised Homemade Doufu With Gingko Nut" is also one of their signature dish too. The doufu which they made into rectangle-block symbolised like a "gold bar" in this dish. We love the texture of the doufu which is so silky and smooth and it goes pretty well with the sauce which is made from their special broth. The combination spinach, gingko nut and doufu makes this a healthy dish to crave for.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
UPDATED: 22 November 2011
 
Happy Kampong Seafood has shifted from Sembawang to 164 Tagore Lane, Singapore 787572, Reservation: +65 6755 1018 .

Pork Rib Soup - 得运肉骨茶

Trying out this Pork Rib Soup - 肉骨茶 stall that is located at Block 417 of Jin San Leng Coffee Shop at Yishun Ave 11 was never list even though we used to patronise that coffee shop after our usual Sunday church service. But after watching one of the episode from "New City Beat - 城人新杂志" whereby they feature all the yummy food that is available at this stall, we decided to join the crowd for a try.

We reach the coffee shop around 5.45pm but there was already a large crowds of customers waiting for their food to be served. So while ordering, the person who takes the ordered alert me that we might have to wait for around 20 - 30 minutes for the food to be ready.

We ordered their famous Prime Rib(排骨) Soup whereby the the meat will be soft and of good quality. The taste of the soup is great which is not heavy infused by the spices or herbs, but I think it can be better if it is slight less salty. (you can also ask for re-filled of the soup if you wish to have a 2nd helping)

Braised Pork Trotter is always one of my favourite childhood food which my dad always cooked it for us at least once a month. Honestly, I think a bowl of good and flavour braised pork trotter lies on the spices and the texture of the trotter. And the braised trotter at this stall is just nice, the layer of "fat" is so soft and yummy when you put into your mouth and the meat itself is also tender to bite.

Other than pork ribs soup and braised trotter, this stall also have other signature dishes like pork liver or kidney soup, steam fish, fishcake and etc. So if you happen to drop by Yishun area, perhaps you might want to give this stall a try.