Saturday 3 October 2009

Tuck Kee Ipoh Sah Hor Fun Crayfish Hor Fun

Located on the 2nd floor of Hong Lim Food Centre, behind Chinatown Point. There is a Ipoh Hor Fun stall at the end of a left hand corner known as Tuck Kee (Ipoh) Sah Ho Fun (#02-41A). The stall offers a range of combination ingredients from cooked shredded chicken, prawn to crayfish and abalone to go with the Ipoh Hor Fun and it is always packed with lunch crowds during weekday lunch hours.

Loong Fatt Tau Sar Piah

Along the extreme right end of Balestier Road at the junction of Thomson Road, there is this famous Tau Sar Piah stall known as LOONG FATT that known to be “The Original, The Only Outlet Specialist in Sweet & Salty Tau Sar Piah

Look at the crowd at queuing to get their favourite Tau Sar Piahs. This shop really live for it name on serving their products. No wonder there are so many Press and TV interview on them. They have a open bakery concept at the back of this coffee shop where about 10 stuffs are rolling, filling up the dough as well as baking to sever the customers their freshly bake products. So let's wait no more. but hope over to join the queue and get a some mixture of their Tau Sar Piah to try as well as send as gift.

They are two flavors available which is either “Sweet or Salty”. The sweet tau sar piah is marked by the sprinkling of sesame seeds on its crust and you might notice that the shape is flatter than the usual ones sell in other stalls. At first when we taste the Tau Sar Piah we are rather confused by the taste as it seems to be the same, both have that bit of salty taste. But when you have another bite on it, you will get the differences of one is much saltier than the other.

The pastry of these tau sar piahs soft, flaky and buttery which have so much generous of filling in between pastry what I packed without any hollow. I am those who prefer Salty flavour of Tau Sar Piah whenever I get them in the stall, but for this case, I prefer Loong Fatt's Sweet Tau Sar Piah over their Salty type. But if you are those type of dislike flaky and buttery pastry then this Tau Sar Piah might not be up to your liking.

[Updated on 01 June 2011]
During my recent visit to Loong Fatt for some Tau Sar Piah craving I was surprised to notice that they are also having those traditional sliced cake which we used to eat during our childhood time. So without hesitate I bought a few slices of different flavour and this is one of the Blueberry flavour which cost S$1.20 each slice.

Wednesday 30 September 2009

Sakae Buddies

Children Day is one of the special holiday that kids of all ages look forward to. They enjoy all kinds of treats, food, goodies and gifts that is given to them on during celebration. So this year we are having our early Children's Day lunch @ Sakae Sushi.

Look at the range of "Froggy" goodies that Sakae offers. They have all kinds of item made in the shape of that green frog which is so adorable in the eyes of both kids and adult. Rey have a few collection of these items and his wishing list is to get all of them and display them in his playroom just that what they did in the Sakae Sushi outlet.

Rey's classmate tried this Salmon Skin(鮭皮) Inari Sushi which consists of sushi rice filled in a pouch of fried tofu and topped with crispy minced salmon skin that blend so nicely with the sushi rice. We have never tried this before and at the 1st glance, I still thought it is minced beef or tuna :)

Although we have tried countless of the Chawanmushi from Sakae, but I must confess that this is the first time we order this Unagi Chawanmushi. Imagine have a few pieces of tasty grill eel on top with a cup of smooth and silky steam egg custard. Both Rey and his classmate enjoy this little treat which they called it "pudding".

I knew Rey and his buddy love the combination of "meat floss" with rice. So I specially order this "Fruitti Maki" which is coated with a layer of floss on the outer layer of the roll and some extra colourful fresh fruits on top of it. The choice of the fruits give this sushi an extreme appetizing look.

As you read from my previous two Sakae related posts, there are always "Temaki"(Temaki sushi is a form of rolled sushi, created in a cone or roll shape) available in our list. I am always fascinated by its vibrant colour combination. So start from top right to button left to right we have:-

1) Manago Avocado: Decent amount of sushi rice wrap with a layer of nori sheet and top with crunch of lettuce, slices of green apple, mango and avocado. Mum love this combination.

2) Ebi Fry: Rey's buddy choose this as he loves the combi of deep-fry prawn with rice and wrapped with nori sheet and he finished it in less than 2 minutes..... So I guess it must be really nice, must get hold of one on my next visit :)

3) California: This round, I order the California Tamaki which consists of cucumber, imitation crab stick, avocado and a spoonful of fish roes. Yummy!!!

Dragon Roll is wrap with a inner layer of deep-fried prawn and nori sheet while the outer layer are covers with a generous amount of avocado slices which has a buttery taste infuse in it. This is definitely a healthy choice for weight watcher and I love anything that has avocado in it.......

Ajituske Idako is a combination of sweet and savoury baby octopuses that is place on top of sushi rice wrapped with nori sheet. My mum will always pick up a plate of this from the convey belt as she loves the crunch and taste of the baby octopus in their special sauce.

Look at this hot and spicy Kimuchi Hotpot, does it spice up your palate to order 1? This soup is infuse with some hot and spicy taste from the Kimchi, sweetness of the seafood and great nutritious of the vegetables used. And since Rey's buddy mummy love to try something which is unusual, we recommend her this dish which is value for it price that consists of so many ingredients in one pot. We all love the taste of this soup which is just nice for what we are looking for.

Finally it's dessert time that everyone is looking forward too... Too bad the branch has run out of Tempura Ice-cream so the kids will have to settle on other choices. One of the waiter recommend us to try this "Strawberry Smiles" which is fresh strawberry stuffs with frozen ice-cream. Everyone of us love this, as the frozen blend just great with the strawberry. The colour is really sweet and eye catching for the kids.

Another dessert that we venture is this Lychee flavour "Mochi Ice-cream". Being a fan of Sakae sushi for so many years, I have not actually try their other dessert range than the Tempura Ice-cream. So today, we really benefit a lot from trying all these cute and interesting dessert that they offer. Their mochi is wrapped with the Lychee flavour ice-cream which makes the dessert very light and refreshing taste.

Look at the kids, they really enjoy they visit at Sakae and it is really fun and heartwarming to give a treat to those who have similar taste. And since, Children's Day is around the corner, this is the best treat to reward them :)

And Candice, thanks for your recommendation on being a Sakae E-journalist too. Now we have more excuses to visit Sakae for our favourite dishes. Thank you :) So readers, if you are reading this post and you are interested to be like one of us who can eat and blog with Sakae at the same time, do click on this link to find out more :p


Friday 25 September 2009

Din Tai Fung - 小笼包

Din Tai Fung(鼎泰豐) starts with a small shop, located on the intersection of Xinyi Road, in Taipei City. It has become a symbol of Chinese delicacies with its "Steamed Dumplings - 小笼包". This small shop has venture out into international market where they have many branches in countries such as Taiwan, Japan, USA, China, Singapore, Korea and etc.

Din Tai Fung(鼎泰豐) has about 5 branches in Singapore located at Paragon Orchard, Bishan Junction 8, Tampines Mall, Wisma Atria Orchard and Raffles City. They have a many varieties of Steamed Dumplings varies from Savory to Sweet. Other than steamed dumplings, they also have a few choices of La Mian.

My mum and aunt love to order this "Appetiser - 小菜" which is on a mixture of seaweed, tofu, bean sprout, chilli etc whenever they visit Din Tai Fung. They always kick off with this signature appetiser before starting their main course.

This is one of our favorite dish called "Pork Chop Fried Rice - 排骨蛋飯". I love the way they seasoned the pork chop which the spices and the combination of the pork chop goes well with their fragrance egg fried rice.

First time ordering this "Glass noodle soup with fried bean curd and pork rolls - 油豆腐粉" which is one of their recommendation dish on the menu. The soup base is great and overall this dish is light and healthy with their self-made Pork Rolls. But if you do not fancy "Glass noodle - 冬粉" then don't expect too much from this dish.

The distinguishing feature of Din Tai Fung's dumplings is that the chefs would make 18 folds to seal the dumplings. I love dumplings especially the "Steamed Dumplings - 小笼包" which I will use the chopsticks to poke a little hole in the skin of the dumpling to let the soup flow out onto the spoon and sip the soup. Then I will add some julienned ginger (soaked in black vinegar) on top of the dumpling before eating it.

Other than their signature "Steamed Dumplings - 小笼包", we also ordered their special promotion "Steamed Chili Crab Dumplings" which is one of the Food Festival Award dish. Although the dumplings that serves on us is not what we expected it to be, it still have it's unique taste. The combination of chilli crab gravy with the soup base of the usual steam dumplings makes this festival dumpling a special dish to venture on.


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