I think I need to Double-Knock-It-Down After This

If you surf youtube enough, you'll probably be hit with this pre-roll.

I saw it, and I took the bait. Suddenly, I feel like trying it out. I didn't get to try it when it first got onto the stores so why not? Right? So wrong...

Anyways, KFC Singapore decided to bring back the monster one more time as part of the whole global soccer package involving football superstar Christiano Ronaldo. Yeah right, as if he really likes eating that stuff. You could see a tinge of reluctance in his eyes when he mutters "so good".

Anyways for the main deal. This is the Singaporean version of the KFC double down. Replacing the buns for 2 thick cuts of the zinger cutlet, this is a pure mess of fats and protein. To my understanding, the others have it better, going for original recipe cutlets instead of the zinger cutlets, as well as using 2 different kinds of melted cheese.

This thing is so thick! How do I even bite it like a regular sandwich? Anyways, note the cheese. It's hardened, SO NOT GOOD!

Taste wise, it's pretty standard. I found the cutlets to become a little tasteless in contrast with the bacons used in the sandwich.. The pieces were so thick that I had to alternate between the top and bottom pieces. I was still feeling alright when I finished this one. And then I remembered I still have a breast piece as well as a pack of onion rings to finish.

Look at Ronaldo just standing there, staring at you like he's challenging you to finish it. YOU EAT IT LA!

Have never been a fan of KFC chicken. They're really dry and honestly doesn't taste as well as the likes of say, popeyes or texas chicken. Mom doesn't like the other two though, so often I have to compromise and stuff.

In conclusion, I dislike this. I can't believe I could actually finish the box! I did, and now I'm suffering from the aftershock. My arms are somewhat twitchier than usual, it's like a protein coma. Not good man... If I'm not making sense with what I'm writing, don't worry, I don't know what I'm writing either.

The Chicken Noodle War (Part 2)

It's part two of our chicken noodle war coverage. Before I begin, I should hit you guys with some background on the whole thing.

See over in Chinatown along upper cross street, you will find two stalls, with the similar names, selling the same stuff, within 50 meters of each other. Story is, the owners of Chew Kee (This one) and Chiew Kee (see part 1) are actually siblings who decided to part ways, with the elder sister keeping the original storefront (this one). They're both pretty popular amongst the people in the area too and everyone has their own opinions about their favorites. All in all, we want to try both sometimes but not everyone works around the area so going to Chinatown isn't an everyday affair. Of course, they'd like to hear more opinions about the stuff right? Right! Here goes. I'll be making all comparisons with the ones over at Chiew Kee (the other one) so to avoid getting lost, I highly recommend reading it here before going forward.

First thing on the plate! Noodles! These guys are cooked very similarly to the ones at chiew kee. The egg noodles are very springy to the bite and a joy to chew into when you stuff your mouth with it. Unfortunately, the sauce fails to back this base up and you're left feeling like this noodle is less salty than the ones at chiew kee.

I'm afraid chiew kee wins this one.

Next up would be the chicken. Oh my gawd the chicken IS AWESOME! First of all, lets look at the meat themselves. I am normally not a fan of non-white chicken because of the fact that they tend to be drier (at least that's my opinion la). This one was an exception for me. The meat was tender, very nice to the bite. In fact, when I bit into the drumstick and gave it a light pull, all the meat slid off effortlessly! Strangely, the sauce here tasted better than the one with the noodle... Hmmm...

Notable bit about the chicken here is the fact that their skin was really nicely glazed, one solid sheet of shiny stuff that's equally pleasing to eat as they are to look at. Click on the picture and maybe you'll see the layer of oil still on the skin!

Results, big sister at chew kee wins this hands down!

We also got ourselves a bowl of dumpling soup. Dumplings were pretty standard, nice firm shrimp and other stuff filling wrapped in wanton skin. It's balanced pretty well so you could eat it whole if you wanna. I played it modest and finished in two bites. I found the soup here to be more flavorful than the ones at chiew kee.

Therefore, Chew Kee wins this one too.

IN CONCLUSION

I would have to say that the older ginger is stronger. What I mean to say is that Chew Kee is the better choice for me. That said, this is purely based on personal opinion. Whether or not you agree with me or not, it's purely up to you. I like durians and some don't. It's as simple as that.

Photographing Dad and Mom

So most of you who knows me personally would probably know that I have recently gotten back to snapping shots of my everyday life. Things that we don't normally see or wouldn't have paid much attention to unless from a forced perspective. Okay, so maybe I do take too many photos of my food. Then again, one can argue that food is a large part of culture and livelihood. BUT, that's not the point of this post.

Brought home my lights and brolly to prepare from tomorrow's photoshoot and decided to test it out on mom just to get a better feel of the equipment. It is, after all, some fresh equipment that I've yet to really field test.

Okay, so I might need to work on my framing a little bit more, but it's truly just a light test, to see if it'll really work and shit. As usual, I throw the photos onto lightroom to take a closer look at the shots, make sure nothing's bad or off focus. I certainly didn't see them (camera's awesome as always). What I saw, instead...

I saw wrinkles breaking out from any possible fold on her skin.
I saw the imbalance in eye size due to the surgery done for her bifocal cornea operation thingy.
I saw the liver spots on her face where the cheekbones are.
I saw the slightly jutting jawline that popped out with her new set of dentures that never fit (I think it's her 5th or 6th set now. Dad says even if a deity bestows a fresh set for her, she will still not like it)

It got me thinking about how much she has aged. And it is an interesting feeling for me because all these while, we kept saying that my mom who's 60-ish (shit I can't remember her exact age) probably still looks 40-ish. Youthful energy!!! And then reality hits when I zoom in and see all those signs of time spent taking care of the family, hitting a loan shark runner with a metal pole (true story), making awesome tea and coffee, being a "professional" gambler and many more. Damn she's old!

It's the same when I took a photo for Dad. He was complaining the first photo I took for him wasn't decent looking. Well, he was topless and I was just taking a photo for his google account set up following his new RedMi phone.

And the exact same thing! Okay, Dad's photo wasn't as surprising to me. His body had already shrunk by some bit, and I've been trying to convince him to shave his head instead of holding on to that set of thin, grey hair left at the back. Balding men look older than bald men, don't you think?

Anyways, I'm really glad I got that new camera. With a smaller camera, I'm so much less reluctant to take it out and just randomly snap some shots. Forget about the shutter count and make the photos count.

In A Quiet Corner Of Chinatown Food Center...

Well, pretty much all of us know where Chinatown Complex is. It's the place where locals would go to after making a trip down to the Buddha tooth relic temple by choice, and where the tourists would not go to after their planned trip to the Buddha tooth relic temple. All in all, you must be able to see it from the Buddha tooth relic temple. If you can't see it... Then good luck to your life.

Anyways, most Singaporeans would know the place for it's super popular stalls, such as the one selling claypot rice, or that coffee stall owned by the supermom winner. I like that place, but it's always so crowded that I don't really like going there too often. Then I noticed this little queue along the bridge.

First thing I thought was that they were all queuing for the washroom. Then I thought "well the hawker food can't be THAT bad?" Decided to take a look.

Wah Lao Eh! I didn't know there was a whole cluster of other food stalls across the bridge! And to make things more interesting, some of them even had queues! This one, I'm not too put off about queuing. Gotta try.

Ordered a standard bowl with noodles. 6 Pieces for a total of $3. Then I proceeded with some addons: 1 Eggplant, 1 Stuffed Bittergourd and additional "Mini Abalones". The total cost was just $5. Seems okay for me.

As the name suggests, the noodles come with a generous sprinkle of freshly made Ikan Bilis, which is sun dried anchovies which are deep fried before serving. These little boys provide a little crunch to each bite so mix it well with the noodles to get a nice layering of texture. That said, I have a feeling that the noodles might not exactly be their specialty for two main reasons. Everyone else was ordering their kway teow and also the fact that the yellow noodles aren't exactly the best. The yellow noodles tasted a little too strongly of lye water, and was a little on the mushy side. All the more you need to mix it together with the ikan bilis.

On to the actual pieces. All of them are made using self made fish paste that's very fluffy and soft. Not bad. The soup's slightly more flavorful than the one at People's Park Food Center.

Of all the pieces, what I didn't really like were the ones wrapped in beancurd skin as I found that they could use another round in the deep fryer. Some might disagree as they could still taste the soy in that skin. To each their own.

As you can see, the fish paste they use are really soft and fluffy. It goes well with the tau kwa and the tau pok, but sometimes they're so soft it's almost impossible to keep them from falling apart. The texture when you put them in your mouth is that of a "melt in your mouth" kind of sensation. Really not bad!

I would assume that the fishball uses the same fish paste but with a little more flour or something to keep the balls from goo-ing off. As expected, they're really soft to the bite and very flavorful, you can taste the fish they use for it. If you look closely at the image, it has little dots of whatever they use to mix the fish paste with, something you don't really see with commercially made fishballs.

Next, let's look at the additional pieces. I'll start off by saying that you MUST get them.

This one's the stuffed bittergourd slices. At 50cents per piece, they're essentially deep fried bittergourd with fish paste filling in the center. Taking a bite into them, you'll initially be blasted with a wave of bitterness that is followed by a gradually sweet taste once you start chewing. I'd say that the bitterness actually makes the fish paste inside that much more enjoyable.

Then comes the stuff eggplant. In same fashion it is deep fried together with the fish paste. Main difference here is that I feel that it is a little more challenging to prepare this dish as eggplants can get very oily easily due to their oil absorbent nature.

For 50 cents, you get a fat layer of fish paste sandwiched between two sizeable pieces of eggplant then forced into a bondage through a deep fryer. How does that not sound awesome to you? When you bite into it, you bite into a flavor bomb that's a mixture of everything nice. Saltiness from the deep frying process, sweetness from the fish paste and er... eggplant-iness from the eggplant... Yeah... All in all I'd say that this is like the star product from the shop. I've never really been a fan of eggplant because of their somewhat tasteless nature but this one works for me.

On to disappointment. For $1 you get 2 pieces of MINI abalone (they passed me three, though). Sounds good right? No. They weren't kidding when they said mini. These little guys are so puny it's easy to miss them inside the mess of noodles! That said their small size doesn't mean that they lose any flavor. these guys are full tasting abalones that are just embarrassingly small. It's like taking a drop of 99% concentrated lobster bisque. Flavorful, but nothing to play in your mouth with. Not exactly worth the money if you ask me.




I suppose the queue does stand for something. They're no doubt good with what they make but it doesn't extend to everything that they sell at the place. If you're going to try it out, go for the 8 pieces without noodlese (same price) and get the additional eggplant and bittergourd option. Can't go wrong with that.

Another Noodle Dish From China Again!?

Okay maybe not this time. The shop name does say 大陆, which is the term most of us would use to refer to mainland China. Anyways, it's a place that sells, obviously, prawn noodles. I would guess that it's good. I mean, it has to be. How else would they be able to sustain a big shop space in China Square? That spot is expensive yo!

I reached the place at lunch time. Luckily enough the queue hasn't grown by then and I waited barely 5 minutes to place my orders. That said, after I got my meal 5 minutes after sitting down, I looked at the queue again and it has grown in length. Expect about 10 minutes of total waiting time I guess?

I'll start with the slightly more boring stuff. Soup is pretty standard. Nothing wrong with the soup, there's nothing mega awesome about it either. It's sweet, not too oily and most important of all, does not hint of the strong musty smell you'd get when using stale prawns.

As mentioned with the soup, the prawns used are pretty fresh and the serving is quite generous too. Then again, I paid $6 for this which is a medium. I suggest sticking to medium as it's supposedly the entry point where they add pork ribs into your bowl.

The pork ribs are well prepared, very tender and truly fall off the bone kinda. One thing I didn't like is that they picked the cuts of the rib which had large amounts of cartilage. Definitely chew-able but it kinda gets irritating with all the bone grinding. These cartilage aren't exactly mushy-soft (think bak kut teh cartilage soft).

Okay... I sorta ordered the wrong noodles to go with this dish. In a spurt of absent-mindedness, I asked for thin noodles when I should be asking for beehoon mee. Either ways, it doesn't matter. Noodles were okay. They're on the chewy soft side but I didn't like that the dry sauce was a little weak in this. Don't expect the "chili fragrance" you get with this one. What I liked instead? There's a free-flow selection of fried pork lard for you to shove onto your bowl if you're into that kinda stuff. Little crunchy bits of sin!

So I decided to come by a second time after noticing a large number of diners eating their egg noodles and decided to give it a try. If you ask me, egg noodles is just another fancy name for instant noodles but whatever, got a bowl of tom yum egg noodles for $5. First impression? Damn, this bowl is full of ingredients.

On closer look you'll notice that the soup is actually pretty thick. It's very flavorful, definitely not the right kind of tom yum (the real ones from thailand), but it's definitely sweet-sour-spicy! I kinda liked the soup at first but one thing to note is that my tongue was left feeling pretty thirsty after the meal. I normally don't have the habit of ordering drinks if I'm trying out soupy stuff.

The dish comes with a healthy supply of luncheon meat. Yes, you may say that they're cheap stuff but these chunks of processed meat are thick and hearty to the bite. Pretty salty too.

One thing I REALLY like is the way they prepare their eggs. Nicely poached. The whites are soft and "floaty" and very easy to separate with the yolk. Yolk is cooked just nice and bursting it open, you'll be greeted with soft, slow-flowing yellow stuff.

I do have a problem with it though, and it goes across all dishes with eggs added actually. Why just one egg? They always present you with the dilemma of eating the egg yolk whole and bursting the yolk to spread around the soup. WHAT DO YOU WANT, HUH? (I decided to experience the explosion of yolk but biting it whole. Do you know bliss?)

Noodles are meh. The usual springy "maggie mee" texture.

Another hot favorite on the internet was their carrot cake. Ordered a small one which was $5 to see for myself. These boys are made fresh but they take a while to serve. I got mine about 5 minutes after I'm done with the tom yum noodle.

DID YOU KNOW?
Despite being called carrot cake, this dish does not include any carrot in it? Instead the main ingredient is radish, which in Chinese is called luo bo 萝卜. Carrot has a similar name but was hong luo bo 红萝卜which technically means red radish. Go figure.

The carrot cake was not bad I guess. Got a white one and asked for the spicy option. They're definitely fresh, each bite was hot especially when you get to the bottom piece since it's like blanketed by the ones on top. Radish pieces are soft and fluffy. The carrot cakes are prepared into little sheets held together by the egg so it's generally quite easy to eat them.

What I didn't like about this dish, though, was the amount of egg they used here. Flip the cakes over and you'll see more eggs than radish bits. It's almost like the main ingredient has been changed to eggs. Why not call them egg cakes then? Dish was a wee bit too oily for me too, but that one is fine. All in all, they're still enjoyable. I think their oyster egg omelettes would be better, though. Oh wells, another time? Nah...

KKBC = ????

Nope, it does not stand for Ku Ku Bird Chop. KKBC stands for Koryo Korean Baked Chicken and it's awesome! In fact, I liked it so much that I paid a 2nd solo trip to the place again just to try out another piece, more on that later.

First thing I noticed is that these are baked, not fried. It's pretty uncommon for me, especially with the existing selection of Korean fried chicken labels (chicken up, nene chicken, 4 fingers, bla bla bla)

Headed down with my colleague and ordered a Seoul Box which consists of a drumstick, a thigh, bowl of rice, potato salad, pickled radish and a salad bowl.  If memory serves me right I paid about $15 bucks for this set. Pretty worth it if you ask me.

I'll start with the salad. It's simple, fresh and comes with a generous supply of that "asian" dressing. I really liked the dressing, it's different from most salads served in the restaurants where they come with the default ceasar's dressing. This one hinted of soy sauce and something that adds some acidity to your bites. It's also on the spicier side but not so much till you need to down a bottle of water.

Enough teasing with non-chicken stuff. Let's start with the chicken. I don't know what they did to the chicken, but the baking really did it's magic. When I first saw the words 'baked' I thought that the chicken would be closer to what you get with a roasted chicken - solid shiny skin. Koryo's chicken was so "crispy looking" (sorry I have no idea how to describe it) that I forget that it's not fried!

The skin is crispy, and the meat is juicy too! Check out the juice flowing inside! I'm not sure how to describe this, but I don't get the fatigue associated with eating too much oily stuff at one go when enjoying this. That said, it also comes with a slice of lemon that you can add to the chicken should you like to. I find that the acidity freshens up the tastes buds quite well, though it does soften the skin a little. Of course, why wouldn't it?

I was so pleased with the place that I came over a second time, this time alone just so that I could try the breast. It looked small but turned out to be very filling!

I actually found the chicken breast to be the most enjoyable as it proved to be the most "surprising" for me. I say this because most of the time, I'd avoid breast meat as they tend to be on the drier side, albeit healthier. Did I mention that cutting open the chicken breast cause some of the juice to flow out? I'm not exaggerating here!

If you want to experiment around with the chicken, each table as shakers filled with chili powder, salt and black pepper for you to play around with. While you can't go wrong with chili powder, I personally enjoyed adding a little salt to the pieces of meat. It actually makes your chicken a little sweeter! Try it!

Strangely, there has been reviews stating that they have been serving cold meat, hasn't been the case for me. Either that, or I've been too hungry on both occasions hahaha. That said, some mentions include a slightly different menu for both dinner and lunchtime, as well as the fact that the indoor spot is closed for lunch (when you need the air conditioning the most)


KKBC is located between china square and hong lim complex. It's right behind the bus stop so you'll hardly miss it. Look out for their huge signboards. Here's their address should you need.