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.

Knife Laugh Noodles?

With the influx of mainland Chinese folks looking to make a living in Singapore, it's with no doubt that we're bound to start seeing Chinese food stalls popping up around Chinatown. Some dishes are hard to stomach, like the mega spicy mala hotpot. On the other hand, there are those that are easy on our palates because they present familiar tastes, textures and/or form.

So my Spanish colleague (who's somewhat adventurous with trying new stuff) was apparently receptive towards Dao Xiao Mian and we had been trying to direct her with verbal instructions to this stall in People's Park Food Centre for as long as I can remember. In the end, decided to head there for lunch and bring her along. I had the one with Mutton while she ordered the one with braised beef.

Dao Xiao Mian (刀削面) refers to noodles prepared by "shaving" strips off a flour ball directly into boiling hot water using a specialized knife. It requires delicate skill on the chef's part in order to ensure that each strip is made with the exact same thickness. The middle portion of each strip is thick and chewy while gradually thinning out on the sides.

One thing to note would be that depending on the meat you go for, the noodles will served with different soups. My colleague's braised beef noodle came in a darker colored beef broth while my mutton noodle came in a clear soup that also had glass noodles and seaweed strips. Either soup, they're both served with a thick layer of oil. While it causes a panic attack in the stupidly health conscious, take note that it does serve a purpose which is to keep the soup hot for a longer period of time because heat is unable to escape from the surface. That in itself is a double edged sword so you gotta be careful when drinking the soup. The seaweed strips in the soup add a springy yet jelly like texture on top of the noodle's chewy bite but I found them to be a tad strong for my liking. That is a personal preference issue, I'm not a fan of eating the konbu type of seaweed in general.

As the main ingredient in this dish, the mutton is very well prepared. They're not amazingly "fall off the bone" tender but are good enough to bite and pull out the bones with. Singaporean Chinese eaters should take note that these mutton pieces are slightly gamey so if you're used to having your mutton light on the gamey taste it's best to go with the beef instead. Nevertheless, very nice to bite with as each diced mutton piece comes in a good ratio between fat and lean meat.

All in all, I really enjoy heading to this stall for all of their stuff. Aside from Dao Xiao Mian, they also serve regular Chinese noodles like Dry noodles in bean sauce. Another star product of theirs would be the Mutton/Beef soup with Pita Bread. It's a peculiar dish whereby they replace noodles with broken up pieces of pita bread that's left there to soak in the soup. Essentially you're left with soup and small little chewy pieces of pita bread surrounded by softened flour. Be warned, though, you'll be left with a sore jaw/temple and a very full stomach should you try it.

I can't remember the actual stall number but if you're looking for it, it's located deep inside the alleyway between People's Park Food Centre and People's Park Complex. Enjoy!

Shao La? Shao Lah!

Maxwell Market is food heaven, it's also food house of mirrors. Step in and you'll get mesmerized by the hordes of people as well as the rows and rows of food stalls selling pretty much similar stuff! If you disagree with me, go and count the number of chicken rice stalls with a blue signboard running white words.

I gave up staying in line for chicken rice (Mama Lim makes them better anyways) so I spent another 15 minutes looking around the entire hawker center before settling for a somewhat believable stall. Fu Shun Roasted Meat Specialist.

It's a pretty long queue, about 10 minutes of waiting? (The ones for the big name chicken rice stalls were stupid long, maybe 30 minutes) I decided on this stall also because of a nearby seat I could place my skateboard on as I stood in line.

I don't know what got into me. I didn't get the noodles, neither did I get the roasted duck. Aren't those stuff supposedly the number one representatives for any roasted meat houses? Bah! Anyways, I got the mixed meat rice, which consists of shio bak and char siew for a low price of $3.50! That's pretty damn cheap if you ask me!



This is the char siew. Note the texture of the flesh!

And this is the char siew with that thick gravy smeared over! Notice how it coats the meat nicely yet holds nicely within the flesh? HEAVEN! The meat was chewy, with each bite you get more juice flowing and more flavour as a result. There are burnt bits around the meat which adds a slight smokey touch to the aroma. If you are health conscious, I suggest you NOT EAT AT ALL! It is called CHAR siew for a reason hehehe.

This is the shio bak with a generous amount of their very spicy chili sauce lapped on top. Shio bak essentially a slab of pork belly roasted in a mega hot oven until the skin burns. To which they scrape off the burnt bits AND THEN ROAST IT AGAIN! The result is a beautiful tri-layer of chewy lean meat, melt-in-your-mouth fat and crispy/crunchy skin. How good is the skin?



I'll go back to finding more food now. Here's the address to Maxwell food center!

#01-71, Maxwell Food Centre, 1 Kadayanallur Street                            

McDonald's Fiery Mala McSpicy Burger and the McLaosai Ring of Fire!!!

What better way to celebrate labor day than with a blogpost about something that got me feeling like I was in labor? *budum tss*

So it was a lazy day and I was pretty determined to try out McDonald's new McSpicy variant, supposedly a spicy level 4 burger, topping the original McSpicy which was a spicy level 2. I'll just make an early note that McSpicy burgers have been known to create stomach upsets in a large majority of diners. My guess would be the amount of oil involved with this burger.

 

For convenience's sake, I've made a special request for the burger to be cut in half so that I can hold on to it with one hand and snap photos with the other. Also, this makes showing the insides much easier!

Ok on to business. First up, the burger was a little small in my opinion. This was pretty strange for me, considering that I don't remember the original McSpicy being that small. Nevertheless, this pretty much has become a standard with McDonald's stuff. Single patty burgers are too small while double patty variants fill you up too much. There's no such thing as a 1.5 patty unfortunately. It's a minor thing for most, I guess. Considering you pay 7/8 bucks for the meal, which includes fries and a fizzy yuzu drink. That in all should be pretty filling but definitely too much calories.

The chicken thigh patty was pretty straightforward. A thigh fillet that's pretty tender and flowing with juice, perhaps a little to much (refer to the toilet troubles)

Taste wise, it's disappointing.

This is misleading. I've been eating Mala Hotpot and stuff for a while already (heck I work in Chinatown!) and I can tell you straight up that this is nowhere near what a Mala soup/sauce is supposed to taste like. Where is the numbing sensation from the Szechuan Peppercorns? Where is the distinct smell from the Szechuan style chilli oil?

All I tasted when I sunk my teeth into the burger, was a rush of spiciness. Yes it is indeed spicy, but it's the wrong kind of spicy. This kind of spiciness feels more what you would associate with biting into a chili padi (the really small ones). The spicy sensation pretty much goes away after 5 minutes, which is sad. Normally, a mala hotpot dinner would leave your lips burning for at least another 15 minutes after you're done eating. Why does that happen? It's most likely because of the blend of spices and chili that they use. What they did with this burger was pretty much jacking up the amount of chili onto the sauce. Boo.

I didn't like the taste, neither did I like the aftershock. Went to the loo twice that day. Honestly, I wouldn't have tried this on any normal day. Thought they were genuinely using actual mala sauces so they might've been different in any case. Too bad. I think I'll just stick to my Rou Jia Mo which only costs $2.50 at Chinatown. Woopie!