By saying that, my intention is of course not to discredit restaurant’s food but it’s just that I prefer to be charmed by the myriad flavours and tastes of the food per se and it is just common sense that we pay for that together with ’some-other-things’ in a restaurant which is a fair game I guess but then if you consider the fact that you can get the freshest seafood from a kelong at half the price just by crossing the causeway, not to mention the cheaper petrol, chewing gums, pirated disc and other things you can get along the way, then there becomes very few reasons to visit a restaurant in Singapore unless of course if it’s a festive dinner or if you have some company who prefer to eat at a more comfortable environment. So my rationale is simple, cut the act and show me what you have, for immaculate services or spectacular ambience have really nothing to do with the shiokness of a food.

At the far end of the Changi Village Hawker Centre(near to the pulau ubin ferry jetty side), there is an up and coming cze char stall called Changi Seafood which apparently is a ‘crab specialist’. If you’ve been to that area at night, you can easily tell that Changi Seafood is doing one thing well – pulling the crowd. I guess being near to the carpark, they are relentlessly ’self-advertising’ themself since people always need to walk from the carpark across that area to the other side of the market for their Nasi Lemak. Located at the very eastern end of the island, I guess they could have easily named themself the ‘Alfresco Dining By The Changi Beach’ since it is truly only about 50 metres to the beach. However the mass exterior ceramic structure of the ferry terminal means that there are no beautiful sight to behold from your seat.

Live flower crabs

But yet, in most evenings the tables are filled. Why? The thing that drew me to it was the assortment of live seafood like different types of crabs(mud crab, flower crab and other types) and seashells(lala, gong gong, top shell and others). I mean there isn’t a lot of cze char places that bother to specifically set up an area to keep their seafood alive right? Though that has obviously incurred a higher operating cost, most dishes here are still reasonably priced.

Fried lala aka clams $10

One of the outstanding dishes here is the fried flower lala(huey la). This is a special type of huey la which has a distinct orange tip and it seriously possess one of the most natural seafood’s sweatness I’ve ever tasted. The sauce is very flavoursome from the aromatic chinese wine flavour paired with very shiok sting of spiciness. The combination of the taste and flavour have that profound depth to make it a good reason for me to travel all the way to Changi whenever I think of lala.

Pai Kuat Wong aka Spare Rib King $8

To go with something that almost every other tables ordered won’t go too far wrong. Pai Kuat Wong or the Spare Rib King is also one of the safest choices one can order at any cze char place and indeed here it didn’t disappoint. This is especially good for you if you dread those pork chops which are highly tenderised by bicarbonate soda. There appears to have mild soda used but the pork chop texture is still very much ’savorable’. What I really liked about the Pai Kuat Wong is the sauce which is not vinegar based but with a hint of ketchup but yet not too much. This just tasted like fresh pork cooked in very fresh sauce. Every bite of it was simply shiok.

Stir Fried Kai Lan $6

Not wanting to go for a sambal kangkong which is far too easy to impress, I went for a Garlic Kai Lan which turned out to be one of the best things you can buy for $6! The texture was right with a little bit of ‘al dente’ instead of ‘fried to death’ as with those you can eat at any cze char stall for a couple of dimes. There was enough volume for you to feel the crunchiness but yet still tender. Common sense isn’t that common at times when it’s to do with the wok and fire but here is where you can trust your $6 with a plate of kai lan where not only the quantity is huge but the quality too. This will be one of the reasons why I will keep coming back to Changi Seafood whenever I need a kai lan fix.

Not sure about the crabs here but I’ve been told good things about the cereal prawns, prawn paste chicken and sambal sotong by friends. Changi Seafood just come across as one of those cze char stalls that serve shiokakly delicious fresh seafood at damn good prices. These 3 dishes I randomly ordered were already heaven sent, definitely one of the better ones I’ve eaten. Hmmm, now there would be very few reasons for me to travel all the way to Chinatown for a shiok cze char fix. Not many cze char places can impress with quality and price but can you imaging telling your friends that you are going to one where you can also stroll to the sea in a few minutes?

Price: $24

Recommendation: Fried lala, fried kai lan and pai kuat wong. Other dishes like cereal prawns, sambal sotong and prawn paste chicken are said to be good.

Conclusion: One of the more affordable cze char places that bothers to keep the seafood alive. The 3 dishes I ordered just also happened to be very shiok. Will definitely come back again to try other items especially the crab’s dishes.

Likes: Fresh seafood, kailan is very delicious. Very affordable.

Dislikes: None.

Address		Overall Rating
Changi Seafood Blk 3 Changi Village Road #01-63 Mon to Sat: 11am – 12am Sun: 2pm – 12am Tel: 9147 4576		Food: 8/10   Authenticity: 8/10   Value: 8.5/10   Service: 8/10   Ambience: 7/10   Cleanliness: 7/10   Overall: 7.75/10

Ok apart from it being recognised as holy and sacred, do you think there are any more ‘logical’ reasons?

In the past(and even now), cow is one of those animals that you can really get a lot out of.

First, you can get it to do labour intensive tasks like ploughing. Second, it gives you the milk that is so very useful for your breakfast in the morning. Third, the cow dung can be used to increase your soil fertility(the last I heard, can even extract vanilla fragrance from it!) and then when it finally lived past it’s usefulness, you still can have some steak on the table!

I’m not saying that people recognise cows as holy or sacred to prevent others from killing more cows, and then people don’t have enough cows to use but it is true that a cow can gives people so much more than say a goat or a pig, right?

Anyway I have always loved beef. It’s one of those meat that has great property of taking well to most spice. You do it in Rendang, shiok. Pan fry it, shiok. Stir fry it, lagi shiok!

Ok, one of the healthiest ways to eat beef I suppose is just to have it boiled. Surprisingly, it is also shiok. Beef Noodle is one of those food that I would always order whenever I see it in a foodcourt or a hawker centre. It’s not that I seldom see it so when I see one I must whack, it’s just that it’s one of the very few food that I can slurp non-stop and almost everytime after I finished eating it, I still feel like wanting more. That for me is shiok food. I mean it’s not very often you finish a plate of Fried Oyster of Char Kway Teow and still yearning for more right? You’ll more likely be feeling ‘jerlad’.

All the delicious ’spare parts’

Beef Tendon

Changi Beef Kway Teow has been around for a while, as I was told. Surprisingly though I’ve been eating at Changi Village Food Centre since young, I’ve never noticed this stall. Only last year did I realised that there is such a fantastic Beef Kway Teow near to where I stay.

Well this Beef Kway Teow is seriously authentic. Apart from the usual spare parts which you can find in many other Beef Kway Teow stalls, the gravy for the dry version is quite shiok. Somehow there’s this bud titillating flavour that can makes you realise that it’s not just BOVRIL that goes into the making of it, unlike many other ‘commercial stalls’ that we can find in foodcourt.

Chin cha lok!

I wouldn’t say this is the best I’ve eaten but probably 80% there. Another wonderful thing about this bowl of Beef Kway Teow is you will get served with chin cha lok along with the normal chilli sauce. That definitely adds that extra oomph that carries an authenticity of it’s own.

Price: $4

Recommendation: $4 with spare parts!($3 version would get you only a few measly pieces of beef)

Conclusion: Beats many average ones but not quite there if compared to those really tok kong ones. All in all, more than good enough to provide a good fix. Never seen a queue before whenever I was there though ingredients were always fresh. The dry version is what I like. The soup though has not much going for me.

Likes: Gravy is shiok. Ingredients are a lot for $4 version.

Dislikes: Would be good if it can come that little more warm.

Address		Overall Rating
Changi Beef Kway Teow Noodle Block 2 #01-19 Changi Village Road Changi Village Hawker Centre 12pm to 8pm Off: Wednesday		Food: 8/10   Value: 7.5/10   Authenticity: 8/10   Service: 8/10   Ambience: 7/10   Cleanliness: 7/10   Overall: 7.75/10

I mean it’s that Malay flavoured fried chicken which tasted like ‘tumerically’ marinated more than anything else. The soup and the rice tasted uncannily similar to any Nasi Ayam you can find in any Malay food stall.

So what’s the fuss? Haven’t we been eating this all the while?

Ok it does look a little authentic being served in some kind of wooden plate but other than looking nicer than Nasi Ayam(which comes on normal plate), the performance level is quite equal to the Nasi Ayam we all know all along.

Anyway I finally found the time to eat at Sri Bistari at Changi Village, purportedly one of the best Ayam Penyet in town.

They also have Ikan Penyet, Udang Penyet and Sotong Penyet. All those ‘Penyetted’ items are deep fried already and stacked nicely in the display shelves. Somehow it does give me the feeling that Penyet is the resurrection of the word ‘goreng’(fried) in some ways.

Sri Bistari Ayam Penyet’s nasi

Sri Bistari Ayam Penyet

Sri Bistari Ayam Penyet’s soup

My Nasi Ayam Penyet came and looks quite good. But I have a slight complain though, it wasn’t smashed and there wasn’t any crunchy bits on the plate. So who is to argue with me now that this is not Nasi Ayam?

The Nasi Ayam Penyet was good though not exactly fantastic. The sambal chilli was good but it’s not like it’s hard to find this kind of chilli in Malay food stall. The chicken was delicious but yet neither unique nor authentic.

This is just another Nasi Ayam for me, maybe if they bother to sprinkle a few crunchy bits or a piece of tofu or tempeh like the one I had at Bedok Corner, it might be a little special but otherwise you can put my Nasi Ayam on this wooden plate and I would still relish it as much as this.

Price: $4

Recommendation: Ayam Penyet with Xtra sambal

Conclusion: Highly recommended by my friends though just another ‘Malay style chicken rice’ for me. Quite delicious but not authentic enough. Would be good if you’re around Changi Village and need a Nasi Ayam Penyet fix but otherwise there are Nasi Ayams everywhere with this kind of flavour that can whack your umami in similar style. I can imagine Indonesians eating this and calling it bogus. If you go to Jakarta to eat Mee Pok Tah, I am sure you also won’t be impressed.

Likes: Chicken was quite juicy.

Dislikes: Would be good if they bother to deep fry the chicken again because it was sitting in the shelves for ‘god knows’ how long before I appeared at the stall.

Address		Overall Rating
Sri Bistari Blk 3 #01-40 Changi Village Road Changi Village Market and Hawker Centre 10am to 12am Tel:9121 2999		Food: 8/10   Value: 7.5/10   Authenticity: 6/10   Service: 7/10   Ambience: 7/10   Cleanliness: 7/10   Overall: 7.5/10

Nasi Lemak at International Food Stall(that corner stall) at Changi Village Hawker Centre is truly great. It’s greatness can be identified in a number of ways such as popularities, queues and sales statistics. In these 3 compartments, they are the unbeatable CHAMPION of all time as far the game of Nasi Lemak is concerned. And all these things shed light on one thing – that magical quality which is authenticity. You cannot get a queue longer than that unless of course you’re selling hello kitty.

If however you’re not a fan of Nasi Lemak and have never joined the queue at any Nasi Lemak stalls and cannot find any reasons to travel to Changi Village before, then what you’re going to read after this line may just make you head your way there for your next meal.

At a quick glance, Wong Hing Kitchenette may seems like any other ordinary hawker stall selling hawker food such as fried hokkien mee or char kway teow. At second look, especially into the details on the signboard, they’re selling cze char food in broad daylight which looks seemingly out of place in a hawker centre.

If you’re visiting Changi Village Hawker Centre for the first time, it’s easy to ‘discriminate’ this stall because as far Singaporean’s are concerned, nobody purposely goes all the way to Changi Village Hawker Centre to eat cze char food.

But after witnessing queues forming at this stall on several occasions and especially when walking pass there, it’s always the scene of the cook doing the ‘wok toss’ ferociously, I have no choice but to feed my curiosity.

If you are at Changi Village Hawker Centre and it is meal time, proceed to the last row of the centre and count how many people are having a plate of this thing called Fried Mee with Bitter Gourd & Pork Ribs on their table. I counted and it was 8, not forgetting numerous plates of other things like Black Bean Sauce Beef Hor Fun and some other things they’re selling.

Authenticity quickly springs to mind and I proceed to order what I would normally order at a new cantonese eatery. The Black Bean Sauce Beef Hor Fun is one of the most popular dishes in cantonese cuisine so if a cantonese chef wants to excel, he must learn to do this well(at least that’s what I think). Though this time I asked to exchange the hor fun to crispy noodles because I don’t have the habit of eating hor fun in broad daylight.

Wong Hin Kitchenette is no doubt serving cantonese food and we all know that cantonese food in hawker centre is as rare as finding turtle soup anywhere. But they are not only selling cantonese food, they are getting the queues too. So by the look of it, I was half guessing my $3.80 for a plate of Black Bean Sauce Beef Crispy Noodle is a sure win bet.

Wong Hing Kitchenette Black Bean Beef
Crispy Noodle

Wong Hing Kitchenette Black Bean Beef Crispy Noodle

The crispy noodles are nothing much to rave since it came out from the bulk pack and it didn’t need any cooking but the sliced beef and bitter gourd with the black bean sauce that’s poured on it is something that you can never find in Singapore for $3.80. I am very sure.

There is that familiar wok hei cantonese flavour in the sauce that would cost you nothing lesser than $10 if you were to go to places like Crystal Jade. Indeed the flavour is ‘restaurant standard’ and it’s only because the cook had came from Hong Kong and worked as a chef in restaurants back home.

This plate of Black Bean Beef Crispy Noodle, like any other plate of good cantonese cze char, smacks of a good balance. Yes it is indeed authentic and the chef even imported the black beans from China.

And what I ate was not even what Wong Hin Kitchenette is popular for. Everyone was ordering the Crispy Noodles with Bitter Gourd & Pork Ribs and I’m suspecting that, their Crispy Noodles with Bitter Gourd & Pork Ribs could just be the real ‘cantonese’ gem of the east which I’m going to find out in my next visit.

Price: $3.80

Recommendation: Black bean sauce beef/pork rib hor fun/crispy noodles.

Conclusion: For $3.80, this will probably be the cheapest and most authentic cantonese food you can find in Singapore. Why I’m saying this is because I’ve been searching everywhere for good value cantonese food but most turned out disappointment in value or authenticity. This is really the kind of food and flavour that you can get easily from any street in Hong Kong but yet has eluded Singapore’s hawker centres and kopitiams. This stall will be proof that good cantonese flavour doesn’t necessarily mean high end restaurant in Singapore.

Likes: Terrific cantonese cze char flavour.

Dislikes: Would be better if more and good quality cooking wine are used but then again for $3.80, can’t really ask for much right?

Address		Overall Rating
Wong Hing Kitchenette Block 2 #01-14 Changi Village Road Changi Village Market & Food Centre Lunch:11am to 3pm Dinner: 5 to 9pm Off: Thursdays		Food: 7.5/10   Value: 9/10   Service: 7/10   Ambience: 6.5/10   Cleanliness: 7/10   Overall: 7.5/10

Nasi Lemak

Price: $3, $1.50 each chicken wing.

Recommendation: Chicken Wing only

Conclusion: Quality not as good, not sure if it’s due to the missing queue. The chicken wing should be equally good if it’s just got out of the wok. Their chili is a little more sweet and their rice a little more cold. Generally just lose out to International Food Stall in the overall rating.

Likes: Chicken Wing goreng is bagus!

Dislikes: Would be interesting if they use a little lesser sugar and add a little more salt into their chili.

Address		Overall Rating
Mizzy’s Corner Changi Village Hawker Centre #01-55 7am to 4am daily		Food: 7/10   Value: 6/10   Service: 7/10   Ambience: 6/10   Cleanliness: 6/10   Overall: 7.25/10

So if you happen to be in Changi Village Hawker Centre and realise there aren’t any sign of hello kitty for sale and the fact that it’s not a weekend then you know it’s only really good food that people are queueing up for.

Some of my friends had told me that they have tried almost all the nasi lemak stalls in Changi Village Hawker Centre and found that all of them are about the same and you can hardly tell which one is better.

My only question to that is..if that is so, why then are people queueing at the little corner stall? Do you think are there anymore reasons?

We all know that the battle for the best Nasi Lemak in Changi is very similar to the battle for the Best Laksa in Katong.

So often people ask which is the original one and which one is copycat. So to you, is the original one necessarily mean it is the better one? Or do you think some people are just being overly obsessed about finding the original one that they can overlook the fact that a copycat might actually be better than the original? Ok I’m really talking about myself here because I have the tendency of following an opinion based on a popular consensus.

The fact is sometimes we see a queue, we automatically assume that the queue is a representation of the best. Would like to disgress that if we’re talking about freshness then it might be true because if a stall has a constant flow of customers, then the food would be kept fresh because it needs to be replaced more frequently, at least more often than a stall that has food sitting there waiting for customers…agree?

I think it might be true that International Food Stall is the original Nasi Lemak stall there but are they still the best today? Do you think it is easy to find the best Laksa in Katong or the best Lor Mee in Tiong Bahru or the best Nasi Lemak in Changi? Do you think best still hold any water nowadays since there’re so much competition that the gap may have narrowed to the point where it’s not likely to determine the best but only a matter of preference?

While stalls are trying to emulate each other in terms of winning formulae, I think the real winner here must be the customers because what is going to flood the market is quality after quality and clearly when there are choices then it is going to up our value per cent and at times if you consider the fact that you can don’t queue 20 mins or more and yet get about the same quality, would’t it be a fantastic deal?.

That’s what I felt the other day when I tried the chicken wings from the other stall(opposite International Food Stall) which cost $1.30 and it was indeed very good. The chicken wings have that same crisp and the flavour didn’t lose out too much. Infact if I were to take into account those wings I ate at International Food Stall(3 months back), then this might actually beat it in the consistency of the ‘goreng’.

Nasi Lemak: 6.25/10  

Ok I am not really sure who is copycat or original but I can safely say if you’re talking about chicken wings, then the difference in taste is quite negligible and if 20 in the queue seems a lot to you, then you may want to try at the opposite stall which nobody is keen to start any queue.

Price: $1.50

Recommendation: Chicken Wing

Conclusion: Equally good in my opinion as compared to International Food Stall. I only tried the chicken wing so I can’t vouch for the Nasi Lemak.

Likes: Strong flavour of the goreng coating the chicken.

Dislikes: None but may not be as fresh if there are no queues unless you got there at the moment when they just fish out the wings from the oil in the pot.

Address		Overall Rating
Mizzy’s Corner Changi Village Hawker Centre #01-55 7am to 4am daily		Food: 7/10   Value: 6/10   Service: 6/10   Ambience: 6/10   Cleanliness: 6/10   Overall: 7/10