Ok, obviously you wouldn’t need to be very smart to figure that it is a steamboat but with fish head in it right? That’s one of the reasons why in the past I’ve never thought about wanting to go and eat this thing because I don’t know how to appreciate fish heads. I mean what’s so nice about the fish’s face, the eyes or the gelatin which are the only thing that is eatable on the head of a fish?

Other than steamboat, the other food I can think of that are made of fish head is the Fish Head Otah. Ok I’ve tried that before and really, instead of the delicious otah where I get chunks of fish meat wrapped in banana leaf, I get lots of ‘Unswallowable’ fish bones, so much so that I can’t really enjoy eating that Otah. So really, fish head is something that I try to avoid and I think it must be really delicious for people who loves chewing on bones but it’s just something I don’t know how to appreciate.

Now that is one of the reasons why I avoided Fish Head Steamboat all my life until something like 2 years ago, I was brought to this place called Xin Heng Feng Fishball Noodles to have a meal and it were to change my perception of this famous dish called Fishhead Steamboat that everyone had been enjoying and I had been avoiding. Ok if you’re guessing I typed the name of the stall wrongly, then you have guessed it wrong. That is indeed the name of the stall.

What’s happening here is that apparently this stall(they rent 2 stalls actually) at the Whampoa Drive Food Centre sells Fishball noodles by day and then sells Fishhead steamboat by night. And apparently they called themselves a Fishball Noodles instead. Now I’m not exactly sure if they are the same people selling from morning to night or if they’re even related. But what I can see is that this form of collaboration is really one of a kind. Let me tell you why.

If you’re wondering why certain Cze Char places in hawker centre are cheaper than say a Cze Char stall in Kopitiam or a small Cze Char restaurant, it’s because they operate from a single stall and hence their rental is a lot lower. The fact is a lot of hawker centres have stalls that only serve food up to after lunch time. So from that point onwards the hawker centre can be as quiet as a ghost town.

It’s where these Cze Char owners come into othe picture and take advantage of the many seats available in the entire hawker centre and operate a Cze Char stall there. Now the only disadvantage for them is that they have to make do with the size of the stall which is usually a lot smaller than one that they rent at a kopitiam. But that’s about it, there wouldn’t be any lesser customers, infact it can be easier to attract customers in such an environment because since their rental cost is low, they can keep prices low and that kind of setup can really bring down Cze Char business in kopitiams nearby. If you’re wondering how cheap, well it can go to as low as $5-$6 for a plate of Stir Fried KangKong.

Now that basically describe what this Xin Heng Feng Fishball Noodles is doing by selling Fishhead Steamboat at night at a hawker centre. So now you know why stalls like these are worth going to for meals.

Now I can’t really tell you whether Xin Heng Feng Fishball Noodles cum Fishhead Steamboat serves one of the best fishhead steamboat around because they’re the only one I’ve eaten. But indeed in my opinion, they’re quite good, so good that I don’t bother going to anywhere else if I want to eat fishhead steamboat. Ok for one, I think when we talk about steamboat, it’s the soup that is the most important and here, they have really a kickass soup. Everytime I was there, the soup really tasted like it’s been boiled with fishbones or whatever for a really really long time. So long that when it arrived on my table, it had this fantastic fish cum ‘chao tah’ aroma.

Fish meat: 8/10  

Well surprisingly it does smelled a little like wok hei. Ok certain soup are really cooked this way and has a hint of that wok hei but I’m not sure about this one really, though I’m quite certain they uses some spices in it(I was told it is nutmeg). Anyway the soup is really really good and I can really just eat it with rice.

Of course a Fishhead steamboat is much more than the soup. Well I am really glad to say that this fishhead steamboat doesn’t really uses the fishhead only but all parts of the fish. During ordering, they’ll ask what fish you want and they have snapper, pomfret and carp which is also called song fish( ??). Ok so far from all my experiences only 1-2 times when I dined there, I was served more fishhead than the fish meat while 7-8 times I was served with plenty of fish meat so I believed that they actually used the whole fish. So it’s not really a fishhead steamboat but fish steamboat and I know that sounds bad for fishhead lovers but that sounded a good thing to me.

Fish spare parts: 7/10  

Ok other than fishmeats, you get generous amount of yam pieces, generous amount of Chinese cabbage. With that, you get a few pieces of Tik Poh( Salted Dried Sole Fish) hiding in the soup and a few pieces of laver too. If you’re thinking that it sounded like an expensive meal, then let me tell you that we usually order the $20 steamboat and was always enough for 4 person. They have other authentic side dishes which they’ll bring to your table and you can decide what you want. From memory they have things like fish eggs, pork aspic, chai buay(salted veg) and braised chicken feet.

Vinegar and cut chilli: 8/10  

For fishhead steamboat, I have never ventured beyond this stall as I think the standard they’ve given me is quite high and hard to be exceeded. But of course I’ve heard a few other famous ones like Tian Wai Tian at Serangoon and Tian Tian Lai at Bedok but somehow I never bothered trying the rest because for me Xin Heng Feng Fishball cum Fishhead Steamboat had more than passed the test!

Price: Starts from $15

Recommendation: Preserved Veg( Has a lot of fantastic garlic flavour!)

Conclusion: They’re so good they can make me go back for more even when people were raving about others which were purportedly better.

Likes: Fantastic ‘wok hei’ flavour in the soup.

Dislikes: A little too salty.

Address		Overall Rating
Xin Heng Feng Fishball Noodles (day) and Fishhead Steamboat (evening) Blk 91 Whampoa Drive #01-599 Balestier Food Market		Food: 8/10   Value: 8/10   Service: 7/10   Ambience: 6/10   Cleanliness: 6/10   Overall: 7/10

I think many people would agree with me if I were to say their mummy’s food is the best. Apparently the food we grew up eating is always the best food for us. So your mummy’s food is the best for you and my mummy’s food is the best for me and that’s the case for most people.

So the truth is actually, a lot of food is a matter of taste acquisition more than anything else. Say for eg Durian, it’s no secret that people from South East Asia countries would love it more than say someone from Far East Asia countries. And this is due to the fact that Durian is a tropical fruit and therefore people from South East Asia countries can grow it and therefore they can be more exposed to it.

Now, other than Durian I think one other food that people from Far East Asian countries really hate is the Indian curry. This thing that is called Indian curry is really one of the smelliest thing in the world unless you were born in South East Asia or Middle East Asia. Whenever I asked my friends from China or Taiwan to try some delicious Indian Curry, they would react like I’m asking them to eat poo, no joke.

Though Indian curries are disliked by some Asians, it is popular in some western countries like France and UK. The reason is because they once colonized India and so their food cultures have a whiff of that influence.

Now if you turn it around, Stinky Tofu from the Far East is something that I would avoid at all cost. When I was in Taipei, even when everyone was saying ‘????!‘, for me it really smelled like poo – literally, and I have no idea why people would want to love eating such food and I would never want myself to acquire that taste.

But Indian curry is different, it had that superb aroma as a result of different spices being put together and for me, that smell is far away from poo, period.

Now, Rojak is one food that I didn’t grew up liking. I don’t know why but in the past I just seemed to feel like vomitting after eating it. The fermented shrimp paste does smell a bit but of course I know it is quite delicious too. But the thing is I managed to outgrow that and sometime in the last few years I actually grew to like eating it.

Sometimes I wonder why, for such a simple food like Rojak, there can be such a big difference in taste from different stalls. I mean it’s just the ‘Hae Kor’, Assam water, grounded peanuts and assorted cut fruit/vegetable cubes and you don’t even need to cook it using fire. I don’t really know about others but as I were to find out accidentally, this particular stall somewhere in Whampoa Drive can gives me an absolutely satisfactory Rojak experience because they are using a lot of Gula Melaka(Palm Sugar).

Balestier Road Hoover Rojak is really not any common Rojak stall you see in any hawker centres. The price here starts from $3 and as far I know(from my observation while queueing), most people would order the $4 or $5 plate which you’ll get things like jelly fish slices, sour mangoes slices and even a century egg. It’s hard for me to describe how fantastic this Rojak is but there is definitely something special about it. It’s just that bit sweeter, that bit more ‘Pang’, that bit more consistent and that bit more fulfilling. For me it’s about something that’s just a bit more of ’something’ but yet very few Rojak stalls I’ve patronised can produce this little bit more.

Well from a non-fan of the smelly ‘Hae Kor’ who have been converted to become a fan of Rojak, the accolades I must give to this Balestier Road Hoover Rojak because if not for their existence, I’ll still continue to avoid Rojak. If you want to know how popular they are, so far I’ve seen 2 local celebrities joining the queue. And Balestier Road Hoover Rojak have pictures at the stall showing how overseas celebrities patronised them too when they need a Rojak fix in Singapore.

Price: $3 onwards

Recommendation: $4 plate with century eggs(you have to mention include century eggs)

Conclusion: Something is special about this that can convert me this anti rojak person. I suspect it’s the Gula Melaka that’s doing the wonder but like any other outstanding food, they have the right balance and consistency too.

Likes: A mysterious aroma which I believe is the result of adding Gula Melaka to Hae Kor(Fermented Shrimp Paste).

Dislikes: A little expensive considering the bulk of it are fruits and vegetables that you’re paying for.

Address		Overall Rating
Blk 90 Whampoa Drive #01-06 Whampoa Drive Food Centre		Food: 8/10   Value: 7/10   Service: 7/10   Ambience: 6/10   Cleanliness: 7/10   Overall: 7/10

If I were to tell you that French also once colonized some parts of Indonesia, would you believe? Of course you wouldn’t believe since according to history that never happened.

But yet there is this place in Indonesia somewhere in Bandung that is so very French. This place even has a French name, it’s called Pasteur. The only shopping centre there is called Paris Van Java. The restaurants there have all funny names that looked like they had been influenced by the French culture or something. Even the people there looked French……….ok that’s for humour, people here looked the same as anywhere else in Indonesia. But the weather here is slightly colder due to the higher altitude, it’s like 20 deg when I was there and I heard it can go down a little more sometimes.

Ok in singapore we don’t have a place that sounded French but we have lots of cafe that tried to say they’re from France. For those who doesn’t know, ‘DE’ in French means ‘From’ so if a cafe says Prata De India then it means Prata from India, or Sushi De Japan then it means Sushi from Japan. Now it does sound strange to me to use a French word in any restaurant names especially when there is nothing ‘French’ about the restaurant at all. Obviously neither Prata nor Sushi came from France. So really I can’t stop myself from wondering, are these restaurants just trying to be cool?

Anyway I’ve heard and read so much about this restaurant somewhere in Balestier who are purportedly selling Cze Char food with a lot of Hong Kong flavour. Now that got me really really excited because there are very very few eating places in Singapore that are selling real authentic Hong Kong food. I really love Hong Kong food and for me it is really superior when compared to Singapore food because I think they used a lot of cooking wine, I think. So this recommendation sounded very very good to me except that I was wondering why it is called Cafe De Hong Kong. That’s a very unglamorous name as far as authenticity is concerned. I mean most Hong Kong restaurants would be dying to use something like Golden Dragon or Phoenix Palace etc. But I must admit that lousy name is still not as crucial as lousy food and so here I am on this fine shine day to find out how ‘Hong Kong’ actually is this Cafe ‘DE’ Hong Kong.

I don’t know about you but usually when I’m at a new eating place, there will be some feelings formed. The feelings will be formed from a few factors like how the eating place looks to how busy are the staffs to how many customers are in there. Well if at lunch time and it’s almost empty then it doesn’t look right, is it? Truth be told, I almost wanted to walk away when I first arrived at Cafe De Hong Kong. Now eventhough that place is hard to find a parking lot and I walked like 15 mins to the cafe. I had the option of either to trust my gut feeling and walk 30 mins(to and back) for nothing in order to save my lunch or to take a risk in the hope of discovering something special that somehow eludes the first impression. The thing is I haven’t really read a bad thing about this place so far therefore I decided that whether this place is good or bad, I’m going to find out for myself.

There was not even a single customer inside at around 12pm on a Sunday afternoon, if that’s not strange enough for you, I don’t know what else is. Anyway I quickly flip through the menu and realised that it is extra confusing. First they have this promotional thing sitting on the table which tells you about the signature dishes, then they have 2 sets of menu. I saw a waitress and took the chance to ask her the difference of the 2 menus. She said one menu consists of the signature dishes while the other menu consists of all the dishes. There are 2 things here I couldn’t understand. Why do they need to have their signature dishes in different 3 places on the table. First it’s on that promotional leaflets on the table. Then it’s on the signature dishes(which is quite a long list) menu and then it’s again on the menu that has the entire list of dishes. That really got me confused with names repeating itself unncessarily in different places. All I needed were just the original menu and all they needed really is to put a star or something beside a signature dish to let customers know that it is a signature dish. Another thing is that their signature dishes menu is too long, it’s so long that it looked like another menu.

The menu here didn’t made me feel like dining at an authentic Hong Kong restaurant unfortunately. Most of the dishes are their own creation I think, and the fact that from the photos on the menu, they seem to be very into food decoration but yet I’m the sort of person who are more concern about how the food taste. I have to also mention that while looking through the menu, there’s this waitress who was standing beside our table. There’s nothing wrong in that except that she just can’t seems to stop talking. Ok that got to the point where it was quite annoying especially when I’m not a fool when it comes to Cantonese cuisine but yet she’s trying to give me information which I don’t really need.

Anyway I decided to go for those kind of authentic cantonese dishes that are very very easy to impress and yet hard to fail. Black Bean Sauce Beef Hor Fun, Salt and Pepper Pork Chops and Supreme Tofu. My partner got herself a plate of duck feet which was recommended by the waitress and in her own words “Is really one of the top selling dishes here”.

Now usually for me I think no matter how good a restaurant is, the flow of customers is very important because only a constant flow can ensure that the food are kept fresh. I mean the last thing we want to dine at any restaurant is to be served food that they can’t finish selling and so had to keep it for long. Really, no matter how good the chef is, if the ingredients are not fresh then it really might take some magic for the food quality to score some distinctions. These were my feelings then about Cafe De Hong Kong. I was waiting to see whether are there any magic wand.

Salt Pepper Pork Chop: 7/10  

The first to arrive was the Black Bean Beef Hor Fun. It wasn’t too bad to be honest, it had that familiar ‘cantonese hor fun’ smell but I was disappointed that the hor fun somewhat tasted like overnight Hor Fun. Now that’s the thing I dread whenever I go to any restaurant to eat because freshness of any ingredients is the basic. If the basic is not right, then it’s hard to be outstanding and this plate of Hor Fun could had been fantastic but it’s clearly not. The sauce, the beef and the smell was good but the quality of Hor Fun spoilt it.

Supreme Tofu: 8/10  

The next that came was the Salt and Pepper Pork Chop and again it’s not too bad but definitely not outstanding. The ‘Salt and Pepper’ flavour just wasn’t thorough enough and the fact that they didn’t use a lot of garlic/spring onions/cut chillies like how it’s generously use in most good cantonese restaurants I’ve been to just shows how serious they were to make this really really good.

Beef Hor Fun: 7/10  

The Supreme Tofu is the only dish here that were outstanding. The sauce had a lot of that seafood flavour and the Tofu(they make themselves) was smooth and soft. It blended very well together but then again 4 pieces of Tofu for $12 is really not something I would be happy coming here again for. I rather they take away that 4 thinly sliced scallops and throw in other seafood like squids, prawns and give me many more pieces of Tofu. Well the last time I had a Stir Fry Tofu at a Cze Char place, for $8 I had more than 10 pieces of Tofu with many big succulent prawns. That definitely can give me more value though I must admit that this dish looked fantastic but yet that sort of thing isn’t what I would travel all the way to Balestier for. My partner mentioned that the Braised Duck Feet was good but yet she said not comparable to some of the best she’s tasted elsewhere. The Hor Fun was the only thing we couldn’t finish eating. I think only a really hungry person can.

Surprise surprise. So many good reviews had been written and yet on a Sunday afternoon at around 12 noon there was not a single customer to be found. Now I can see the reason. Maybe Cafe De Hong Kong does have good chefs but a bit more work needs to be done before they can make me travel all the way here to have a meal again. I don’t know about those dishes that people have reviewed and found to be so good, like Winter Melon soup or Crispy Chicken but the basic cantonese food that I had today did not really lived up to my expectation and it definitely didn’t do justice to those excellent reviews I’ve read.

Cafe De Hong Kong just wasn’t ‘Hong Kong’ enough for me and the fact is, for $36.25 I can easily dine at Crystal Jade Restaurant.

Price: $6 to $18 per dish

Recommendation: Supreme Tofu(A bit ex though)

Conclusion: Kopitiam Cze Char’s quality sold at restaurant prices but served in a cafe. Not authentic enough though they are quite creative with their dishes.

Likes: The Hor Fun has nice cantonese ‘wok hei’ flavour.

Dislikes: Not authentic enough. Wish there were more cantonese flavours. Price also a little too high for a cafe.

Address		Overall Rating
Cafe De HongKong 586 Balestier Road #01-01 Eastpac Building Tel: 62553865		Food: 6/10   Value: 6/10   Service: 7/10   Ambience: 7/10   Cleanliness: 7/10   Overall: 7/10

In our night kopitiam scene, another form of Cze Char has been quietly penetrating the market in the name of Hong Kong Cze Char which is essentially a flavour of the Hong Kong stir fry. For those who have been to places like Hong Kong, Sydney, London, Toronto or any other major cities for that matter, I’m sure you would have, at one point of your travelling, entered the Chinatown and walked into a Hong Kong eating house for a meal. For me, the main difference between Hong Kong food and our local food is that Hong Kongers tend to like their cooking a little more salty and most of their chef cooked as if chinese wine manufacturer gives them a free supply for a life time!

They do use a lot of wine in their cooking which resulted in an unmistaken ‘Hong Kee’ restaurant aroma, a fragrance no other cuisine in the world has. Usually for me, when I see a Salt & Pepper blah blah blah, then that line is a must try for me. At least once. The usual stuff would be Salt & Pepper Spare Ribs, Salt & Pepper Chicken or Salt & Pepper Squid, Fish or whatever. They always can make me empty my bowl of rice super fast!

Ok I’ve heard of this purportedly famous Cze Char place sitting in the corner coffeeshop in Balestier a few times from friends. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that it is actually a Hong Kong Cze Char, well at least that’s what the signboard says.

But the thing is I did not see any Salt & Pepper dish on the menu. Well I let my partner make the ordering instead and to be on the safe side, I requested that she go for dishes that she had tried before and found them nice. We got an Assam Fish, a Tofu Prawn and a Garlic Kai Lan.

Assam Fish

The sauce of the Assam Fish was good which tasted somewhat more like a Thai sweet sauce or something along that line.

Tofu Prawns

The Tofu Prawn was full of that ’stir fry’ taste but otherwise not something I would visit that place again just because I crave for it, simply because I had tasted better ones elsewhere.

Garlic Kailan

The Garlic Kai Lan is far-fetched from what I know of how a Hong Kong style Garlic Kai Lan should taste. It just lacked that bit of something that can’t really make me enjoy this dish like how I would otherwise at a Hong Kong eating place. Well, so my opinion is they only added a Hong Kong to their signboard for fun.

Cze Char meal

Chilli Sauce

Their menu doesn’t look like one and the taste of their food neither too. Well, you might have been there and ordered some dishes that you think can be a dispute to my opinion? If so please write to me and I’ll be glad to hear from you!

Price: $40+

Recommendation: Tofu Prawn

Conclusion: Definitely not comparable to the real authentic HK flavour. Prices are a little high for a corner kopitiam. Not sure about other dishes but those we ordered today was very normal. Real cantonese flavour no enough!

Likes: The dishes were decent especially the Tofu Prawn.

Dislikes: Not authentic enough.

Address		Overall Rating
Somewhere on Balestier Road		Food: 6/10   Value: 6/10   Service: 6/10   Ambience: 5/10   Cleanliness: 5/10   Overall: 6.5/10