Queue number cards at Former Lorong 1 Geylang Nasi Padang

Alright, I know that sounded a little old fashion but you can’t argue with success, can you?

Mr Ghulam was plying the Nasi Padang trade at Geylang Lorong 1 from 1975 till 2001. Those days, horde of customers would appear out of nowhere once he opened shop(7pm) and being inside just a tiny kopitiam, space was restrained so customers always fought over who came first and who came later blah blah blah so before you know, you must take a queue number and Mr Ghulam will call you when it’s your turn just like how a nurse do so in a clinic!

Mr Ghulam then moved out of Geylang Lorong 1 in 2001 when there was a rent hike to Lorong 24 and then in 2005, moved again to it’s current location which is at Lorong 27. I lost Mr Ghulam for about 8 years and only managed to track him down recently.

2 types of chilli

A meal at Mr Ghulam’s stall is about chilli, chilli and chilli. So much so that every table must have a plate of chilli to go along with everything else. In short, you must be able to love the shiokadodoness of spiciness and here is one of the very few Nasi Padang stalls that serves you Nasi Padang with belacan chilli.

Ayam Masak Merah

The first thing you die die MUST order from Mr Ghulam is Ayam Masak Merah. For the benefit of those who don’t know what this is, it’s deep fried chicken cooked in some kind of chilli sauce. There are places that serve this really really wet though here it is dry and looks more like fried chicken coated with chilli paste. Chicken and chilli lovers will have their umami spots hit very hard by this.

Sotong choke-full of eggs

It’s amazing how many people I know that have never eaten sotong eggs before. If you’re one of those and in the mood to eat it for the first time, then you’ll be glad to know that every sotong sold by Mr Ghulam have eggs. I’m not quite sure how Ghulam does it but it’s not easy to find squids that have eggs therefore the price of $7 per squid is well justified. I have always ordered this sotong(cooked in squid sauce) without fail because I am fascinated by how I always can expect to see eggs in a sotong here and this is probably the only Nasi Padang stall in Singapore that can guarantee you eggs in a sotong.

Rendang

The Rendang here, which is mildly spiced is gracefully opulent. The gravy which is not spicy at all is one of the best I’ve had from anywhere. It’s slightly creamy with a subtle hint of some spices’ flavours and it can seriously unleash your appetite to finish the Nasi Putih(white rice) that is infront of you. This is probably good enough to double up as a good dip for keropoks.

Vegetables curry

If you are a Nasi Padang connoisseur, then you must be keen to know what choices do you have for the gravy that can complete this Nasi Padang dream to sheer fantasy. Among a sea of gravies which would greet you at the front of the stall, my favourite is the vegetable curry but I must tell you that the fish curry gravy and chicken curry are pretty kickass too. If you don’t know what you want, just ask for a bit of everything to go with the Rendang gravy and Sotong Ink gravy on your rice, and not forgetting the chili sauces. If you are a hard core Nasi Padang “devotee”, I urge you to visit Mr Ghulam with a really empty stomach because you might need the space to complete 2 plates of rice.

Take a card, wait for your turn, have your Nasi Padang orgasm and leave. No more, no less.

Former Lorong 1 Geylang Nasi Padang

Price: $15(for 3)

Recommendation: Rendang, Black Sotong with eggs, Ayam Masak Merah(chilli chicken) and many others.

Conclusion: One of my Nasi Padang fix places before I lost them. Authentic taste but you must like chilli to enjoy this meal. Queues can be long after 7 so try to be early. Most of the items are sold out by 9 so don’t be too late! The flavours and tastes are pretty well balanced and it’s one of those Nasi Padang stalls where I always yearn for more after having a meal.

Likes:The chilli sauce and gravies are kickassly sedap!

Dislikes: Would be good if they can do Ayam Goreng to go along with my meal.

Address		Overall Rating
Former Lorong 1 Geylang Nasi Padang Yue Yuan Coffeeshop 302 Sims Avenue Geylang Lorong 27 6pm to 1030pm Off: Sunday, Public Holiday Mr Ghulam 9815 0835		Food: 8/10   Authenticty: 9/10   Value: 7.5/10   Service: 8.5/10   Ambience: 7/10   Cleanliness: 7/10   Overall: 7.75/10

I’m sure you guys have heard of the famous super long persistent queues outside of Astons Specialties at Katong every night.

Reaching the entrance by about 8pm, we were glad to be greeted by a queue that’s not so long, though we were unimpressed by the waiting time.

There were only about 10 customers in front of us which consist of couples and families but it took over 45 mins to get our butts on the seats inside. If you’re thinking that it was crowded inside then let me tell you that it was only 3/4 full when we got in.

Apparently the queue at Astons Specialties on that night was long because they have a very time consuming modus operandi.

There’s a waiter at the entrance who would show you the menu and take your order before you are shown your seats. Your order is the prerequisite to be allocated a seat inside the Cafe. You need to wait in line for every person infront of you to make their order and be allocated a seat before you get entertained. I’m not sure if the same thing is happening for every night but at least for that night, it’s clear that’s how the queue was formed.

Such a method of taking in customers seems draggy and the waiting time is lengthened unnecessarily, especially when it was only 3/4 full at most times when we were there. The time we spent standing outside was infact for nothing and pretty needless.

We ordered a Prime Ribeye X’tra Cut and Black Pepper Steak. I was informed recently that over at Astons Prime, they’re serving Angus beef while at Specialties and Prime, they serve Prime beef, hence the price difference.

For those who don’t know, the word Angus actually is referring to the Certified Angus Beef(CAB) which is a specification-based, branded-beef program founded by Augus cattle producers in 1978. They’re famous for consistent, high quality beef with supposingly superior taste. However this term is often loosely and commonly misused with other terms like “Angus Beef” or “Black Angus”.

Certified Angus Beef is theoritically a brand and is a cut above grades like Prime, Choice and Select which are grading systems by United States Department of Agriculture(USDA). For any beef to be certified CAB and earn it’s name, it must pass 10 additional specifications. And the fact is, a lot of beef that come from Augus fails to meet the Certified Angus Beef brand’s high standards. Which is to say that while the beef being sold may well have come from the Augus breed, it does not necessarily mean it is ‘Certified Angus Beef’.

Ok anyway it’s Angus beef at Astons Prime and Prime beef at Astons ‘anywhere else’ though I’m not sure whether the Angus here mean ‘came all the way from Angus’ or ‘Certified Angus Beef’ for there was no mentioning of it in the menu.

Ribeye X’tra Cut $16.50
 7/10  

That looks good but quite tough…

Black Pepper Steak $11.50
 7.5/10  

The Black Pepper Steak arrives and it looked ok. I mean for $11.50(without ++), you can’t really ask for a lot. The peppery flavour was nice though the beef did came a little ‘too well done’. I’ve always asked for well done for my beef at Astons but it’s the first time I’m seeing it really really well done. We had the corn and potato salad with it. The corn was also ok though would be better if it can be that little juicier. The potato salad was as usual, nothing short of fantastic.

Corn 6.5/10  

Crispy Chicken Wing
 6.5/10  

Salad Potato 8/10  

My Ribeye X’tra Cut arrives with my fries and mashed potatoes. Surpringly, it was equally VERY well done. It was quite a chore, eating and chewing it all night long. I remember I first dined at Astons at Serangoon Gardens and had it well done. It was well done but tender and juicy. But subsequent meals to other Astons had produced standards that seem to fluctuate a little.

After eating at Express, Prime and Specialties, I know now that Astons seems to come up short on consistency.

My ribeye had good flavour but the texture was not very far off from that of a cardboard. Perhaps the noteworthy is the sauce, which I found to taste nicer, surprisingly much more than at Astons Prime. The fries and mashed potatoes was, well as usual delicious.

We also ordered the crispy chicken wing too which was, well anything but great.

Mashed Potatoes 7.5/10  

Fries 7.5/10  

Astons serves western food that is restaurant’s standard but at coffeeshop/cafe price. There’s a tradeoff though. The consistency of the shiokadodoness has a yo-yo effect and you really got to tikam-tikam. At the end of the day, they’re not charging you a lot, so I guess you really have to compromise a little there. Like what they say, nothing is perfect, right?

Price: $11.50 for Black Pepper and $16.50 for Ribeye X Cut.

Recommendation: Steaks and Chops. Potato salad is my favourite for the side.

Conclusion: For just a little bit more, you get to eat Astons food in a cafe as compared to Express at kopitiams. Shockingly, my best Astons experiences were in Express at kopitiams. Prime and Specialties come close but somehow not quite. It’s clear they’re struggling with consistency in quality of their food and perhaps the training academy that’s going to be erected at Joo Chiat(former Prime) is a good thing.

Likes: Most of the side dishes are good.

Dislikes: Steaks used to be juicy and tender though on this occasion, some exercises are needed!

Address		Overall Rating
Astons Specialties 119 East Coast Road Tel: 6247 7857 1130-2300hrs		Food: 8/10   Value: 8/10   Service: 6/10   Ambience: 7/10   Cleanliness: 7/10   Overall: 7.5/10

Back then Punggol was still an ulu place and you have to travel single lane roads from Hougang area all the way to the end of Punggol, which used to be something like 1 hour journey. The scene was quite terrific whenever we were there, with cars jamming up the whole place and I distinctly remembered there was even valet parking offered by by one of the restaurants there though my father was always worried whenever he handed over his car to those ‘Ahmads’ because you don’t know whether will your car or your car keys be safe in their hands!

Sometime in the 90s, Singapore gahment decides to ‘chase’ these 2 restaurants out of that place because of the Punggol 21 project blah blah blah and so ended were also this legendary seafood hideout place at the Punggol End. What happened next was that very few people know where these 2 restaurants moved to and then a lot of imitations start popping up in other parts of Singapore putting ‘Punggol Seafood’ in their signboards scrambling for Choon Seng and Hock Kees’ ex regulars.

I have no idea where Choon Seng moved to but Hock Kee moved next door to an open space beside a construction area which is where the Punggol Marina stand today. When Punggol Marina was completed, Hock Kee moved into it and upgraded itself to become a high end restaurant. All in all I’ve dined there about 3-4 times and the last time I went, I realised the menu has completely changed and I were to find out later that Hock Kee’s boss had passed away. The family then sold away the business and well known Taiwanese Huang Ching-biao was the head chef there. And that was to be the last time I dined there.

Now Punggol Hock Kee’s banner still hangs proudly somewhere along the road today as you drive towards Punggol Marina and the signboard in Punggol Marina still calls itself the original Punggol Seafood, probably hoping to attract back again the nostalgia customers of yesteryears but yet we know that the business had changed hands a few times now.

Punggol Marina is the only country club in Singapore that’s open to public. That’s only because the place is too far out of the city and so it’s opening themselves up hoping to attract people to go there to do fun activities like prawning and yachting.

So such places undoubtedly would have eating outlets sprucing up. Indeed if you are into buffets, there are 3 restaurants there for you to choose. Near the entrance would be the newly opened Sakura and it’s concept is Charcoal Grill And Shabu Shabu which is something different from the rest of it’s outlet. Walking towards the pier, there is one that calls itself Hot Stone though I’m pretty sure they have nothing to do with the Hot Stones at Clarke Quay. Further in, there’s one that’s called Boatel Beer Garden & Steamboat. Not sure if it’s the same Beer Garden that once stood at Marina South but they look very similar. Then if you’re not into steamboats, there are also a couple of Cze Char stalls right at the end.

Seafood spread left side

Marinated meat spread right side

Seafood spread right side

Of the lot, the best value meal has got to be Hot Stone. Sakura was really impressive with their spread though the price of $28+ was putting us off. Hot Stone’s grill and steamboat buffet was going for $13.50++. Now that is the kind of price that will make you wonder what kind of food you’re going to get right? After walking through the spread we were so shiokadodoly impressed! For that price we saw things like half shell scallops, half shell mussels, fresh bamboo clams and even abalone! Every kind of seafood you can think of, it was there. And not only that, the meat section can almost put Seoul Garden’s spread to shame! Almost! Every kind of meats were there and marinated in many different flavours. Then there is a fridge that has all kind of vegetables you can think of. I dare say that’s the biggest spread of vegetables in any buffets I’ve ever eaten all my life. You can even find things like Enoki mushrooms, Abalone mushrooms. Now these kind of things aren’t exactly the cheapest in the market so you can imagine our big wide grins as we were walking through the spread. And that’s not the end yet. There were also a cooked food section where there are miscellaneous food like Stir Fry Vegetables, Fried Rice, Fried Bee Hoon, deep fried finger food like nuggets, chicken wings etc etc, sushi, and even pastas! All that for $13.50++! I don’t know about you but we were all thinking it’s all too good to be true. It definitely did feel like we were suddenly teleported to the most ulu part of Malaysia.

Steamboat BBQ Buffet by the pier

The pot on the grill

The pot on the grill

So while taking our seats, we were wondering how they’re going to make money with this kind of ‘ho liao’ and we were saying that there’s only 2 possibilities. Either it’s an illegally ran buffet where they don’t pay rental or they are renting that area cheaply from Punggol Marina. Of course there is also another possibility that we did not discuss much though we were fully aware that it’s the 7th month. Well for that I volunteered to come back to the same place the following week to check whether is this a real buffet or just a plot of empty land and nothing else!

Jokes aside, our steamboat arrives with the fish flavour’s stock which was what we chosen. There were also Tom Yum and Chicken stock for you to choose. As greedy as we can be, we retrieved almost everything that looks good on the counter. And the funny thing is this, the food tasted very good! Definitely not some cheapo standard, if you’ve been to Marina South to eat bbq buffets, it’s even better than that. The cooked food was delicious and the flavour was seriously authentic and it’s something I’m even happy paying $13.50++ for without the steamboat part.

Vegetables

Marinated meat

Abalone, seafood

Grilled half shell mussels

Grilling meat

Grilling prawns

Things started to get fishier and fishier. I mean, such good food at such good price, I almost wanted to pinch myself to see whether am I in a dream. Suddenly, a thought came to mind. As all the tables were lining up beside the piers without any shelters, it left me wondering, what would happen if it starts to rain and I was telling my friends that it would be interesting to see how they manage this.

By now we were getting into the thick of action, grilling the food and enjoying the wonderful steamboat. Oh have I mentioned that the fish stock was fantastic? It was so good that I kept shaking my head while drinking it. And I haven’t told you that there was 2 big pieces of fish maws that came in the pot right? And the fish meat that we retrieved from the shelf is grouper’s meat!

Fishy.

Extremely fishy. I was sure that there’s no way they can make money on this. Not even if they don’t pay rent for it. Not even if those staffs are working for the company without wages!(There was about 15 staffs).

But before my mind wanders further, or rather before our mouth can continue munching away the delicious food, tragedy struck. We started to feel raindrops. I then looked at the sky and it indeed was quite dark. I turned to my back and what greeted me was this ferocious rain that came horizontally along the pier like wanting to wipe all of us out for good! It almost looked like a Tsunami out of the sea. Every single person(almost 60 to 80 people) eating the buffet scrambled for shelter and barring a few coconut trees, the nearest shelter isn’t exactly very near and we all found ourselves drenched inside the Punggol Marina building. Ah ah! So that’s the catch! No wonder it’s $13.50++! It was indeed quite humourous. The funny thing was the staffs were no where to be seen and it’s as if they’ve all went into hiding. All that was left were the empty tables and the food and the whole place somewhat looked like an illegal buffet being busted LOL! With that we have no choice but to leave though not exactly full. But of course we are going to come back again. For $13.50++, that’s seriously the best buffet I’ve eaten for that price and what’s more, I was extremely eager to find out is this a 7th month thingy at work or what.

A week later I came back. This time we were armed. I already checked the weather forecast and made sure that it’s not going to rain. Unexpectedly what greeted us at the entrace was a different price. It’s $17.50++ now and the staff was saying they have to do so because of higher material cost blah blah blah. Of course it’s still going to be bloodie worth it considering how much I enjoyed my meal the other time though it was ‘free’ then.

My second time there was shiok though the first time was better, for some reasons. We got the refill with Tom Yum soup and it was disappointing. Tasted somewhat like some stock with a only a slight hint of lemon grass and chilli in it, not power enough. The fish soup is seriously highly recommended . There are about 6 types of chilli sauces and it’s the first time I’ve seen belacan being served at a steamboat buffet. If you’re going, I’ll suggest you go earlier like about 6pm so you can enjoy that sunset moment while enjoying your delicious food, otherwise if you pop in at around 7 to 8pm, all the fantastic views cannot be seen and also you’re going to have difficulities telling whether the food is cooked or not.

The vegetables fridge

Vegetables fridge night shot

Meat and Seafood fridge

Chilli sauces area

Steamboat by the pier night view

Signboard, was $13.50++ only a week ago

Signboard, now $17.50++ already!

For $13.50++, it was going to be the best value buffet for me. For $17.50++, maybe. The canned drinks are selling at $2++ each, so it all depends whether you need to drink a lot. If you do, your bill may escalates to quite high. All in all, this meal looked like an Marina South kind of grilled buffet but ‘upsized’ in terms of value since they have all kinds of seafood. The only thing that’s missing from the seafood selection is crab. But Boatel Beer Garden & Steamboat at the end of the pier has crabs in their spread so if you’re a crab person then maybe you should head that way.

Price: $17.50++

Recommendation: Fish flavoured stock for the steamboat.

Conclusion: Would have been extremely good value for $13.50 though $17.50++ is still quite good. Surprisingly the cooked food has a certain level of authenticity. I’m suspecting a good chef is doing the work. The buffet spread for steamboat is fantastic. All kind of seafood that can cost quite a bit in the market. Clearly Hot Stone is sincere about delivering value though I must say that this style of BBQ is very similar to those previously at Marina South, maybe 2 notches higher in terms of value. Hygiene wise is very similar.

Likes: Soup and seafood selection.

Dislikes: Tom Yum soup was bland. Would be good if the grill can be done without the aluminium foil, surely will taste better.

Address		Overall Rating
Hot Stone (Operate by silent Pte Ltd) Marina Country Club 600 Ponggol Seventeenth Avenue Singapore 829734 6pm to 3am daily		Food: 8/10   Value: 8/10   Service: 7/10   Ambience: 9/10   Cleanliness: 7/10   Overall: 7.5/10

That kept me wonder, why can’t delicious Dim Sums be sold in coffeeshops in Singapore? We definitely have no shortage of Dim Sum stalls opening up in kopitiams but yet for those that I’ve ate, the standards are pathetic, to put it mildly. To be fair, I’ve even came across some really ambitious Dim Sum sellers in kopitiam doing business on a large scale trying to create some kind of Dim Sum mania but yet it never really went on to WOW the people and then the scripts ending are always the same, they can’t finish selling, so they kept it for the next day, then it wasn’t fresh, so customers didn’t find it outstanding and never come back again, blah blah blah. That is a clear sign that the market for Dim Sum in kopitiams has not yet mature, agree?

Unfortunately in Singapore, Dim Sum is one of those food that you have to go to a good restaurant for a satisfying fix. This reminds me of other exotic food like Tapas or Kebabs where it is a downright street food in the place of origin and where you can eat terrific ones for a few dimes but yet in singapore, you really need to go to some high end restaurants for it. Well but I can understand especially when ingredients for those food can be expensive since most ingredients used need to be imported and with that, sellers may need a high markup to compensate for slower flow of customers and so selling from a high end restaurant is the logical thing to do. But how can the same script be written for Dim Sum, has anyone the wisdom to enlighten?

Since I can be quite a big eater, buffet style of Dim Sum is always the preferred choice. Fortunate Restaurant or 幸福饮茶 at International Building in Orchard is one of those Dim Sum places that offers you quite an authentic spread of Dim Sum selection. The good thing about this buffet is that you will have 2 menus, a Dim Sum menu and other main dishes menu. Both of which will give you a combined list of about 50 items. For $16.80 that is a terrific value considering the fact that most of the items have succulent prawns as ingredients though on this occasion some of Dim Sum items we ordered seemed to have something that taste like carrots and it does looked like a cost cutting measure but most of the items were still quite good.

These are the Dim Sum’s we ate.

Black Bean Sauce Chicken Feet – Flavour was good, texture can be softer.
Food: 6/10  

Haw Gow – Retrieved from the cart and didn’t taste like what it was in the past.
Food: 6/10  

Pai Kuat – Very good flavour and meat fell off bones easily as you suck it.
Food: 8/10  

Steamed Beancurd Roll - This is one item that can give me an intense umami hit. The flavoursome ingredients(pork and prawns) wrapped with soft beancurd skin and steamed in some kind of delicious broth is one of those things I won’t get tired of eating.
Food: 8/10  

Redbean & Banana Pancake – The star of the afternoon. So delicious that I ordered it again and again. This is no ordinary pancake. Seriously authentic, extra crispy on the outside with an interesting twist to the normal redbean paste. They added slices of banana to it and I can’t help but had about a dozen of it.
Food: 9/10  

Fried Beancurd Roll – A little oily though the ingredients inside were quite good.
Food: 7/10  

Fried Prawn Roll - One of my all time favourite Dim Sum item. Quite good here though there seems to be some carrots added to it this time round.
Food: 8/10  

Carrot Cake – Texture was almost perfect though it didn’t came hot enough. Reckon would be better if it was served from kitchen instead of the cart.
Food: 6.5/10  

Guo Tie – Didn’t tried this though my partner said it was quite good.
Food: 7/10  

Paper Chicken – Absolutely delicious! The authentic ginger flavour was so strong that I wouldn’t be surprise if the chicken had been marinated for a few weeks!
Food: 8/10  

Stir Fried Seasonal Vegetables with Abalone Mushrooms – Sauce was good though the spinach was a little bitter. Luckily there was abalone mushroom to make this special.
Food: 7.5/10  

Prawns Cheong Fan – Retrieved cold and a little harden from the carts. This was my first time eating cheong fan here that tasted like that.
Food: 6/10  

Scallops Cheong Fan – Was good and a lot of scallops were used.
Food: 7.5/10  

Scallops Har Gow – Outstanding though by this time, little space in our tummy was left.
Food: 8/10  

XO Pau – Superb Pau that has all the wonderful ingredients you can ask for. I reckon if I can just eat 10 of this in my next trip, I would had recouped my $16.80.
Food: 9/10  

Ordered some other dishes from the main dish menu like pig’s organ soup and many repeated orders of dessert.

It was an excellent meal though the customer service was quite bad especially when it got really busy. In the past, all the items are to be ordered and they’ll cook it in the kitchen before they’ll bring it to the table. But on this occasion they seem to have changed their serving style a little with several carts going around the tables. The good thing about push carts is that you don’t have to wait for them to cook it but then it can also mean that the food you retrieve from the carts are cooked long time ago and some of the items we got from the cart definitely did tasted like that. For that reason, push carts at Dim Sum places are not exactly desirable(at least for me).

Price: $16.80++ ($18.80++ for weekends) After 3pm is $1.99 per item.

Recommendation: XO Pau, all scallop items, pai kuat, paper chicken and many others. For desserts, the must try item is red bean and banana pancake!

Conclusion: Good value considering some items are pretty authentic. The customer service here isn’t the best though it only get real messy when it’s really crowded. For value, this earn top marks from me but if you’re more into things like customer service other than the taste of the food then this might score lesser.

Likes: Some items are authentic.

Dislikes: Sign of carrots used in some items. This affects the quality in some cases.Here

Address		Overall Rating
Fortunate Restaurant 幸福饮茶 #02-01, 360 Orchard Road S(238869), International Building, Orchard Tel: 6262 1717		Food: 8/10   Value: 8/10   Service: 6/10   Ambience: 8/10   Cleanliness: 8/10   Overall: 7.5/10

Just like intestines, fish heads can be absolutely sumptuous when cooked right. Take for instance this style of cantonese steamed fish head which is widely sold at Chinatown Complex Food Centre. I can guarantee you there are at least 2 dozens stalls at Chinatown Complex Food Centre selling fish head in this way and all of them have business that could be translated into the equation of them selling 20 to 30 fish heads per night no less. Now can you imagine how many fish heads are actually been sold in just a single night at Chinatown Complex Food Centre?

If like me, you grew up didn’t know how to enjoy fish heads and cannot understand the passion of others who do, and are looking for an opportunity to see whether that barrier can be broken, then today you have hit the nail on the head there because I’m going to introduce to you purportedly the best steamed fish head in the Chinatown Complex Food Centre.

Steamed Fish Head $13

Xing Long Food Stall is a typical Cze Char stall just like any others you can find in Singapore and their signature dishes range from Claypot Tofu to Pai Kuat Wong to Steamed Fish Head and they have been regularly recommended on newspapers, radios and TVs. Well I’ve not yet actually eaten fish heads from a lot of stalls at Chinatown Complex Food Centre to judge the measure of good at Xing Long but for those that I’ve had( around 3-4), Xing Long Food Stall beats them hands down. While other stalls might take ’shortcuts’ like boiling the fish head instead of steaming it, Xing Long Food Stall seriously take all the trouble to steam it. The difference between steaming and boiling is highly distinctive as in steaming, the juice are all kept in the fish head and so the meat maintains a very delicious flavour while boiling would seriously drain the delicious juice away. It’s like prawns are boiled or steamed, you can tell the difference for sure.

Pai Kuat Wong, good cut of the pork!

The sauce in the steamed fish head is what stamped it’s class. I suspect it’s a concoction of nothing more than soya sauce, oyster sauce, sesame oil blah blah but it’s clearly very well mixed because every time after I eaten at this stall, I felt like wanting for more! Not once have I ever felt ‘jerlad’ eventhough there were always plenty of lards garnished.

The other dish that we ordered on this occasion was the Pai Kuat Wong. This is seriously good. I’ve not been a big fan of sweet and sour pork but yet I can give good marks for it at this stall. I think a lot of stalls actually uses vinegar to express the sourness but this stall seems to be using ketchups only. The sourness was not too sour and the sweetness wasn’t too sweet. Coupled that splendid blend of taste with the deep fried texture of the pork which are actually pork chops instead of cutlets as is the case with many other cze char places is a sign that Xing Long Food Stall is serious about producing terrific food. And as if that ain’t enough, there was no sign of any bicarbonate soda used, zilch!

Price: $13 for Fish Head and $7 for Pai Kuat Wong. No charge for rice.

Recommendation: Steamed Fish Head cantonese style(must mention cantonese or they’ll do a bean paste one for you instead), Claypot Tofu, Pai Kuat Wong, Oyster Omelette and many others.

Conclusion: Taste is authentic. Quality is good. Price is cheap. It’s a die die must try stall if you care about getting the best bang for your buck in Chinatown Complex Food Centre!

Likes: Authentic flavour of the dishes.

Dislikes: Nothing!

Address		Overall Rating
Xing Long Food Stall Blk 335 Smith St #02-134/161 Chinatown Complex Food Centre		Food: 8/10   Value: 8/10   Service: 7/10   Ambience: 7/10   Cleanliness: 7/10   Overall: 7.5/10

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: 7.5/10

If you’re going to Bandung, you must visit Jalan Sudirman for really really good Chinese food.

Ok alas we didn’t manage to find it. After asking like 15 strangers on the road, and after following their instructions, we found ourselves heading into streets with no sign of any foodstalls! That ranked among one of the most unbelievable ‘navigation gone awry’ of my life.

We ended up on this street where we saw quite a few Chinese restaurants which looked like they all have this thing called ‘Kang Kung Special’ as their signature dishs as stated on their signboards. Out of curiosity we decided to quickly park our car and check that place out.

This is the first time that I’ve actually going to dine at a place because of Kang Kung. I don’t actually dislike the dish though I also don’t find anything much about the dish to rave. I mean if a plate of Kang Kung is nice, most of the time it’s down to the Sambal Belacan more than anything else and most places can whip up a terrific plate of Kang Kung so as I was taking my seat, I wondered how far better can a plate of Kang Kung gets really.

It is interesting to note that a lot of stir fry dishes here uses the word ‘Cah’ to mean stir fry like ‘Cah Kang Kung’. Obviously ‘Cah’ is also a Chinese word to mean stir fry but I’m suspecting it could be adopted from Indo or Malay language along the way, just like if you were to go to China and start telling people you want to eat ‘loti’ for breakfast, they won’t understand because in China bread is called ‘ming bao’ in most dialects.

We went into this restaurant called Mandarin Restaurant which looked like the most authentic of the lot. After looking through the menu, we were to find out that they have many many versions of Kang Kung and the signature dish which is the Kang Kung Special is actually beef stir fry with Kang Kung on hot plate. That sounded really strange for us and so we went for a Kang Kung Polos instead.

Kangkong Polos: 8.5/10  

Polos in Indonesia means plain. So Kang Kung Polos is something that is just plain Kang Kung stir fry. After having too much of belacan and chillis on the run, we decided that we need some real Chinese food. This Kang Kung Polos was quite mean really, it had that terrific ‘wok hei’ smell through and through.

I think very few places can produce Kang Kung of this quality without the help of sambal. The sauce was so good my partner almost finished all of it on her rice.

KKodok Goreng Mentega aka Kung Po Frog Leg: 7.5/10  

Seafood Claypot: 8/10  

We also ordered a seafood claypot and a Kodok Goreng Mentega(Butter Frog Legs) which I must say was well above par. In the claypot, they actually took the effort to deep fried every seafood like prawns, sotong and fish and you can really tell that they deep fried it on the spot before they chuck into the claypot. Thumbs up for that, it does wonders to an otherwise dull pot of seafood and vegetables.

The Frog Legs aka Tian Ji was one of the best I’ve tried. It was full of that buttery flavour and tasted very much like skinless tender chicken.

And the fact that it’s quite a big plate with at least 15 to 20 legs in it and you know what? This plate only cost us Rp40 000(SGD$5+). In Singapore you’ll be lucky to get 4 legs for SDG$20.

A fullfilling Chinese meal that cost us no more than Rp120 000(SGD$15+) that has seafood and frog legs, of course this can’t be compared to other seafood I had eaten but really, for us to walk into an unknown street in a city where nothing looked familiar, we really can’t ask for more.

Price: Approximately SGD$5+ per dish

Recommendation: Kang Kung Polos

Conclusion: Terrific Kang Kung that was cooked plain. Other dishes like Seafood Claypot and Butter Frog Legs were equally unique. The food here is definitely something that is hard to come by in Singapore.

Likes: Kang Kong.

Dislikes: A little too salty.

Address		Overall Rating
Mandarin Restaurant Jalan Kebon Kawung Los 45-46-47 Tel: 4266251 and 4166250 Bandung West Java Indonesia		Food: 8/10   Value: 9/10   Service: 7/10   Ambience: 7/10   Cleanliness: 6/10   Overall: 7.5/10

When I was in Perth, eating Singapore food outside is actually something I dreaded doing because in Singapore we are even choosy over which stall to go to for Char Kway Teow or Chicken Rice, so how can a stall out of no where in some Australian town suddenly can whip up a delicious plate of something? Well from my experiences the kind of standard they can produce is not any better than what I can, so that’s why I found learning how to cook something myself is actually easier than to scour for delicious Singapore food when I was abroad.

Then not forgetting there are the wonderful Cantonese cuisines all over the place. If you were to put a Singaporean Cze Char and a Cantonese Cze Char side by side, out of 10 times, I will walk into the Cantonese Cze Char 10 times. It’s not that Singaporean Cze Char is lousy but just that Cantonese Cze Char is far more superior.

I was initially quite taken aback when my partner suggested we go to try some Thai food. Eating Thai food in Indonesia sounded like eating Nasi Padang in China. Ok I know certain food are sold internationally like Pizza and Pasta where you can get really good ones in any countries. Well for some reasons I find a plate of Char Kway Teow more tasty than a plate of Pasta and that kept me wonder, why Char Kway Teow is not eaten internationally but Pasta is. I look forward to the day I can eat Char Kway Teow in Italy and we can buy dry Kway Teow from supermarkets and hopefully by then someone had invented some kind of Char Kway Teow(plus wok hei) sauce where you just need to toss with it to eat. Ok that sounded really lame but really, I don’t understand the popularity of Pasta as far the taste is concerned. I think more likely it is popular because it is easy to be prepared.

Ok now I am quite a big fan of Thai food and have tried terrific ones in Bangkok and Phuket and had some really good ones in London too. The thing with food ‘exporting’ is that when a food arrives at foreign land, something that can be eaten cheaply in the country of origin are suddenly been sold at skyrocketed prices. I can guarantee you that a meal of Thai food in London can cost more than a meal of Cantonese food but yet I know for a fact that those kind of food don’t actually worth that much except that they’ll try to package via a higher class of eating outlet and then would charge you a premium price for it. I am usually quite put off by this kind of ‘product packaging’. It’s the same story with our local seafood where the good ones would move to East Coast Beach and start to up their prices because now thay have higher overheads blah blah blah, of course we all know their main reason for doing so is higher profit margin.

So when we arrived at Siam Garden, the first thing I look out for are the prices because the last thing I want is to spend $10 for a plate of Pad Thai.

You would also feel silly if you were to buy a Roti Prata for $5 in Shanghai. The prices here are reasonable which ranges from Rp20 000(SGD$2+) to Rp40 000. I was fairly surprised though to find that they don’t have a Tom Yum in the menu but only a Tom Yum Kung. For those who don’t know, Tom Yum Kung is not the original Tom Yum but another version of it where coconut milk is added to the broth.

I didn’t like this Tom Yum Kung but unfortunately that’s the only Tom Yum they have on the menu. My partner ordered the Pandan Chicken and I added the Pad Thai and a Stir Fry Beancurd with Seafood to go with steamed rice.

Tom yum koong: 7/10  

Padang Chicken: 8/10  

As expected the Tom Yum Kung is too creamy for my liking. The Pandan Chicken is outstanding though most Pandan Chicken I had are always outstanding, I think this is one dish that is very hard to fail and yet easy to be outstanding.

Stir Fried Tofu with Seafood: 6.5/10  

The Stir Fry Tofu with Seafood is great but however I thought the flavour was a little too ‘Chinese’. This is really the kind of flavour I can get easily at any Chinese restaurant so to find it in a Thai restaurant is a little disappointing because I’m coming to a Thai restaurant to eat Thai food.

Pad Thai: 6/10  

I loved Pad Thai absolutely and the key to it is to have substantial wok hei and enough wetness and sweetness, something that is very similar to Char Kway Teow but unfortunately the Pad Thai here was mediocre at best. It is not wet enough, oily, not enough peanuts, just don’t have that Pad Thai flavour. They seems to sprinkle the peanuts on top for fun more than anything else. This place just doesn’t serve food that is Thai enough unfortunately. Khor Thod!

Price: SGD$3 onwards per dish

Recommendation: Pandan Chicken

Conclusion: Food are reasonably priced but taste are carelessly tweaked which resulted in mediocre quality.

Likes: Affordable prices.

Dislikes: Not authentic enough.

Address		Overall Rating
Siam Garden Ruko Green Garden Blok ZII/32, Jakarta Barat – Indonesia. Green Garden		Food: 6/10   Value: 7/10   Service: 7/10   Ambience: 7/10   Cleanliness: 7/10   Overall: 7.5/10

Kemangi Nasi Lemak

Kemangi Nasi Lemak’s menu

Kemangi Nasi Lemak counter

Kemangi Nasi Lema’s menu

Nasi Lemak with Kemangi leaf.

Kemangi Nasi Lemak

Beef Soup

Pork Satay

Chicken satay

Overall Rating

Food: 6/10   Value: 7/10   Service: 7/10   Ambience: 8/10   Cleanliness: 8/10   Overall: 7.5/10

Now the truth is Nasi Padang was not on my to-do list in this trip initially but after seeing like almost a hundred stalls of it along the streets of Jakarta, I really can’t resist not trying even one time and finding out for myself(and you readers) how lame it can really go in this style of selling where the food you’re buying can so easily be ’sabotaged’ or ‘tainted’ with something else by someone you don’t even know!

Ok, with all the courage that I have(probably 5 times more than what is needed for me to try for a bungee jump), I finally walked into a Nasi Padang stall. Now I’m glad to say that this one is quite reputable and they’re not the average ones you see on the street where the seller sits there trying to fend off flies all day.

They’re the Restoran Sederhana which is one that is quite popular locally with franchises all over the country.

When we walked in, we were quickly ushered to a table and while we were taking our seats and adjusting our butts, a few staffs over at the counter started to bring something like 20 dishes to our table and stacked it up like trying to form a pyramid with the plates.

You’re right if you say that they’re trying to provide a good service. You’re right too if you say that way of serving may entice customers more, at least more than it sitting at the counter which is far from their view. You are also right if you say that hygiene issues are highly compromised here. From memory, certain Chinese food in the past were also served this way but it will be quickly taken away once the customer rejected it instead of sitting there until he finished his meal.

Food stacked up on the table

When the dishes fully arrived on the table, I see many exotic dishes and was very reluctant to try them. I instead went for things that I’m familiar with while eating Nasi Padang in Singapore like Goreng Ayam(fried chicken), Ayam Bakar(grilled chicken), Perkedel(fried mashed potatoes) and Beef Rendang. I didn’t touch any of those fish or vegetables dishes as I thought they really looked very different from what I thought they should look. My partner instead went for things like young jackfruit in coconut curry and lamb tendon which I found the taste to be quite acceptable but yet a little too exotic for me to whack them like how I would to a Ayam Goreng.

The chicken here is very small(once again!) so I really had a good run at it eating 4 pieces at one go. 2 pieces of fried chicken and 2 pieces of grilled chicken, and you know what? After eating them I still didn’t feel satisfied!

Somehow I felt that 4 pieces of this highly dehydrated chicken meat(actually there are more bones than meat) are not even comparable to one terrific KFC drumstick I used to eat in Perth!

They really should be calling this chicken bones and not chicken meat because I don’t even see where’s the meat, all I did was pop one piece into my mouth and then it became a tedious job trying to look for the next good piece out of the bone. Well I reckon I would need 10 pieces of this ‘chicken bones’ if they were to sell to me a ‘Nasi Ayam’ using this. The chicken here is really like our pigeon in Singapore where we deep fried them and sucking them hard, biting the bones along but then again the bones here are too big to be bitten so I really can’t do much with it except licking it while trying to see how many more they have over at the counter :O

Restaurant counter

Now if you ever stepped into a Nasi Padang stall here on your own, you should know that there’re certain unwritten rules that need to be observed. First you should never use your own spoon to take anything from the dishes if you are not going to take the entire plate. Well if you’re wondering, yes you can have half of the food on the plate like for example, 1 piece of rendang from a plate that has 2 pieces. You can even finish up all the gravy on it leaving the 1 piece there and you’re still going to be charged for just 1 piece. But the thing is if you’re going to do that, you better use a new spoon just for that dish because that is the unwritten rule that every customer that enters a Nasi Padang stall knows. You should only ever use your own spoon to take something from a plate if you are going to finish the whole plate. Ok if you ask me does everyone follow this rules, then I don’t know but I know for a fact this rule exist to safeguard the hygienic interest of every Nasi Padang eaters.

Well the unfortunate thing about Nasi Padang here is that I see the same displayed dishes from day to night and 90% of the time, there are no customers in the shop. It is no doubt that they hardly finished selling everything they have on display everyday and so what they do is to keep the food in the fridge and then display them again the next day. Well if you’re wondering how long do they display those food before they think it should be thrown away, then I will tell you that I also want to know because the Beef Rendang I had here tasted more like beef jerky.

Nasi Padang meal: 7/10  

Well so after trying this authentic Nasi Padang, I still prefer our own version of Nasi Padang for 3 reasons. First strangers cannot sabotage your food. Second, we seldom were sold overnight food. Third, sellers in Singapore usually use food warmers to keep the food warm all day but here it is being displayed in the see-through glass display shelf from day till night with no sign of any effort on their part to keep the food warm and fresh.

Our meal costed us a mere Rp80 000+ which is just slightly over SGD$10. And this is a reputable one, so therefore it should be a lot cheaper at others. Somehow this meal has got me all the strange feelings similar to if I were to be fed maggots. I wonder does every tourist who walked into a Nasi Padang stall here felt the same way?

And lastly, if anyone thinks this can actually sell in Singapore and are willing to invest in it, then go here to find out more about the franchise information.

Price: SGD$1-2 per dish

Recommendation: Perkedel and chicken(though small but quite delicious)

Conclusion: Very different from what we have in Singapore. It’s just like if you were to go to Fujian to eat Hokkein mee then you would also find it different from ours but it is just different, for good or worse is a relative judgement I suppose.

Likes: Cheap and you can see all the food on the table and decide there and then which one you want to eat.

Dislikes: Some of the dishes looked funny.

Address		Overall Rating
Restoran Sederhana somewhere in West Jakarta		Food: 6/10   Value: 7/10   Service: 8/10   Ambience: 7/10   Cleanliness: 7/10   Overall: 7.5/10

It was run by an old hainanese couple and the chicken chop or pork chop or whatever chop came with this wonderful mild curried flavour gravy that is so deliciously unique. It went to the point where I started asking for that special gravy even when I ordered a cutlet or fish n chips. And ever since I have been using my experiences there as a yardstick to measure the value of other western food. Unfortunately when they went into retirement in the 90s, they did not pass on the business and therefore it is for me an experience of reminiscence now and nothing more. Now we see why MM Lee is advocating the institutionalisation of skills.

Since then, I have tried many western food and there are many good ones but great ones – none. The thing about western food is that it isn’t just about the piece of meat, same like kway teow soup isn’t just about the kway teow. There’s the soup and there’s the other ingredients like pork or fishcakes so if all I see in a western food is run of the mill sides like fried bun(damn oily!), slaw(factory made), baked beans(canned) etc etc..then it is really nothing special because the fact is I see those things all over the place.

Once upon a time I was quite fascinated by the creativity of Kenny Roger in it’s sides like potato salad, garlic potato, macaroni cheese etc. In those days, $2.80 for a portion of that sort of thing was quite a steal simply because it was something new to eating outlets of that level. Those were the Kenny Roger days so would you not think that it is an even bigger steal now if I were to say you can get a portion of those sides at $1.50 each?

The many good things about Aston was first told to me sometime last year after they’ve opened for almost 2 years. After which so many people were raving about it and I read so many good reviews in blogs and forums about how they were taking on the local western food market by storm. They were clearly amassing loyal supporters steadily. And so skeptically(because I didn’t want to look naive) I finally made my first trip to have a meal at Aston western food at Serangoon Gardens.

The special thing for me about Aston is that you get to choose your sides from quite a big spread. Even when I was ordering, I could feel the passion from them in providing good food. I mean it’s not very often that you can walk up to any hawker stalls and they ask you, “Which one would you like to go with your food?”. When they give you choices then it’s clearly something they don’t have to do but yet they’re doing it. That kind of activity is considered a customer service and it clearly can enhance the level of customer satisfaction(at least it did in mine). And the thing is at that point I’ve not even tasted the food.

I had prime sirloin steak many times before so I know what it needed to taste to be a good one. But the thing is, that is the cheapest beef item on the menu so I can’t expect so much can I? But after my first bite, I was pleasantly surprised to find that it is strangely addictive. It miraculously had that right succulency and the flavour. I went on and on until the whole piece is gone, I was just short of licking up the leftover juices. Man, it had quality and most importantly the consistency. Now for $10, that is the best steak I ever had. Infact it even beat many $30-$40 ones. The flavour was distinctly unique and it clearly had replaced the yardstick from the one that was set by the hainanese couple.

I went back a few more times and tasted other things like chargrill chicken chops and pork chops and I had exactly the same sort of satisfaction. They clearly had got it right, the side dishes were real bonus and for a chicken chop like $5.90 with 2 of those sides? I don’t know about you but it isn’t difficult for me to decide what to eat whenever I see an Astons.

Pork Chop: 8/10  

Well I’ve tried sevaral sides like potato salad, mashed potato, cajun fries and slaw and they were all quite competent. I have to specially mention that if you were to order the cajun fries for $1.50, they packed it into the paper bag right to the top of it and the look of it could really make your jaw drop. Now, not many places can really offer this kind of quality at this kind of price so if you really care about eating the best $10 steak, then you must really try it.

Price: $8.90

Recommendation: Pork Chop, Prime Sirloin

Conclusion: Their side dishes will beat many steaks that can cost you $40 at restaurants. The cheapest items so far has been real impressive so I reckon the more expensive items on the menu must be better. You can’t get more value for the money spent.

Likes: Terrific flavour.

Dislikes: Food not warm enough.

Address		Overall Rating
Tampines St 11 Blk 139 #01-08 Stall 10/11 (Kopitiam Coffeeshop) Tel : 6782 2030 1100-2200hrs		Food: 8/10   Value: 9/10   Service: 6/10   Ambience: 6/10   Cleanliness: 6/10   Overall: 7.25/10