Chinatown Eats

You know, I have been visiting Chinatown pretty frequently. Haha, some of you know why. Yes, I needed to get supplies of ribbons and clips for my new hobby. Actually I am not making them for Sweetie anymore, she has a whole load of new clips already. I am making them for my friends' kids mostly. haha.

Ipoh Tuck Kee Sar Hor Fun 2nd floor, Hong Lim Food Centre

This is an icon. It has been here for ages, it has a faithful following lining up outside its stall during lunchtime, and its cheap and good.



There is the long queue. It moves quickly though.


The dumpling soup is tasty and cheap - $3 for like 10 dumplings, and a whole prawn in each dumpling. Delicious!


The crayfish horfun, is a steal at $3.50, and it is simply delicious. Slippery smooth hor fun with savoury prawns and crayfish. Yum Yum Yum.

Loh Mei Specialist People's Park Centre Food Court

Ever heard of Loh Mei? It is a stewed dish with chicken wings, cuttle fish, kang kong, pig's intestines and other interesting things. Hard to find nowadays, but interesting and tasty nonetheless. My mom cooked it once sometime back and it was delicious.


This stall is probably the only stall in Singapore, but it's standard is nowhere near Por Por's! Anyway it is not bad for $4.


An assortment of goodies.


Served with rice, it makes a filling meal.

Chew Kee's Braised Chicken Noodles, Chinatown
This one is also pretty famous. There are 2 stalls side by side, owned by brother and sister, and they are competitors. Not sure which is better, but my friends think that the brother is more friendly so we always go to this one.


The braised chicken ($12 for a 4 person portion) is always good and tasty.


Some greens to up the fibre intake.


Delicious noodles, and they also serve hor fun too. I usually prefer hor fun, but today i just felt like noodles.

And of course lots and lots of ribbons for new hairclips... Here are some in my new collection:

Recent Eats

El Cerdo, 43 Changkat Bukit Bintang, KL




DH and I went to KL for a day trip to run some errands... and we had lunch at El Cerdo, recommended by my good friends (thanks YS and Ben!).

It is a spanish restaurant specialising in iberico jamon (ham of spanish black pig which is fed only acorns). So we went the whole hog, and had jamon, black pork ribs and black pork belly! DH is especially tickled that we went to a Muslim country and had a porky lunch.



Our delicious starter of iberico jamon and serrano jamon (black pig and white pig respectively). Both had a very chewy texture, quite salty but definitely tasty. It was a burst of flavour with every bite.


They recommended the black pork belly. It was of course delicious, but you know what, I liked the slices of chorizo sausages that it was served with even more!


The best ever pork ribs. They were meaty and tasty and tender.



We also had a glass of sangria each. Whee. It was very festive and fruity.

Dinner at Home

Por Por steamed some crabs for dinner that day, and they were delicious. Cutie had a fun time playing with the live crabs in the kitchen. He was quite sorry that we ate them.


Simply steamed, and eaten with a dip of vinegar and sliced ginger, these were amazing. They were meaty and full of orangey roe.


Beef stew. It was flavourful and fragrant.

Empress Jade, Jewel Box, Mount Faber

Farewell dinner for someone in the office. This was an excellent choice for lunch, and quite interesting since we took the cable car over.


starter of prawn cocktail. Interestingly paired with a sliced grape. Sweet and savoury.


Pork liver and egg white soup. Funny choice, since offal would not be something that many people would easily take. Quite a Chinese thing, maybe, as it is meant to be nourishing. I thought it smelt a little strong, since I dont often take pork nowadays. Still it was well done, since the liver was tender, and not overcooked, something which is easy to do for pork liver.


steamed whole pomfret, delicious and yummy. A crowd favourite.



Crispy duck. I think this was a nice dish, and not too common. The skin was crispy and light, and not oily.

There was a noodle dish that I forgot to take a photo of.


My almond cream desssert. I love almond cream, I think its nice and not too sweet and I also hear its good for the complexion. It's an acquired taste though, because i know it can smell unbearably like mothballs for some. I wonder how i learnt to take it, since my family doesnt really take it.

Hakka Yong Tau Foo @ People's Park Hawker Centre

I went to People's Park Centre to look for ribbons (it's my latest craft hobby, but more about that later!).

And I was starved by the time I finished running my errands.

So I really wanted to have something yummy, to placate the growling tummy complaining of abuse and neglect.

I was looking for Loh Mei (a stewed dish with chicken and stuff) but couldnt find it. So I settled for Hakka Yong Tau Foo, which I knew was famous here.

The good thing about lunching late, was that there wasn't a horrendous lunchtime queue. So I got my food pretty quickly.

Wow, this really really hit the spot. After a month of bland styrofoam meals... here is something really worth eating.

The soup was full of rich umami goodness, it just hits the tastebuds and makes you go Wow! There were lots and lots of soya beans in the soup, which I love. Each of the yong tau foo bits were tasty too, with a rich flavour of dried fried sole, meat and fish.


I liked how they had fresh veggies in the mee pok. The mee pok was certainly yummy too. It had the old school taste and seasonings of chili, oil, some soya sauce, a dash of ketchup. No lard. but very good nevertheless.

It was a great lunch, and I truly enjoyed it.

Cant wait to go back... in fact, I might go back this week, since I want to get more ribbons.

Oh, and here is the reason why I am buying ribbons and clips... http://chrissieclippies.blogspot.com/

Japanese Snacks

To cheer me up, DH has bought me a bunch of Japanese snacks so that I wont be so depressed when working through lunch.

So here they are:



Lots and Lots of Royce chocolates! This is just the first batch btw. Already eaten up. He subsequently bought 2 more batches of different flavours for me. Dark Green is Champagne (my longtime favourite). Brown is Bittersweet (with no alcohol, but we still find it a little too sweet so DH bought Bitter the next time round, which was better). And Light Green is a seasonal special, Green Tea (my current favourite).



I love the delicate taste of green tea! I dont drink green tea much (except when they serve it in Japanese restaurants and always with ice), but I love green tea ice cream, green tea frapps and now, green tea chocolate. It's got this fragrant tinge and a little bittersweet edge. Lovely. Each box of chocs costs around $12.60.


Lots and Lots of Japanese cookies and biscuits. I kind of miss the Hokkaido cream biscuits. It's pretty famous - Shiroi Koibito. So we got all sorts of snacks, to see if any of them could match up to the gold standard of shiroi.


This Well Cookie from Morinaga is my favourite. It was buttery and crispy, with a coffee flavoured fragrance. The fragrance was subtle, yet lovely enough to make me want more than just one. The cookie and the coffee cream paired so well together, it was like a match made in Heaven. I couldnt stop at just one.



This was a white chocolate langue de chat, so it is the one that is most similar to shiroi koibito. However, the cookie was a little too light, and a little too thin, and the white chocolate was a little too delicate. So, all in all, it makes a good substitute if you cant get your hands on the real thing... but, for me, I think I would rather hold out for the real thing, or eat a Well Cookie.


This is chocolate langue de chat. The chocolate was a little too thin, and the cookie was a little too thick, so I didnt think it went too well together.

Each of the boxes costs around $5 each.



Cutie is also snacking on Japanese cookies.. these are ball cookies, I think its a Japanese brand with a chicken in the centre. Both Cutie and Sweetie like it, but it seems that Cutie snacks more often than Sweetie.


So here he is, having ball cookies as a supper snack with his Daddy.


I am not sure if its a good idea to encourage Cutie to have supper... but its just so cute when he bonds with his Dad over supper after Sweetie has gone to bed.. .so I give in once in a while.


And Sweetie is just as sweet as ever. She is now 12 months old, very active as you can see, she is climbing all over the place.


She has lots of nice clothes, more than her brother ever had.. Thanks for the pretty dress, Auntie YS!

Still Eating Packed Lunches

This is duck noodles $3.50 from that new food court at the first floor of HarbourFront Centre. It used to be a halal food court, and now they split into 2, one halal and one not. This duck noodle stall also serves kway chap.

It was ok.. at least I got to eat it while it was hot.

Typical Lunches these days...

... are tarpowed food from the hawker centre or food court, hastily gobbled up in between meetings. Sometimes, I dont even get to eat it when it is still warm.

It has been a string of busy busy weeks... months even. No break in sight.

Megumi @ Upper East Coast Road

Decided to walk over to Megumi for a quick Jap dinner over the weekend. It was hot hot hot, and everyone was tired.


We ordered this UFO maki to share. It was a crispy seafood roll, according to the description on the menu. This was very well received indeed. The crispy seafood roll inside was clearly fried upon order, it was warm and crispy and it was delicious paired with the rice and ebiko. Thumbs up for this one. We ordered it recently when we went there again. It was very well received by all!


My favourite california roll was good, but overshadowed by the excellent UFO maki. We also devoured this in a jiffy, nevertheless.


Cutie ordered a california handroll, which he adorably calls a sushi cone. He couldnt wait for me to snap a pic... see, his fingers are reaching for his handroll already!


My order of sumi udon. I wanted cold noodles, given the sweltering weather. And I saw this interesting charcoal wheat noodles on the menu and gave it a try. It was smooth and nice, didnt taste like charcoal! I hear it has some cleansing properties, so give it try if you are game for some gut cleansing! See the little quail's egg in the corner? I wasnt sure whether I am supposed to add it to the dip, or crack it over the noodles or what.


The server recommended asahki sashimi, I believe it was called. It was a whole fish, sliced up. I found it a tad warm, I like it slightly colder and the pieces stuck together as though it was sliced with a blunt knife. Didn't really like this one. It cost $35.





Here is Cutie, all ready to eat. He usually eats his dinner earlier, but these days, he is going through a growth spurt, so having a 2nd dinner is usual for him.


Sweetie is doing some gymnastics before dinner. Haha.

School Carnival at Fort Canning

Cutie's pre-school held a carnival at fort canning for charity. So we bought tickets to support the charity and headed there on Saturday morning.


Driving Game, using a magnet to direct the metal car.


Ball Throwing game.


He looks cool with sunglasses, I think.


Drumming game...


Picking balls...


Riding the little car...


saying hi to a teacher from his school...

Cutie also brought home some balloons for himself and his sister. His is a balloon sword, and he liked it so much, he brought it with him to the bath.


He also requested a balloon flower for his sister, which I thought was very sweet.


Yes, Sweetie likes her balloon too.

All in all, a great weekend!

Marusui Japanese fish Market @ B2 Vivocity

had an inpromptu lunch with CT, since we were both working late, and by the time i stepped out of my little office, I could only see her around. Everyone else had already gone out for lunch.

Suggested that new fish market place at Vivocity basement, opposite Giant supermarket. Its a little place with only a few tables, so if you can't get a seat, you might need to tarpow back to the office.

The sashimi and sushi is displayed in front of you like at the japanese supermarkets.. You choose what you like, then pay at the cashier. The chefs will slice up the sashimi for you.


CT patiently queuing to pay while I chope the seats!


Our sashimi selection! All fresh and nice. Came on a friday, which was delivery day! How lucky!


I like california rolls... Like all the ingredients and the happy orange colour. Started liking since my pregnancy days when I couldnt eat raw foods, but still wanted sushi.


This was on offer, alaskan crab on rice for SGD5.80 instead of the usual SGD12.80, so we got one to share. Yes, the crab was sweet. Then we saw a gentleman eat the entire crab leg. Turns out, that only costs $8! We should have got one! It looked quite nice.