Ming Kee Live Seafood

My parents explained that this restaurant has been around for quite some time..

Another special occasion 🙂

guess who also comes here:

wall of fame

So we ordered:

Butter garlic bamboo clams

Deep Fried Soon Hock (Marble Goby)

Sambal Chilli Kangkong

Triple Cooked Crab Bee Hoon

Clams

Lobster E-mee

Butter prawns

Verdict: 7/7 of us will definitely return!

1. The bamboo clams can probably be one of my favourite dish! I am not a usual raw garlic lover, but for this dish, what they did was they probably fried the garlic in butter? so it did not have that raw spiciness to the taste, but rather had a buttery fragrance. Complimented the bamboo clams very well. The clams were also not rubbery and too under cooked. I would definitely return for this again! ❤

2. Overall all the food was really good here. Butter prawns were very unique as well! different in a good way from the usual types that you come across if you happen to visit a zhi char stall. prawn assessors mentioned they were very fresh and bouncy

3. The crab bee hoon does look bait pale from the picture, but it had that “wok hei” (literal translation: wok fire. To better explain this, it is the same logic as baking an oven dish until it turns golden brown for that ‘additional kick’, similarly in Chinese cooking, where the wok is a dominant tool in kitchen operations, the heat emitted from the open fire when translated into the food. The true test of a Chinese chef master is to be able to capture this ‘burnt’ taste from the wok and yet not literally burn the food till the charred and inedible, in my humble opinion)

4. I wish I had more stomach space for a bowl of rice to accompany the fried fish 🙂 Well executed and thoroughly cooked.

5. Lobster Noodles -> very well liked by everyone. Looked quite blend but tasted really good. The broth used to cook the sauce was really sweet (seafood sweet). Lobsters were sizeable .

Note: Parking here can be quite tricky. It can be quite difficult getting a parking lot near the restaurant..

Damage: $83 per pax

Ming Kee Live Seafood
556 Macpherson Road
Singapore 368231

Dancing Crab

We met up for a quick meal and headed down to try:

Dancing Crab, as part of the tung lok group.

Entrance

we ordered:

Southern Ice Sweet Tea, Fizzy Lemondae, Pink Thyme Lemondae

Oysters

Corn Muffins

Spicy Cajun Fries

Crab Cakes

Combo Bag #2: 300g Prawns, 250g Mussels, 250g Clams, Potatoes, Corn, Sausages

Dungeness crab in a bag

Dungeness Crab with herb butter sauce

and then came a mini showdown for:

step 1

Fire in the hole ..

more fire

Flaming Moonshine Tiger Prawns

and lastly for dessert:

Apple Crumble

Verdict: 6/6 of us will definitely return!

*burpalicious

1. the crab cakes, we totally adore them! let me show you why and you will understand why we ordered seconds of this!!! where in the world in Singapore can you find real crabmeat fully stuffed crab cakes? this is the holy grail of crab cakes! totally brought it up one notch

close up of crab cakes

2. The crab was really well done – the herb and butter was not really a western style herb and butter .. in the sense it’s not like creamy until you feel sick of eating it .. its pretty light and well seasoned.

3. the combo bag was also really spicy ( If you eat laksa without adding the additional chilli, can’t finish a bowl of curry yong tau fu from food courts without adding more chilli, cannot finish a bowl of spicy ma la hotpot without the soup, then you would think the combo bag is spicy) but really flavourful! the second favourite dish after the crab cakes and oysters

4. My prawn eaters mentioned that the moonshine tiger prawns were also worth the bill and the next highlight because the prawns were very fresh, and the accompanying sauce ( 3 different types of chilli sauce with different spicy levels) was just awesome ( better than the prawns in the combo bag)

5. this place is really interesting in terms of the dinning concept. let the pictures below explain why:

instructions

fyi

beer pong party

Can’t wait to make another trip back here!!

Damage: $54 per pax

Dancing Crab
The Grandstand 200 Turf Club Road
(Old Turf Club in Bt. Timah)
#01-20/21 Singapore 287994

Crab Party

Met up with Classmates for a mini “crab party” at Crab party

We ordered:

Special wild vegetable with Kailan

Chilli Crab

Black Pepper Crab

Salted Egg Yolk Crab

Crab Bee Hoon Soup

Verdict: 9/9 of us will return!!!

I think my favourite was still the Crab Bee Hoon Soup and the Chilli Crab.
1) Soup was not too rich and thick and had a little burnt taste to it. Comparable to Melben ( Not recommended for takeaways)
2) Chilli Crab Sauce was not watery and quite flavourful 🙂
3) Highly Recommended especially if you have a big group and looking for an air-conditioned round table Zhi Char restaurant 🙂
4) Would want to come back to try their other Crab dishes

Crab Party
100 Yio Chu Kang Rd,
Singapore 545576

East Coast Park Lagoon Village

Group of us made our way to East Coast Park to try the newly revamped Hawker

Compared to the previous, the area seems more airy and open 🙂

So we ordered to share (till the extent that our table was full -no joke)

Spot: Sambal Sting Ray

Chicken Wings

Braised Duck

Clams (lala)

Satay

Rojak

Oyster Omelette

without drinks

Verdict: 7/7 of us will return for
1) Duck rice (it is one of the only stalls around selling duck rice with a lot of news paper cuttings)
2) Hokkien Mee
3) Sting Ray/ Clams
4) Chicken Wings
be prepared to wait around for tables!! fastest tissue first! Oops I mean backside hahaha .. 🙂

East Coast Lagoon Food Village
1220 East Coast Parkway
Singapore 468960

Tian Wai Tian

Another Exciting place 🙂
We decided to check out here but our only regret : should have brought more people along with us!!!

So what we liked about it:

Grouper Fish Steamboat

Close up of the Fish

Sambal Kang Kong

Special Toufu

Pig Trotters

Verdict: 2/2 of us will return

Fish broth was really good, and the fish was super fresh! super bouncy texture.
We would want to come back to order the salted egg yolk pork ribs!!! The Pig Trotters are ok ..
Servers were very nice and kind 🙂

Tian Wai Tian
418 Ang Mo Kio Avenue 2,
Singapore 460418

Sum’s Kitchen & Hong Kong Roasted Meat

We are on a zhi char roll!!!!

So the next place I am about to recommend is among the TOP favourite of my family! Our previous visits with friends have received positive feedbacks about this place 🙂

During my brother’s NS days, he frequently patronised this place with his friend .. and 2 of them can finish 9 dishes with rice! yes one unique selling point of this place is that, they only serve rice .. there are no noodle dishes like the normal zhi char stores .. but! Most of their dishes are just fantastic to us all! and agreeable!

The turnover of this place is really good! within 1 hour we roughly counted, there was at least 1 new sitting. We sat there till 9 ish and there were still people around queuing for a place inside! * Don’t forget to look out for the daily specials as well!!!

A picture with a famous Hong Kong food critique

Daily Specials

No more roast!

So together with Auntie M and Uncle P, we all ordered:

“Mei Cai” with Kai Lan

Roast Duck!

Steamed Minced Meat with Salted fish

3 types of egg steamed egg

Sweet Sour Pork

deep-fried squid with salt

Mai vegetable with fermented bean curd

Verdict: 7/7 of us will definitely return! In the past with this place, we could actually order 2 rounds of some dishes, and each with one bowl of white rice! !!

I do apologise though.. we actually ordered a fried fish tail, Soup and char siew (roasted pork) . I forgot to take a picture of them ;p

Char Siew was their new dish .. previously they did not have char siew and it was only recent that they started roasting it .. and ITS GOOD! quite comparable to Hong Kong standard and not as fatty at the same time! The roast duck is also a Must order! BUT you have to try to reserve the duck at least 1 day/ a few hours before you dine there. . because IT SELLS OUT VERY FAST! The meat is just moist and not dry!

The rest of the other dishes are our common favourite “must haves” .

The place is air-conditioned as well, so don’t worry! you won’t be sweating and eating at the same time! We previously also brought our Danish neighbours there and they enjoyed it very much as well! cleaned up every dish that came!!! 🙂

The husband and wife team would also go around Singapore to eat, and experiment with new dishes (e.g. char siew and the kailan with mei cai (salted vegetable)) .. so to keep their customers coming back like us 😀

Plus, prices are really affordable!! we each ended up paying probably around $20 per person? and we had fish, duck, char siew etc ..

Please remember to make a reservation before you go, especially during the peak dinner time!

Sum’s Kitchen & Hong Kong Roasted Meat
3 Jalan Legundi
Tel: 67572118

Fa cai mei seafood

I do apologise for the delay in posts!

Been quite busy with the festive occasion and caught up with some school work as well.

Merry Christmas Everyone!! 🙂 Hope that this festive season did brighten up your year!

Anyway, the next place that I will be talking about .. well I would say is a new-found zhi char place that my parents found by chance, and hence .. it has been included in our list of ‘favourite zhi char’ in Singapore. ..

This place is quite .. well driving there would be easy to get there! because it’s quite a .. small corner off the main road .. but do look out for it or try it if you are in the vicinity!

The actual location

This is the shop front

we met up with aunty I .. and she had to contribute some dishes for her family’s dinner 🙂 (I think it’s quite a good concept that each sibling in their family takes turn to buy dinner for everyone ) So my mum recommended this place to her. For our own dinner as well, we also bought back and we had :

3 types of egg spinach

Salted Egg Yolk Crab

Sweet and Sour Pork

Assam Fish

Fish slices with vegetables

The next dish that I would say is the signature dish and highly recommended especially if you like bean curd, would be this fried bean curd!

Egg Bean curd with turnips

Verdict: 5/5 of us definitely would return here to take away/eat again!

The food is very agreeable with all the fussy ones in my family!
The place is run by this couple, husband the chef and wife takes on the supporting role of waitress and cashier.

The crab is very different from the other types of salted egg yolk crabs I had . I would say different in a good way! Because the meat itself is pretty succulent and yes the whole marinade is not too saltish for all my family members.

The sweet and sour pork is also quite decent. It is still ‘crispy’ despite being drenched in sauce.

The Assam fish was very well received with my parents! They said the sourness was just the way they liked it.

The vegetables both spinach and fish sliced one was very well done. The fish slice one had the ‘wok hei’ (the magnitude of the fire to cook the dish was just nice) and the other one’s ‘soup’ was pretty tasty as well. 🙂

I think it’s just this place, the menu always have new items? because the owner does try to come up with new dishes apart from his signature ones. I quite like that they are constantly trying out new things and would really make you want to go back there.

It is overall decently priced and affordable 🙂

Fatt Choy Mui Seafood Restaurant （发财妹海鲜）
Block 34 #01-86
Cassia Crescent
Singapore 390034

Kok Seng Coffee Shop

This place that I am going to blog about is one of my long time favourite zhi char places that I patronized since young. Its one of those places that even in the heat, we won’t mind making a trip down here just to eat it. Over the years, the workers change, but the standard doesn’t.

Entrance

So today another time of ta bao, we would always order :

Fish Slices with Kai lan

“gui fei chicken

close up: stuffed chicken with paste

Sweet and Sour Pork

Malaysian style Hokkien Mee

Steamed eggs with 3 types of Egg

: close up: stuffed chicken with paste

Prawn Bee Hoon

Verdict: 4/4 of us will return definitely.

Although today’s soup was just a little too saltish, but I am not a prawn lover for starters, but I will gladly slurp up the soup. Just for your information, the soup is so red, not because it is spicy hot, but I think the long hours of boiling the stock over and over that made it so red. I would recommend this dish only because you don’t see this else where. This is not just any bowl of prawn noodles. It is REALLY DIFFERENT from the local ones from the hawker centres. There is just something special about the stock. and you know the vegetable swimming inside, they are not nua (soft). They are still CRUNCHY!!!!

The fish slice with veg as well – the stalk is CRUNCHY!!!

Sweet and sour pork without a doubt – still crispy on the outside despite being drowned in sauce.

I know from the picture, the eggs just look quite gross. I can tell you my picture and presentation of the dish does not do justice to the taste of the eggs. They were one of the first restaurants in our zhi char list, that managed to steam their eggs so perfectly.

The chicken was something new that we tried. It was crispy (because of the skin) and nice and chewy inside. Something different from the norm 🙂

Kok Seng Coffee Shop
30B Keong Saik Road

Old School Days

I do sincerely apologise for the lags in my posts. I have been kept up with a current ‘Christmas project’ that I have been very excited to launch/ facilitate and make it happen. It has been very encouraging to have friends around support my cause and some actively participate in it.

My post will be about old school days, since its quite a similar theme to my project #bagakid. (no I am not kidnapping children and selling them – thats crazy)

Old school days with Old school friend.
Mama P and I were just round the corner testing out this ganban yoku heated room therapy at upper Thomson 🙂 hahaha .. It was a pretty heated refreshing experience 🙂 After detoxing there, we then headed around to check out some of the places to try .. and we found this place as highly rated by fellow trooper jean beanies, so .. 🙂 The whole atmosphere felt like I was back in my school, especially with my high school friend, talking about things. 🙂

As the name suggests, the place is decorated with nostagic old-school way .. filled with old school toys such as yoyos, or even very antique items that were used during our parents times.

Even the menu looks like something we were all familar with .. an exercise book. I remember these little things that really made my life miserable in school. Only because all the spellings in Chinese and English were all in this book form. .. Those were horrible! hahah .. but I did take alot of pride in ensuring I wrote my name neatly on the front of the book – serve as a small consolation that my spelling might be not good, but I have neat handwriting .. ok carrying on to the fun part of the ordering is , they will give you

Even the cutleries! Enamel cup!! how nostalgic!!!

yup so you take your orders down on a whiteboard. Quite a playful start. .. So we ordered to share:

Mee Siam

Fried Chicken Nibbles

He bee (Prawn paste) glutinous rice roll

and close up

Close up!

Lemon grass and lime

Mocha-chino

and of course, to round off the whole meal, the one and only!!!!

Banana and Chocolate Fudge cake!!!!

Close UP

Verdict: 2/2 of us will return.

The cake- definitely! even blogging about it now makes me wish that I can zoom down and just buy one piece to myself. Its very rich but not until you get sick of it (well, provided you share it with people around you) The bananas, you can definitely see them and chew on the chunks of it. The cake is very moist as well? Its pretty awesome. I would return for this. For all the chocolate banana lovers around – this is a Must Try!!!!!! ok my weakness so I am biased .. hmm

Mama P complained the mee siam – was abit too oily and watery. She had better ones and her mother can make better ones (I can testify to that).
She enjoyed the roll, something simple and different.

The chicken was very small and bite size, it was quite hard to stop after a while.

Drinks wise, we enjoyed both our drinks quite a bit. 🙂 Their spin off of a mocha is quite delightful 🙂

Nice delightful place 🙂 a real hidden gem around the neighbourhood. 🙂

P.s. Recognise any of the items below?

Old School Delights
215M Upper Thomson Road

Sia Kee Duck Rice

What is life without duck rice?

m i s e r y

I grew up eating this stall of braised duck rice, and I must say till today, the standard does not drop, but the price inflates.
I recognise this stall by their red plates and bowls.

Nowadays, with technology, its so convenient to just go and place an order over the phone and swing by to pick up.
Instead of always having to stand around and wait for places to sit down on the table in the hot sun, all at the convenience of your all home 🙂

Sia Kee Duck Rice occupies the same coffee shop as the famous Sin Huat Seafood. Sin Huat Seafood operates at night, and in the day time Sia Kee Duck Rice. There is also a turtle soup shop round the corner, so for all the gutsy people who love to eat/drink exotic food, do make a trip down to try this delicacy.

1 Duck coming up

Fish Cake and Peanuts

and of course, duck rice is never complete, without the holy grail : the s a u c e

Sauce

Verdict: 4/4 of us will definitely return for this 🙂

This dish might look really simple and easy, but there is alot of effort that goes into it. From the basic slicing of the duck – it takes real skill to do that. One time when we bought this back, the cut of the duck was grainy and rough, although it was from the same stall. It is a father and son team, but we think the father cuts the meat better than his son. It was also then we realised that the way the duck is sliced is also quite a skill to acquire. Additionally, it does make a difference to the taste and texture of the duck meat, with all being equal.

The fishcake and peanuts are our must order when we are at this stall. There is just something about their fishcake – that it is soft yet ‘bouncy’, just the way we all like it.

The sauce to us differs from all the other stalls outside only because its thicker and richer than those you get outside. The sauce is the make and break factor for duck rice.

The rice is of course, well seasoned and not to saltish. You can also alternatively choose porridge (I prefer porridge) if you are not that hungry that day.

* P.s. The uncle mentioned that he also sells duck intestine? for those that love innards, duck intestine sold here looks like a transparent fish cake. There is no taste to it (to me) . This is only available on weekends.

**pps, if you intend to drive down to ta bao or dine there, do park along geylang lorong 35 otherwise its pretty hard to get parking around that area.

and of course, you can always call and place an order to take away before going to pick it up.

Sia Kee Duck Rice
659 Lorong 35 Geylang
Tel: 97575255

Ahballing

Eat what you can't cook.

Category Archives: Local