Saturday 23 April 2011

Nostalgia

Have you ever gone back to your childhood neighbourhood, and had that warm fuzzy feeling? I recently did, with the bonus of having the chicken rice I grew up eating.


I spent most of my growing up years in Lorong Ah Soo... and just across the road from my block, was a cluster of shops, including a coffee shop - the one with my favourite chicken rice!



Back then, the coffee shop was an old dingey one, with the chicken rice stall at the left corner. There would always be a queue at lunchtime, and I remember queuing there my dad... and I was so small I couldn't see the food placed on the stall. Then I grew up and would sometimes ta pau lunch there after school... then we moved away. For years, I hadn't gone back to that stall, until a couple of months ago, when I brought a friend there, and to my surprise, the stall was still there, still in the dingey corner of the coffee shop, and STILL had the same fragrance of the rice, exactly as I remembered it!


Last week, I made another trip back, this time with mum and dad, and got to walk around a little more. I was pleasantly surprised that some things haven't changed... the doctor I used to go to is still there... the little Econ mini-mart, the old fruit stall, the messy hardware store... all in their original spots! This time, the coffee shop had been renovated, and the stall moved to the other corner, occupying a more spacious spot, where they continue to roast their meats in the background.


This chicken rice stall may not be an all-famous one, but it remains my favourite. The rice is grainy and fragrant, with just the right consistency. The roasted chicken skin is so tasty and usually doesn't have much fat under the skin, so it doesn't feel so sinful! And the chilli - tangy and citrus, without gingery traces - just make you wanna eat more rice! Plus, the soya sauce is the thick sticky type... Put all that together, it's the perfect chicken rice! In my eyes at least... :p


Shui Ji Chicken Rice

Blk 121 Hougang Ave 1

Monday 4 April 2011

Crabbified!

Decided to do some therapeutic writing on food this breezy calm night, hoping to take the edge off a little. It's been a trying few days as this feeling of 'impending doom' builds up within me. Ok, that sounded a little drastic, but really, the feeling of kinda being in limbo, as I await news of where I am to be 'despatched to', was getting to me a little, since the weekend. And besides, this blog has been rather neglected, so here goes!


Power Teremah! That was the first reaction I had when I first tasted the sauce of the curry crabs. It was SPICY! Much spicier than the usual standards... The chili padi, fresh curry leaves and other spices blended into a magical sauce that tickled my tastebuds.



Mellben seafood was where we had dinner to celebrate my brother's birthday last week. Recommended by my sis-in-law, the crab queen, Mellben was a good choice! Tucked away in some corner of AMK, it was really crowded for a weekday night! Thankfully we were early, or else we would have been in a long queue of fellow hypoglycaemic people.



The crabs were really meaty, so it was worth getting your hands dirty for... you know, rather than getting your hands all mucky and yielding tiny bits of flesh! With the outstanding curry sauce crabs, the rest of the dishes kinda faded

into the background a little.



The crab bee hoon soup did a good job of washing down the heat a little though... milky enough for my liking too! And, thankfully, I had spotted the forbidden (f)root (ginger!) the minute the pot arrived, and swiftly rescued the rest of the pot from its evil infusion.




"Fortune chicken" was rather boring... chicken in a claypot of other seafood things... rather bland too. And what we didn't expect was for an entire chicken to be in the dish, and that really tipped us over, given all this food was ordered for 3 and a half people (yes, the half is my 5 year old nephew!)

Tofu with minced pork sauce was an ok-dish too... nothing too spectacular, though I suspect if I had had it on it's own, I would have liked it better, since the tofu was nice an silken.



All in all, it's a good place to have crab! Hmm...What I think would make a great dish is sliced pork in the power curry sauce!