Kim Keat Hokkien Mee

Been wanting to try Kim Keat Hokkien Mee forever but it is not really in my hood and I am rather lazy to swing by on the weekends. The opportunity came up to try this hokkien mee when my meeting in the area ended just before lunch and I met up with AA for some yummy hokkien mee!

It was a rainy afternoon. I checked my emails in the cafeteria while waiting for AA to end her phone call. Some 1990s tunes were playing in the background while I sat by the windows and cleared my inbox. It was so... peaceful. And I was looking forward to meeting up with a friend I had not seen in a while.

Lunch was great with the delicious claypot hokkien mee. The broth was thick and flavourful, and the roast pork was definitely the best part of the hokkien mee. But lunch was so wonderful mostly because I could catch up with a friend over yummy food, just like the days when we were together in the same office.

I wish there would be more of such days :)

92 Lorong 4 Toa Payoh

Joo Seng Teochew Porridge

So this happened months ago but I just got around to blogging about it. Since then, AA has left and joined another agency, and the only time I managed to catch up with her over dinner, I was like 2 hours late, no thanks to work. But that is life and we all grapple with it somehow.

This was on a nice hot Saturday afternoon and we met up for Top 1 Noodles at Beauty World. The lunch outing was fraught with difficulties. First, we were stuck in the car park because the barrier was faulty and then we were stuck in a horrible jam. When we finally reached Beauty World after more than an hour, we could not find parking so we had to circle the parking lots thrice. When we parked and got to the food center, TOP 1 NOODLES WAS CLOSED. Both of us could not believe our luck. 

So we crossed the road and had Joo Seng Teochew Porridge instead. AA's recommendation and it was good! Good variety of tasty dishes and the place was relatively quiet so we could sit around and chat (read: bemoan about life). Prices were ok, though not the cheapest, but I guess nothing at Timah can really be considered cheap. Nice way to spend a lazy Saturday afternoon!

14 Cheong Chin Nam Road

A Noodle Story, Amoy Food Centre

I have always wanted to try Noodle Story but the queue at the stall (especially after they were listed in the Michelin Bib Gourmand Guide) was rather daunting and I never got around to battling the crowd to try this bowl of Singapore-style ramen.

So when TT suggested lunch at Noodle Story (largely because I needed to start saving for my upcoming wedding and house, thanks guys), SQ and I headed over in a heart beat. The queue was crazy long and TT kindly helped us queue (thanks again!) while I did the millennial thing to Instagram the long queue. After about 20 minutes, it was finally TT's turn and he returned with 3 bowls of noodles. We took the small bowls for $7. You could also choose the medium-sized bowls for $9.

The noodles were so, so good. Totally worthy of the long wait. Springy noodles in delicious sauce, juicy wantons, tender char siew, freshly-fried prawn wrapped in potato, and that running egg yolk <3. The soup was also surprisingly thick and fragrant, not the usual watery soup that goes with dry noodles. Recently, they have also started distributing wet tissues with each bowl of noodles!

I will definitely return often slurps. 

7 Maxwell Road
#01-39 Amoy Street Food Centre
Singapore 069111

Chew Kee Soya Sauce Chicken, Chinatown

So this is Amanda's and my favourite lunch spot whenever we cannot decide where to go for lunch. Inevitably, one of us would suggest soya sauce chicken, the other would agree, we would hurry out of the building to catch a bus down, I would search my Notes for the buses that take us there, we reach in a jiffy, shuffle over and try to get the impatient aunties to get us a seat.

When we are in our normal frame of mind, we each order a plate of soya sauce chicken noodle and a dumpling soup.

When we are upset about life and want to stab something, we decide that getting fat is the best way to make ourselves feel better and we will order a half chicken and a dumpling soup. Truth be told, I will never be able to finish my half of the half chicken (i.e. I cannot finish 1/4 chicken). So Amanda has to finish like 3/4 of the half chicken while I do the remaining 1/4. Math ttm.

This soya sauce chicken noodle never fail to make me feel happier. I like the springy noodles with the soya sauce. The chicken is very soft and totally soaks up the sauce. I heard there is another store along the same row. Totally got to check it out soon during the next lunch with Amanda!

8 Upper Cross Street (it is in a corner of the shop house)

Top 1 Hand Made Noodle, Beauty World

Amanda's strong recommendation and totally worth my while trudging here on our spanking new Downtown Line! I tried this ban mian store a long while ago but soon forgot about it because, seriously, Upper Bukit Timah is way too far for me. But things changed with the new Downtown Line and finally I get some accessible public transport to this area. 

Top 1 Hand Made Noodle is located at the hawker centre on the 4th floor of Beauty World Centre. I tried the dry la mian with abalone slices on my first trip. This was super yummy and I love the dark sauce! Even though I know that a crazy amount of unhealthy dark sauce went into the noodles, I dug in happily because it was just so yummy. The la mian was also the right amount of QQ.

Had another opportunity to eat Top 1 again the next week because I had a meeting in the area. This time I had the soup mee hoon kueh with abalone slices and meat balls. I really really like the soup! Their mee hoon kueh was thinly sliced, almost like the kway in kway chap, and could be slurped down easily. Totally unlike the usual thick slabs in ban mian stores. 

So awesome. My first bowl was over lunch on a Saturday afternoon and the queue was quite long. We ordered, paid, took a queue number, and found a table nearby. When our number flashed on the digital board, we went over to pick up our bowls of delicious noodles. My second bowl was over dinner on a dreary weekday evening. The queue was much shorter and I did not have to take a queue number. I ordered, paid, and just stood around until my bowl was ready. Some types of noodles were selling out fast and I was lucky enough to get the second to last bowl of mee hoon kueh! The uncle behind me had to settle for ban mian oops.

#04-44 Beauty World Centre

144 Upper Bukit Timah Road

588177

+6584488450

Blanco Court Fish Soup and Maison Ikkoku

Lunch time with a friend from office many moons ago at the Blanco Court Fish Soup in Luk Yu Eating House. The queue was amazing! I didn't know there was such a popular fish soup stall along Beach Road until that day. The queue was worth it. Thick slices of fresh fish lightly fried in a crispy batter, delicious fried egg and a milky soup base. Now I know why there is a long queue for the fish soup! Coffee time at Maison Ikkoku. Good cup of flat white to beat the food coma after the yummy fish soup. Always a nice lunch chatting with a good friend about random funny stuff and serious stuff and all sorts of things in life.

What to eat at Amoy - Han Kee Fish Soup, Ah Ter Fishball Noodles and Char KwayTeow

I LOVE MY HAWKER CENTERS. Sure, it is hot and sweaty, there is always a crowd if the food is good, you get shoved around pretty much and you wait forever for a seat, but this is what defines Singaporean food. Not your quaint little pretty cafes and definitely not your perfect oh-I-wish-there-were-Michelin-stars-in-Singapore fine dining. Before I was able to afford cafes and restaurants, I grew up eating hawker food. And I am still eating them. I cannot understand why people look down on hawker centers and shun these places. It is completely beyond me. 

So there are hawker centers and there are hawker centers. Not all hawker centers are made the same and some definitely have more gems than others. I have a few all-time favourites (Bedok 85, Maxwell, Chinatown, Old Airport) and Amoy definitely makes it into that list. I have many fond memories of Amoy. I remember my days as a trainee with a pay so low that I could afford very little things in CBD. My office was near Raffles Place MRT and Golden Shoe was where I headed to every time I had time for lunch (which, as it turned out, was also quite rare). We eventually progressed to walking the long walk to Amoy where the food was way better. The walk took us about 10 minutes and we sweat buckets just making that walk and back. Looking back, I don't know how we did it on such a regular basis and always making it back in time. 

My absolute favourite at Amoy has to be Han Kee Fish Soup. I am almost certain the soup is drugged. Why do I keep returning to this fish soup store and willingly queue for 20 minutes? Fresh thick fish slices and clear refreshing soup are probably the key to making the long wait worthwhile. After your bowl of hot fish soup, walk a few stores down for fruit juice. The lady is incredibly friendly, the fruits are super fresh, and they are very generous with the juice!

#02-129 Amoy Street Food Centre (2nd floor, at the side close to the church)

Ah Ter Teochew Fishball Noodles was recently introduced to me and boy was it good! I went for the $5 bowl (Medium) and they were so generous with the ingredients like fishball, minced meat, fish paste and liver! I am not a fan of liver and I make it a point to pick all of them out usually but the liver at Ah Ter was so fresh, I just had to finish them. The mee pok was also incredibly yummy with the dark sauce and chilli!

#01-47 Amoy Street Food Centre (1st floor, at the side close to the ATM machines)

Fried Kway Teow stall selling Char Kway Teow. Yupp, that is the name of the stall and you will definitely spot it at the first row facing the ATM Machines. I have tried better Char Kway Teow but this definitely gets a spot somewhere close to the top, even though it is not at the top. I have a friend who loves this to bits and have shot down my favourite at Old Airport Road in favour of this so I guess it is really subjective. You have to try this to decide for yourself. Personally, I find the cockles rather small but I like that the kway teow is not overly greasy and the wok hei was sufficient.

#01-01 Amoy Street Food Centre