Baked crabs in Singapore

Dinner at Pasir Panjang Food Centre, ample parking and tables available. What’s annoying is the number of fans turned on at the same time. it creates such a windy effect that I can’t walk through the food centre without doing a Marilyn Monroe.

We ordered from the usual suspects; Seng Huat Hokkien Mee and Heng Huat Char Kway Teow. However this new stall caught my eye. Simply named Ming’s Salt Baked Crab, I knew i had to order them to try. Finally a place in Singapore that serves baked crabs that I always go for at Malacca’s Portuguese Village!

The man who took my order took pity on my struggling Mandarin and switched to English. After that he conversed with me as if he’s more comfortable in English himself. He even popped by our table to ask how it was.

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The crabs were small, about 400-500g. Seasonal price going at $16 / 400g. so the price isn’t too bad. For the spoiled Singaporean who’s used to eating the large Sri Lankan crabs served at No Signboard or Jumbo, they may find these crabs a tad too small for their liking. but then I had specifically asked for small crab so we can get a taste, and they aren’t any different from the small crabs you get at Portuguese Village so I’m good with it. When the crabs arrived, I can smell the charcoal baked smell wafting from the crabs. it’s lightly coated with salt to give it added flavour. Overall the taste is good, the crabs are fresh and the meat is sweet. I wouldn’t mind going back for more, especially it’s just down the road from my office.

Happiness!

Food: Lee Heng Restaurant

Lee Heng Restaurant is more of a coffee shop than a restaurant. It looks really run down but I’m one of those who believe that good food can be found anywhere despite appearances. I had a dream about eating Zi Char and when I woke up, I wanted to eat Zi Char. A quick search online for coffee shop cuisine in the west found me here.

It wasn’t that hard to find. It’s in the building opposite the famous Two Chefs coffee shop, another run down “restaurant” in the vicinity.

XO Mee Tai Mak. I recommend this dish as it is really tasty and has a slight kick to taste, as XO fried anything is wont to have. I’d take this dish over Crystal Jade’s 12 XO carrot cake ANY DAY.

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Stir Fried Kai Lan with garlic. The most unassuming dish that people take for granted. I’ve often eaten bad kailan by people who can’t be bothered to fry it properly. This place does it well. The dish came out piping hot and MOIST. There was a generous serving of gravy that coated the vegetables and kept it crisp and tasty. Half way through the dish and the vegetable was still steaming hot and I burnt my tongue couple of times trying to gulp it down.

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You can’t tell from this picture but it’s deep fried pork knuckle. Or according to the menu, pork nankle. I love it when they misspell food. This dish was the last to arrive, when we were almost done with our mee tai mak. It was very crispy but a little too dry, I think the oil was either too hot or they fried it for too long. Served with Thai chili sauce but we realised it tasted better with the sambal served by the coffee shop.

Overall bill for 2 $33

3.5/5

I’d go back again to try the claypot seafood and marmite chicken.

Blk 118 Commonwealth Crescent #01-29

Plenty of HDB parking (50c / half hour)

Good Food West: Manhill Restaurant

It was one of those Friday nights where traffic everywhere else was bad and we were truly very hungry. So we headed in the opposite direction and drove for a bit before turning into a quiet street off Pasir Panjang. Bryan has gone past this restaurant many times in his youth and has always wondered what exactly is Manhill restaurant.

A quick search on hungrygowhere and we decided on our dinner. this restaurant was known for its claypot dishes so we settled for some 8 treasures claypot goodness. its bubbly hot thick gravy mixed with a hotpot of vegetables, mushrooms, meat and herbs makes this a yummy raining season dish.

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This paper wrapped chicken is better than the one at the lonely restaurant that sits on the hill next to Ngee Ann Poly. the meat is bigger, chunkier, juicier and served boneless.

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We decided to go for kang kong cooked with garlic. lightly flavoured and crunchy. it complemented the other dishes that were slightly more full flavoured.

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another recommendation that proved itself well. Braised tofu stir fried with crab meat. this is really tasty. I finished it all.

 

Despite some of the bad reviews, I felt this was a really good find, and satisfied my weekly tze char craving.

99 Pasir Panjang Road.

Good Year Seafood Village

We were in the far east regions of the world (Tampines) so a quick google brought us to this seafood zi char place, which was located a bit off the map and rather inaccessible unless you drove and had Google Maps. It’s next to a temple that was strangely practicing lion dance at night, and among some abandoned trees.

2 things were recommended at this place: their zi char (salted egg crab and assam fish head) and their fish steamboat. we picked the latter and we were given a choice of fish.

being a fan of fishhead steam boat, i wasn’t very impressed by this one. it’s a typical fish steamboat with ingredients such as salted fish for flavour, yam, vegetables and seaweed. but it lacks the oomph that would make or break a steamboat. compared to the one we eat in Serangoon road, this is mediocre.

we ordered a side of coffee pork ribs which was good. there was more meat than bones and each piece had a layer of fat which adds to the flavour. very yum! perhaps zi char would be a better choice next time!

Address: 15 Tampines Avenue, Singapore

I Love Zi Char series: Two Chefs

Many friends have been to Two Chefs, a zi char place located in a rundown coffee shop tucked somewhere in Commonwealth. Based on all the good feedback we heard, we decided to bring Bryan’s mother there for Mothers’ Day dinner.

it wasn’t too hard to find on the map and there’s plenty of parking in the area. The place is really crowded on a Saturday night and there were about 10 groups before us in the line. However, the boss of the stall would sit you according to your group size. if you’re a small group of 4 or less, you stood in one corner while the bigger groups stood on the other side. once a table of your size is free, you get your table accordingly. We waited about 20 minutes, about enough time for us to decide what to eat.

Their famous butter pork. I was a tad bit disappointed as I was half expecting butter cream sauce instead of butter powder, which tasted more like milk powder than butter flakes. the pork is succulent and tasty and the taste of the brown marinade mixed well with the powder.

we wanted prawns so the boss suggested deep fried prawns served with mayo sauce. again slightly disappointing as I was expecting more. any flavour the prawn might have disappeared under the taste of fried batter and mayo.

3 egg vegetable. the vegetable was a little dry and tough. there was plenty of egg and bits of century egg floating around which Bryan’s mom said wasn’t solid enough (kinda disappeared into the soup). the salted egg was missing though. perhaps they forgot?

Steamed sea bass. the meat was a little bit tough but the sauce was sublimed. it reminded me of the steamed fish i ate at Crystal Jade Fine Dining years ago, where the sauce had a tinge of sweetness, which exhibits the chef’s skill in creating a sauce so tasty and subtle.

We asked for Yee Fu Mee but they gave us Yee Mee instead, which was a surprising find as they cooked it in the Malaysian Hokkien noodle style, with oodles of black sauce. the way i like it! of course it’s nothing compared to the real deal, but we get what we can eh?

Two Chefs is known for drunken cockles but we didn’t order that since I don’t eat cockles unfortunately. I’m not sure if I should give it another shot since it’s 2 dishes out of 5 that passed. but it’s really value for money and it’s above average zi char!

it was here that I discovered Bryan’s mom is very particular about her food. she was the one who pointed out the emptiness of the 3 egg vegetable and how the noodles pale in comparison to its Malaysian counterpart. I may soon have to bow to a new shi fu.