Selling Noodles or Ingredients

There will be times where one would come across great delicacies unknowingly. Similarly, there might be chances that you will be coming across side dishes that might taste much more better than the main dish itself. For example...

'Teochew Sliced Abalone Minced Meat Noodle'(潮州鲍片肉脞麵) From the appearance, this might look pretty decent and it's the portion of it that looks kinda small. However...

Usually, when it comes to a bowl of noodles or 'Kway Teow'(more commonly known as fat rice noodles) , I would stir the whole bowl of ingredients thoroughly before digging into the noodles first. The taste of the 'Kway Teow' ended up to be pretty normal and I think that the lady cooking the noodles have added a bit too much sauce into the bowl itself. Though the taste of the 'Kway Teow' remains to be the same, but the texture is a bit too soggy. However, as I started moving on to the ingredients, I realise something pretty interesting. In actual fact, the ingredients that they are serving over here are pretty tasty. For a start, the ingredients wrapped inside the delicious 'Dumpling' are not only crunchy, there's a nice mix of vegetables and meat inside the 'Dumpling' too. :) Though only a few slices of thin 'Abalone' was given, but all of them are pretty fresh and chewy. On top of that, sinful ingredients like 'Fishball', 'Lean Meat', slices of 'Fish Cake', 'Meatball', 'Minced Meat', etc... were added into the bowl of noodles too. Probably, the normal noodles and 'Mee Pok' might have tasted even much more better, but I personally think that they need to work harder in preparing a delicious bowl of 'Kway Teow'. By the way, the salty soup is kinda disappointing too. It's a bit too pepperish to me. :|

So where can you give the delicious ingredients a try?

The name of this stall would be 'Top of the Town'(高峰麵家). It's located in one of the coffee shops towards the end of 'Neil Road'.

By the way, let's take a quick glance of the 'Noodles' menu.

Notes:

• Opening Hours:
I'm not pretty certain myself too. Their opening hours seem to be pretty long. Therefore, it will be great if anyone out there can enlighten me on their opening hours. :)

* Click here for the location of this stall on 'Google Maps'.
^ Click here for the list of delicacies that you can find and get along 'Neil Road'.

A Fluffy Dessert...?

Not sure about you people out there but have you eaten a fluffy dessert before? Basically, the post today have something to do with a Fluffy Dessert. :P

'Fluffy Signature' I have ended up giving their signature dessert a try. It comes with a small mountain of milk flavoured 'Snow Ice' surrounded by cubes of freshly cut 'Kiwi', 'Mango' and 'Strawberry'. However, I'm not really sure what's the small black coloured balls since the taste of the fruits are far more overpowering than the small black balls. Anyway, I don't think that there's anything special about the 'Snow Ice' that they are using over here. The taste of the 'Snow Ice' isn't too sweet. Anyway, I personally find the fruits to be the main attraction of this dessert. The freshly cut fruits are not only fresh, the 'Kiwi' are pretty sour too. When you scoop a bit of 'Snow Ice' and pieces of 'Kiwi' and 'Strawberry' together, you will be getting this shivering sensation that to a certain extent, it felt like 'Winter'. :P

Although this place is kinda small, but they are preparing and serving a large variety of food over here. They also have 'Pancakes', 'Finger Food', 'Main Courses', etc... In other words, rather than categorising it as a 'Dessert' house, I think that it's much more appropriate to actually categorizing it as a 'Cafe'.

The name of this 'Cafe' would be 'Fluffy Dessert'. It's located along 'Tanjong Pagar Road', which is pretty near 'Maxwell Food Centre'

Notes:

• Opening Hours:
  12:00 - 23:30
• Looking at the opening hours, if you suddenly have the urge for 'Desserts' you could actually give this place a try. :D

* Click here for the 'Facebook' Page of 'Fluffy Dessert'.
^ Click here for the location of 'Fluffy Dessert' on 'Google Maps'.
~ Click here for the list of delicacies that you can find & get along 'Tanjong Pagar'.

Time for some Xlb...?

And by the way 'Xlb' isn't a facial expression. 'Xlb' means...

'Xiao Long Bao'(小笼包)
The skin is neither too thick nor too thin, but one think that I'm
pretty certain would be the taste of it. It's amazingly delicious.
Once you started popping one of them into your mouth and as you
started biting the 'Xiao Long Bao', the juicy soup and the ingredients
will burst inside your mouth and beware, these small little things
can be pretty hot. Besides for the taste, the other thing that I like
about the 'Xiao Long Bao' over here would be the skin. With the skin
that they have used in the 'Xiao Long Bao', the skin wrapping up all
the ingredients together doesn't break so easily. On top of that,
the skin, the soup and the ingredients has formed a beautiful triangle
of great taste. And if any one of them have been changed, I think that
the 'Xiao Long Bao' would not taste as great as what they have now.

Before I jump to the name and the location of this restaurant, let me start off by explaining a bit on how I knew about this place. I was working near that area close to 10 years ago and I'm getting a lot of positive feedbacks about the food of the restaurant from my ex-colleagues back then. But, the drawback would be the crowd that appear during lunch and dinner hours, which increases the amount of waiting time. In fact, this restaurant was so famous that the Japanese are common customers of this place. (:P)

The name of this restaurant would be 'Jing Hua Eating House'(京华小吃),
which is previously known as 'Qun Zhong'(群众). It's located along
'Neil Road', which is pretty near 'Maxwell Food Centre' too.

Notes:

• Opening Hours:
  Lunch: 11:30am - 3:00pm
  Dinner: 5:30pm - 9:30pm
  (Closed on Wednesdays)

* Click here for the location of 'Jing Hua Eating House'(京华小吃) on Google Maps.
^ Click here for the list of delicacies along 'Neil Road'.

Eating a Dinosaur...

Not referring to the drink 'Milo Dinosaur' over here. What I'm going to write about today would be a kind of food that I love pretty much and that would be...

'Dinosaur Prawn Noodles'(Dry)(恐龙大虾面)
Just by taking a look at this, my jaws are dropping already. I haven't
seen prawns that are so big since the early 90s. Anyway let's set the
humongous prawns aside first. Besides for the prawns, what makes this
bowl of noodles interesting are the special paste and the other
ingredients(Pork Ribs, Vegetables, Fried Onions, Noodles) that they have
added into the bowl of noodles. Once you started stirring all the
ingredients thoroughly and started savouring the noodles, the taste is
pretty interesting. The overall taste are pretty sweet and the noodles
are pretty chewy and springy, which is pretty nice. :D On top of that,
the vegetables and the meaty stuff blend in together pretty good too.
Next, let's move forward to the bowl of soup.

Just by looking at the bowl of soup alone, simply explains a lot of stuff.
Though the colour of the soup looks pretty dull, but just by looking at
the small little bits floating on the soup means that they have added
quite a variety of ingredients in the preparation of the soup. And the
taste of it is pretty sweet and fantastic nice. The mixture of pork ribs
and prawns give the soup the wonderful great taste. Yummy. (Come to think
of it, why didn't I tried asking for another round of soup?)

Time to move back to the main attraction of the dish, which is the 'prawns'.
Though all the prawns are pretty fresh and even the prawn head are given,
but I decided to have a little bit of fun, therefore I have set aside one
of the prawns into the bowl of soup before digging into the noodles. When
I was comparing the prawns from both bowls, it seems that the 'dry' version
of the prawn seems to be much more boring while the taste of the 'soup'
version seems to be much more richer in taste. Probably I should try the
soupy version of the 'Dinosaur Prawn Noodles' the next time round. (... But
wait, which means I wouldn't be getting the nice noodles... ==""")

So where can you give the 'Dinosaur' a try?

The name of this restaurant would be 'Old House'(老屋).
It's located along 'Neil Road', which is pretty near
'Maxwell Food Centre'.

Notes:

• Operating Hours:
  10am - 4am Daily
• By the way, some of the specialities over there includes stuff like 'Heng Hua Lor Mee'(兴化卤面), 'Home Made Ngoh Hiong'(自制五香), etc... (Just by taking a look at all the food photos make me hungry again. :P)

* Click here to find out more about 'Old House'(老屋).
^ Click here for the location of 'Old House'(老屋) on Google Maps.

The Flavour of Life

If life can be interpreted into different flavours, how would it taste like?

As for myself, that would be the same question that I would probably be spending my entire life searching for a perfect answer to it, but till today, I think that life would be similar to a cup of tea. It can be either sweet or bitter or even tasteless. On top of the taste, the smell coming out of a cup of tea can either be a strong aroma or a strong refreshing fragrance or even odourless. With the number of types of Tea Leaves in this world, tea tasting can be a never ending journey that one can take.

Today I am going to introduce a Chinese Tea House that I am a regular. Introducing ...

Tea Chapter I was working at this place a few years back. When I was working at Tea Chapter, everyday was a completely different experience. You get to meet different groups of people everyday. On top of that, the atmosphere of the place was both quiet and relaxing. It wasn't an easy task looking for places like this in the busy part of Singapore.

	Have a break, Let's have some Tea... :P
Besides for the huge variety of Chinese Tea that you can try, you can also go for the snacks like fragrance cookies, Tea Eggs, simple Dim Sum... etc.

The following would be the type of seats that you can get in Tea Chapter.

Japanese Style You will be crossing your legs for a very period of time. But no extra charges if you decided to choose this kind of seats.

Korean Style
Very limited seats, but you can put your legs into the hole underneath
the table. There are additional charges for these seats, but this isn't
something that you can experience everyday.

	Chinese Style Something that you can get in at traditional Chinese restaurant. Oh by the way, Queen Elizabeth II had paid a visit to Tea Chapter in 1989. The picture on the left was taken during her visit to Tea Chapter.

	Some photos taken in Tea Chapter

	Besides for the Chinese Tea House that was located on the 2nd and 3rd floor, they also have a retail shop selling all sorts of Chinese Tea Accessories and Chinese Tea Leaves.

Do pop by Tea Chapter if you want to get away from the busy Singaporean lifestyle.

* Click here for the website of Tea Chapter.