Ah Pui Satay: Ah Pui finally opens his own restaurant!
The good news is that Ah Pui has finally opened his own restaurant and you don't have to wait 6 months to get to try his satay! The not so good news is that if you rush down expecting to get blown away, then you might come away deflated. The satay still has that characteristic extra large piece of fat and Ah Pui is still behind the grill, but somehow, it seemed to have lost its mojo.
I started this journey because I wanted to get a snapshot of the state of the Hainanese pork satay on our little island. There has been much written about satay as a whole but no one has actually zeroed in on Hainanese pork satay which I feel is very unique to Singapore and parts of Malaysia like Malacca where there is a sizeable Chinese population.
There are two satays stalls listed in the Michelin Guide (Michelin plate) and this stall in Chinatown Complex Food Centre is one of them. Now I do think the inspectors do a fairly good job at reviewing fine dining establishments, but when it comes to local hawker food, I think they just don’t do enough […]
When I posted the our mission statement on Facebook recently, I was greeted with a few comments about why we even needed to do that since Satay has always been great, why is there even a need to make it "Great Again"?
Tiong Bahru Ah Pui Satay: Singapore’s most elusive Satay!
The first time I tasted Ah Pui's satay was back in 2012. It was a surreal experience. I still remember it was a Sunday morning and as per instructions, we were all waiting at Old Tiong Bahru Bak Kut Teh for Ah Pui's iconic pushcart to appear. When it finally did, the scene was like that of a flash mob. People scattered around the coffeeshop suddenly rose to their feet and still others appeared out of nowhere to descend upon Ah Pui and his rickety pushcart!
Heng Kee Curry Mee: Why aren’t there more stalls selling this?
You can't talk about curry mee without referring to the two stalls at Hong Lim Food Centre. The one on the ground level is Heng Kee Curry Mee which started operations there in 1979. Before that the original hawker, Mr Tay Yong Heng was selling this curry noodles from a push cart along Synagogue Street since the 60's.
If you are looking for a silver lining in this whole Covid 19 situation, then this is one of them. We would never have the chance to eat this old school grandma bak chang if not for the fact that the virus has forced some individuals to make abrupt career switches! Such is the case […]
Did you know that there are not one, but two famous Hill Street char kway teow stalls? The more well known one is located at Bedok which has been taken over by the son of the original hawker. The other one, which doesn't get as much publicity, is located at Chinatown Complex Food Centre.
In 2010, I published my pandan chiffon cake recipe after months of trials and failures. It's satisfying to know that the effort didn't go to waste as the recipe is still the most popular on the internet. What I didn't realise was the far reaching impact of that recipe until when I met with Mark Ng, the owner of Pure Pandan.
A hot bowl of Hainanese style pork porridge is the quintessential comfort food for a lot of Singaporeans but for some reason, it isn't as hot (pun definitely intended) as some of the other hawker dishes like prawn mee or char siu/sio bak. As a result, the number of stalls where you can get a really good bowl of traditional Hainanese style porridge can be numbered by a toddler.
Hong Kong Mong Kok Tim Sum: Restaurant quality Dim Sum at hawker prices
Hong Kong Mong Kok Tim Sum has been around for a number of years and has built up quite a reputation for itself. I have tried their dim sum sometime ago but at that time I didn't feel compelled to write about them. But I managed to chance upon them again and this time I was quite surprised at just how good their dim sum is especially when you consider that they are all priced at $2.30 nett!
You know those heartwarming videos that MOE puts outs to get more people to enter the teaching profession? Yeah, the ones that show a super dedicated teacher who believed in particular student even though he was a real pai kia (bad kid) in school and because of his persistence, the pai kia eventually becomes a lawyer or motivational speaker?
