Xiao Ping Skewered Meat Shop, Geylang

At long last, the Whispering Man has resurfaced. After being forced out of Chinatown due to increased rent, one of our favorite guys around has moved right into the island's red light district (2 Lorong 23 Geylang, 9677-1160). And instead of focusing on his hot pot again (an item that had quickly become a commodity around here), he has taken a different route by selling some kind of Northern Chinese skewered meat.

I'd never had anything like this before, and I was originally expecting it to be a koobideh-sized concoction. Instead, these were tiny little skewers, a bit akin to satay or yakitori (indeed, one of the Chinese characters in the name of his shop was kanji for kushi, and he even had one of those hooded contraptions to grill it in). But the seasonings were completely different. Dusted with fennel seeds and chili powder, this thing tasted like that Mongolian hot pot stuff. He also gave us some kind of mala soup, which was surprisingly dark rather than red, and filled with tofu skin, kelp, and flat rice noodles. We rounded off the meal with a side of Northern Chinese boiled dumplings, which also had some kind of prominently-figured seasoning in it (was it five-spice powder?).

Admittedly this wasn't so arousing that I'd come running all the way out here regularly just to eat it, but I definitely liked it, and was glad to have tried such a unique thing. It is just such a shame that his stall was buried in an alley that made it hard for it to stand out from the crowd. If you do come down, look for the New Good Place Eating House closer to Geylang Road with the yellow plastic chairs and enter the alley behind the New Cathay Hotel. His white signboard is a few stalls down (if you hit the local seafood and satay stalls at the end, then you've gone too far). And oh yes - if you call him in advance, he'll still prepare his old hot pot for you.