Sunday, October 18, 2009

A Tiong Bahru Chwee Kueh Shootout

From front: Zheng Zhong and Jian Bo Shui Kueh

Not sure of what to get at Tiong Bahru Market this morning, I figured that I might as well go for the thing that this place is known for: chwee kueh. But this time I wanted to compare the incumbent Jian Bo Shui Kueh (#02-05) against Zheng Zhong Tiong Bahru Shui Kueh (#02-62) on the other side. We grabbed six from each vendor to see how they would stack up.

The verdict? Well, at the risk of sounding indecisive, I liked both. The pickled veggie topping at Jian Bo was a tad sweeter than Zheng Zhong's, so I figured that I would like the latter better. But Jian Bo did the sweetness subtly enough that I liked the extra dimension that it brought, all to be accented by the punchiness of the chili sauce. Zheng Zhong, on the other hand, was much more straight to the point with its salty topping and the pronounced prawn flavor of its chili sauce. Given that I liked both, my decision next time is probably just going to be based on which stall has the shorter line.

China Apple in a BottleIn the process, it was interesting to find China Apple soda in a bottle rather than in a can. It still tasted the same of course. This stall amusingly tried to shove a couple of gigantic chunks of ice into that tiny plastic cup for me to pour it into - one can't help but think of Sharon Stone hacking away with an ice pick.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

nice pix of the chwee kueh. love your musings...

Anonymous said...

you should try the Tau suan there too. It's a desert consisting of mung beans and fried fritters. It's the best in Singapore. Go try it! It's near the 80 lor mee.