Garden Street Kway Chap

Kway chap is basically stewed pork innards with some flat rice noodles, admittedly something that I wasn't exactly yearning to try. But seeing the huge line here at Serangoon Garden Market stall number 21 (with a full number of accolades from Makansutra and the like...apparently this used to be the famous guy at Blanco Court or something), I figured that I might as well give it a shot to see what all the fuss was about.

Fortunately, the innards weren't anything too weird: pig intestines, stomach lining, feet, etc (nothing too repulsive like liver or brains or anything). And they had some very normal things too like hard boiled eggs, tofu, and normal cuts of meat. Conversely though, that also meant that this was a bit of a letdown for me. There was nothing so weird nor extravagant that made me love nor hate this either way. The innards were stewed in a mild soy-sauce like concoction that it just tasted a bit like some of the stuff one gets at Teochew porridge joints or even the tofu skin used to accompany bak kut teh. The big flat rice noodles (almost like lasagne sheets) weren't anything special aside from their size, and the broth was pretty boring.

The only thing that did stand out was the hot sauce, which was sour. That was kinda interesting, and admittedly did change this dish significantly for the better. But I worry that I would just be eating this stuff for the hot sauce rather than the actual food; the sour taste of the hot sauce drowns out the taste of the original pig part. It even covers up the huge amounts of raw garlic that they use in the sauce, which thus leaves you with the unfortunate consequence of dragon breath without the glory of being able to taste the garlic to begin with.