After having gone to a place this afternoon with a confusing name, I suppose it was only fitting that I later came to a place that so ostensibly tried to advertise what kind of cuisine it specialized in. I wasn't expecting it to be anything great as a result, but it was a convenient stop (55 Tiong Bahru Road #01-37, 6227-0681, with another location on Shenton Way) on the way home from a late night in the office. As a true test to how much it really took after Hong Kong, I grabbed two of my favorite dishes from that area: a bowl of wonton noodle and some dry beef ho fun.
The wonton noodle looked quite atrocious when it came out, although fortunately it tasted better than it looked with fresh stuffing in the wontons and a sauce that wasn't as sweet as its appearance suggested. It definitely wasn't Mak's Noodle, but at least it was edible. Next up was the dry beef ho fun, which fortunately came out piping hot and decently greasy (no shredded lettuce on top either). But the chili sauce was prawn-based (?) rather than the Cantonese red oil stuff that I love, thus ultimately falling short of what I would want.Well, the food definitely wasn't as bad as it could have been, and I suppose it could (very reluctantly) be a fallback again if I get lazy. But I'll probably just wait for my next trip to Hong Kong itself rather than trying to find a good local representative here.
4 comments:
You might want to give the dry beef hofun at Fatty Weng's a shot.
http://dancingblueseal.blogspot.com/2006/09/fatty-weng-guillemard-rd-singapore.html
Such cha chaan tengs are better for its so called western cuisine such as some revolting pasta, bo luo yao and french toast etc. I think even Crystal Jade is much better than this.
you know that chili oil... it really sucks when you like the food at one place but the sauce they have is that typical sweet hot SAUCE type (more a dim sum chili bean sauce)... e.g. if i go to joy luck at san mateo... its depressing.
which brings me to... are you sure thats a cantonese chili oil? because when i scour the asian markets here (bay area), all the bottled ones are called "chiu chou" chili oil, which makes me super happy because im chiu chou (too much teochew pride)!
actually its because of this chili oil, that i love crystal jade (think you mention somewhere that you werent too impressed by crystal jade). anything with that chili.... yumm-O.
also, din tai fung (at least the sg outlets) have that chili oil but its TASTELESS (its too bad because theirs is of a really fine texture which means you arent eating lotsa chili seeds and skin). thats the one reason i dont like going there for the xiao long baos when in sg. i go to crystal jade instead.
think i wrote an essay there just about the chili oil... too much love.
You may want to try out Aspire cafe in your free time. Serves great sandwiches and gourmet coffee.
www.aspireservices.biz
tel : 6344 7424
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