When it comes to breakfast, I prefer Wanton Noodles over fish-ball noodles or bak chor mee since I don’t really like fish-balls or minced meat. But who can resist the tender char siew and crunchy wanton dumpling? Especially Eng Kee Noodle House’s Wanton Mee.

Even though I have been eating Eng Kee’s Wanton Mee for years, it took me until now to blog about it because: a) I always takeaway instead of eating there (no chance to take photos), and b) I hope that they will not become even more popular. Oh whatever, I’m going to be nice and tell everyone that Eng Kee Noodle House is my all-time favorite place for wanton noodle. Forget about Feifei wanton mee (over-hyped) or Pontian wanton mee (small portions), Eng Kee’s Noodle House serves the best wonton noodle in Singapore.

I’m not sure about you, but wanton mee is definitely among my list of top 10 breakfast hawker food, it is substantial yet not too filling. There are three criteria for a good wanton mee: the char siew, wanton and noodle. Eng Kee’s wonton noodle however, is not the perfect bowl of wanton mee, for the char siew is only decent, and the wanton dumplings average.

I know I tend to exaggerate when I describe food, but please trust me when I say that the noodles here are fantastic. They waved and beckoned for me to get closer, and once I put them into my mouth; they bounced up and down on the tip of my tongue – it was delicious!

How to test if the noodles are really good: wait two hours before consuming, if they remain springy and Q after that — you get your answer. I always have the wanton mee a few hours after I buy them. It tastes just as good, if not even better than having it on the spot. And one last thing, remember to go for the $3 portion (at least).

Hawker Food Review
Eng Kee Noodle House
Block 155 Bukit Batok Street 11
Li Soon Coffee Shop

My fellow Bukit Batok-ians, this is THE place to go to for char kuay teow and hokkien mee. I often like to ask what local food will you miss the most if you go overseas, and my answer will always be ckt. By and large it’s not a easy choice, not when there are so many nice and delicious local food around; chicken rice, rojak, laksa just to name a few, but yes, I will miss my ckt the most.

From afar, I could smell the aroma, and I’m drawn in, immediately. What is that smell? Sniff, sniff: this, is the smell of my love. Every mouthful was so good, and I wolfed down one plate in a blink of the eye. One plate was definitely not enough, I always order two plates of char kuay teow ($2). And I don’t want to share with you, shoo! go away.

I love the char kuay teow here, for a period of time initially, I was having ckt for almost four-five times a week (two plates each time). But when you have too much good food, you will become sick of it, and so was I, which brought my attention to…

Hokkien mee!

I have the black carrot cake for breakfast, char kuay teow for lunch, and hokkien mee for dinner. Sounds good right? Nah, I usually rotates between the char kuay teow or hokkien mee ($3) for lunch since the stall closes during the afternoon. I know judging from the photo, the ckt looks a lot better than the HM, but believe me, I’ll go to the extent of saying this is the best Hokkien mee, at least in Bukit Batok. He cooks every order by plate, which meant a longer waiting time; but hey, every plate is fricking good! And I like the wetness and moist version of HM, with a lot chilli and two limes squeeze in; I’m a happy man!

And oh, it’s almost lunch time. Uncle, one packet of char kuay teow, and one packet of hokkien mee with extra chilli and lime please!

Char Kuay teow
Block 289H Bukit Batok Street 25
(Coffee shop is in the carpark complex)

* * * Now Closed * * *

While we have the restaurant setting a stall in the coffee shop (think Cilantro), and there’s also the restaurants invading the heartlands, and we can’t possibly forget about Angmohs, or Caucasians setting up a stall in the coffee shops selling western food. Botak Jones was the benchmark, and now we have our latest entrée, Crazy Angmo!

Crazy Angmo was featured in the papers, with the trend of more Angmohs selling western food in the local heartlands. Having their first stall in Bishan, the owner, Paul, had opened his second stall at Bukit Batok. Whether it’s coincidently or not, Botak Jones happened to just set up an outlet in Bukit Batok too, just one bus stop away.

Chicken Parmagian ($7.90)

The chicken paramagian was one of the more expensive item on the menu, other than the steak and the lambchop. There’s cheaper options like the express meal chicken cutlet, chicken chop at $4.80. But for “higher-end” options, the rest are priced at $6.90-$7.90.

Coated with a thick layer of melty cheese and tomatos, the chicken paramagian was quite good, i especially like the melted cheese which tasted great with the crispy chicken. But i did find the layer of tomato sauce, which was in between the cheese and the chicken, a tad sour. You needed to eat the chicken fast as it became soggy after a while. Nonetheless, the generous sides like the mashed potatos, and salad provided a hearty meal.

Crazy Burger ($7.90)

The crazy burger, being one of Crazy Angmo speciality, deserved a try. I think it’s better value for money than the Botak Jones burger, since this came with cheese and egg, while the latter at $8 only had the burger plus one additional topping of either cheese or egg. The Botak Jones burger was $7 at a set, and to add egg and cheese, it’ll be $9 already.

I particularly enjoyed the inclusion of pineapples within the burger, and the melty cheese together with the runny egg was excellent. However, i did find the beef patty being over marinated with pepper. The bun was rather hard and toasted to char. And the fries were simply ordinary and forgettable.

But overall, i did think that the crazy burger at $7.90 was not too bad, and definitely better than Botak burger. The owner Paul was very confident of his burger, “This is the best burger mate!”

Total bill was $15.80 for two western meal sets. Prices are a tad higher than your usual hawker centre western food, but like what i mentioned before, if you compared Botak Jones, Crazy Angmo with the normal western stalls, prices certainly will be more expensive. On the other hand, thinking it as a cafe western food, these stalls will be much cheaper than the cafes and restaurants.

Crazy Angmo
271 Bukit Batok East Avenue 4
Hawkerway coffee shop

This is a tale about the chicken and the duck. Yesterday, we have discussed why chicken is more popular than duck. But if you asked me, i’ll tell you i love my ducks more than my chickens. Just ordering half a chicken, i can actually get a bit sick of eating finish the meat, but for duck, i can have the whole duck and i can still carry on.

My friends have always complaint my blog feature nice food from Bukit Batok, is there truly no delicious food around? Actually yes and no, since different people have different taste bud, its quite hard to determine what is considered nice and delicious. But since we are on the topic of chickens and ducks, let me show you what i think is one of the better duck rice in Bukit Batok.

This particular stall is no strangers to Bukit Batok-ians, and even foodies living elsewhere. Their duck is the toast of the crowd, and it always sold out pretty fast, and sometimes if you are there at the wrong time, you’ll need to wait for them to roast the duck as they didn’t roast all their ducks at one go.

Their duck meat was considerately fatter than the normal ones, with a thick layer of fats beneath the unhealthy, yet-so-good duck skin. The meat was tender, and you must eat it together with the fatty skin to get the “oomph” kick! The only gripe – the serving was rather small even for half a duck, you couldn’t get enough of the meat.

Roast pork

I also enjoyed their roast pork, with a super crispy skin. This is no joking matter, biting into the roast pork, will give you the “crisp” sound, that alone would tell you the crunchiness.

Char siew

Their char siew was actually the weaker of the three. Althought it’s rather juicy, but the char siew meat somehow lacked the “wow” factor, and the sight of the bright red colouring also put me off. They also sell soy sauce chicken, but it’s not good compared to the rest.

Zheng zhong Hong Kong roast meat
Block 109 Bukit Batok West ave 6

One fine day, the duck met the chicken and ask it a question, “why is it that you guys are more popular than us?” The chicken answered confidently, “Of course, we are the superior birds!”…

Have you ever wondered why is chicken more popular than duck? Ask a group of Singaporeans what are among their favourite local delights, and there are bound to be chicken rice, laksa, char kuay teow, and many others. But have you ever heard “Singapore duck rice”?

Looking at the offical statistics will tell a clearer picture, chicken consumed in 2007 was 33.0kg per capital compared to 3.2kg that of duck. That’s like 10 times the difference in the total amount consumed! Right, let’s discuss why chicken, is more popular than duck. First, the methods of preparing chicken are much more than duck, you can fried, steamed, stir-fried, boiled, roasted, chicken, but how about duck? You heard of fried chicken, but is there fried duck?

Half a chicken ($13)

This particular stall in Bukit Batok block 273, always had long queues for their chicken. Actually i did try their chicken for quite a lot of times already but didn’t bother to feature it since you don’t bring your dslr to the market. The chicken was quite good, smooth and tender with the meat being flavourful, but rather on the salty side with the “over-generous” use of the light soy sauce.

The rice was fragrant, and not too oily. And the chili, was red hot spicy! I found it to be one of the more spicy chicken rice chilis around. But even though the chicken rice was quite good, i wouldn’t bother queuing up for it unless i really got the urge. Still, i dared say this is one of the better chicken rice stall around, in Bukit Batok. Watch out for “the tale of the chicken and duck part 2” tomorrow!

Yew kit Hainanese Kitchen
Block 273, Bukit Batok East ave 4

To relieve the pain of not able to eat good food, lets us see the yummy yummy eaten during last weekend. Early in the morning (well not really early), meet up with sp, wh, and hy for breakfast. Prata’s at Alif Restaurant, a “prominent” coffee shop selling pratas at Bukit Gombak. I’m sure you have seen it before if you been to Gombak.

Anyway, breakfast is suppose to be early right? But we had sort of a brunch because someone was late. *i’m not blaming you all right? lol

Egg on the prata ($1.20)

Do note that this is not the normal egg prata, this one is the egg on the prata, different all right? But i cant remember the name of it though. Looks yummy though, next time i think i’ll have this instead of the normal egg prata

Egg Prata ($1.20)

Ahh.. this ons is the normal egg prata. See the difference already? : )

Cheese Prata ($1.50)

Melted cheese within the hot cripsy prata, well some sort like cheese on a pizza just that pizza is western and prata is indian? LOL!

Normal Prata ($0.60)

The normal one without any fillings, *sp commented it was too tough, but the rest of us found it to be okay. *sp got tender tooth : )

Chicken Rice ($3)

The hungry-ghost (or rather soldier) Mr Ang & Mr Ong ordered chicken rice in addition to the pratas.

After which, we went to IMM, and they got psycho by me into eating cakes from Secret Recipe. Thats the next post guys : )

Alif Restaurant
Blk 374 Bukit Batok Street 31 #01-204
Tel: 65646324

” Pratas, pratas, & pratas “

Sakae Sushi, the place most Singaporeans, if not young people associate with sushi. With 33 Outlets spreading all over the island, its green frog logo are most familar to most people. Colour plates sushi are at $1.90, while premium red plates are at $5.90. Of course, there is the all-you-can-eat lunch, high tea, dinner buffet available at different timing and prices. Besides sushi and sashimi, there are also teppanyaki, yakimono, nabemono, tempura, agemono, ramen/udon/soba and donburi dishes.

For tech-savvy people, you can have “fun” browsing through their menu and placing orders via their web-based, patented Interactive Menu. Unfortunately, during my visit there yesterday, the system was down. O well. Back to the point, went to have high tea buffet (Mon to Fri excluding Public Holidays) 3pm-6pm with my brother, adult price is $16.90++, and youth price is $13.90++.

As everybody knows sakae sushi, and different opinions on whether it is good or not, i shan’t comment much, let the pictures do the talking : )

California, Soft Shell Crab, Ebi Tempura handroll

Ebi Fry, Avocado, Unagi handroll

Total bill was $36 for two person. Service-wise, if don’t think too much still passable, but if really want to scrutinise, i’ll say not really acceptable. One waitress when cleaning the plates saw that we had some leftover and told us not to waste food and order less as though we were like primary school kids. Come on man, you think i’ll really want to waste food? I also know food is precious, obviously is the dish is not nice and not to my taste then i left it there. O well. Then another waiter while taking the orders gave those not-my-problem altitude. Thats why i always have a love-hate relationship with the 10% service charge that almost most of the restaurants charge now. If your service is good, fine u deserve the tip, but if not the money paid is really unfair to consumers.

Although diff people had diff opinion about the place, some say its good, some say its not, but lets face it, how good a sushi/sashimi can be when you are paying this sort of price? Nevertheless, i’ll say Sakae Sushi has done rather a good job providing affordable sushi for the mass public. For those gourmet sushi eaters, avoid this place please : )

West Mall
1 Bukit Batok Central Link
658713

Tel: 6790 7012

Have you Blurb?

Went to Swensen’s Cafe Restaurant @ West Mall with my bro since i just wanted a quick and simple lunch. Upon reaching the place, we waited a while outside for someone to attend to us, but none came. So we took our own initiative to enter the place, then a waiter finally “notice” us and bring us to a table. We browse through the “new” menu and made our orders

Swensen’s all time favourite, Fish & Chips ($12.90) I though this was quite ordinary here, nothing special about the fish nor chips, and at that price, i guess i will be better off having a fish & chips at a hawker centre.

BBQ Half Chicken ($13.90) the portion doesn’t really look like it is a half chicken, the chicken was okay really, but thats not really what you will except to find it at a restaurant with the price tag and the portion.

Well, you can’t say you have been to Swensen’s if you didn’t have ice-cream can you? Swensen’s Banana Spilt ($7.60) – strawberry, chocolate, vanilla ice cream drenched with chocolate fudge, strawberry and pineapple toppings, fresh banana slices and almonds. The ice cream was pretty decent i guess, maybe Swensen’s should stick to what they are best at, doing ice cream.

Total damage was $40.49 for 2 person. In conclusion, for all the things that Swensen’s new menu promise, it doesn’t work. I’ll be hard-pressed to find the positives of Swensen’s , lets see, convenient with 20 branches around island-wide? Nah, thats not the main reason for dining in a restaurant, cosy and comfortable booth seats? Their seats are’nt really cosy, and besides most of the restaurants nowadays are trying to make their place as cosy and comfortable as possible. Good for ice-cream? Mayb, but then again, more and more ice-cream places are coming up, think Ben & Jerry, Island Creamery and many more. Thus i won’t be going back to Swensen for the foreseeable future, unless someone is giving a treat : )

#02-05 West mall
1 Bukit Batok Central Link 658713
Tel: 6898 9281

Have you Blurb?

This week for some unknown reasons, they let us book out on Friday morning 11am. Cool rite? Never imagine so good let us out one day early instead of booking out on Sat afternoon which is now? haha! Anyway, yesterday came back never do much, had been sick for the whole week, but being elected as platoon-in-charge (for a week), i hang on there and waited until a new platoon ic was elected on thu before i went to see the Medical officer (MO). MO gave me “Attend B” which means that i am excused from light duties for three days, gosh how i regret seeing the doctor, thu fri sat no exercise, people run i cannot run. So bored seating there doing nothing. O well, next time i make sure i got a fever before i see doc.

 Saturday which is today, dad buy lunch back from Block 158 there, for people staying in Bukit Batok, should know/heard of this stall selling Hokkien Mee (Prawn Noodles) there, quite famous i guess, even people not staying in Bukit Batok had heard of its fame before. Having tried the Hokkien mee (HM) so many times for so many years already, i would say the HM is not bad la, but then not really the best i ever tried, the best HM i feel is at Whampoo Market there.

This stall uses Opeh leaf to keep the HM (for $3 and above), but then again does wrapping HM in Opeh leaf really improves the taste of HM? After eating so many times, i still do not have the conclusion, so the ball is in your court to judge. For a $3 packet, the serving isn’t very full, so sometimes we rather buy two packs of $2 for one person. The strength of this HM i will say is its chili, the chili is just nice, not too spicy not too sweet.

Being hungry man after coming back from Tekong, i had another helping, Wanton Mee (WM)! This stall that i’ll like to recommend is at the coffee shop behind the Hokkien Mee stall. “Discovered”this WM stall after my mother brought it once and found it was good, and the rest is history, ever since then when thinking of WM will definitly think of this stall. WM may be a common street food found practically in every Coffee shop and hawker centre in Singapore, but then really, to be able to declare as good WM, few stalls come into mind.

Let’s see, the essential items in WM, first: Great noodles, second: Quality Sauce, third: Excellent Char Siew, last: Fantastic Wanton. Basically some stalls may have good wanton or char siew, but their noodles taste like shit. So for me, i personally felt that so long the noodles is great and the rest are okay, the WM is good. For the sauce of the WM, different stalls varies with different type of sauce, but generally speaking there are two types, the clear and the dark-sauce. I do not like dark sauce for WM.

This stall actually fulfills my requirement, the wanton here is average, char siew not bad, but most importantly are its noodles. Their noodles are really good, once u take a bite you will know what i mean, you can feel that the stall owner really has skill in cooking the noodles one. Seriously just eating the noodles without any wanton or char siew is good n’uff for me. And you-know-what? The damage is only $2!! Where can u find such good Wanton Mee at two bucks nowadays?

I can’t remember the name of the stalls, but if you still don’t know, feel free to ask me, i can “direct” you there. lol. Going for dinner later at Seafood station, so stay tune for the post on crabs & gang : )