singaporean cuisine

Sambal Petai Fried Rice


Sambal Petai Fried Rice 

I met my woman against her wishes for dinner. Haha. She wanted her own “me time” which was a foreign concept to me. We are married! What “me time” or “your time“, it is now “we time; all the time“.

Anyway, she said she was gonna eat this special Sambal Petai Fried Rice and that she was gonna eat it all by herself. Haha. I was so not gonna let that happen. I sneaked up on her at Block 848 Yishun Ring Road, at the coffee shop where we would usually eat our favourite Kway chap. 

It seems there was this littlest unknown stall that sold this Fried Rice dish.

When I got here, the Fried Rice just arrived. Just nice. I tried a little. And wow. It was nice. But liao very little (Very little ingredients for my international friends). Literally nothing visible except for the few petai beans and some bits of scrambled eggs and salted fish. In terms of value, lunch at Warung aka Rumah Makan Minang was much better.

Was it Ho Jiaks? It was okay-lah. Would I order it ever again? No way. At $5.50 (SGD) a plate, I rather pay $2.00 more for my Warung.

Warung


Warung

A new shop opened at Our Tampines Hub (not mine; our!) basement one and it was rumoured to be the best warung from the famous Arab Street. Or so they say. Don’t ask me who are they.

I queued up, stomach grumbling, can’t wait man! But the queue was sooooo slow. There were about six persons working behind counters but for some reason they seem quite disorganised. I waited in line for 20 minutes at least! This better be good.

When it finally came to my turn, half of the 20 item display were finished. Wahhh.. must be damn nice. Or maybe someone bungkus 10 packets?!

I ordered a fish in yellow curry, a salted fish with petai beans and a spinach dish. And asked them to add my favourite kuah assam pedas. The salted fish and petai is my favourite. Very different style. I like. The vegetables was so so nia and the fish was delicious.

Someone asked me whilst I was eating, “expensive right?” I thought about it, “hmmm.. yah” $7.50 (SGD) for 3 items. And the portions were just enough, so it was a little pricey.


Minang 

The funny thing was someone else came by and asked me where I got this from. And I replied confidently “Warung, just open at the basement of Our Tampines Hub”. The lady had a bemused look on her face and said “there.. it says rumah makan minang on your plastic bag”.

Minang? What does that mean? The lady shrugged her shoulders and left.

Alamak. 

Boiled Chicken

Boiled Chicken
I would have loved to call it Hainanese Chicken or some other fanciful name, but it is really just that boiled chicken.

It is so simple and easy to do you would be shocked. Anyone can do it.

In fact, the ingredient list is so simple, you have no excuse not to make this dish.

Recipe

Ingredients

1 whole Kampung Chicken (The chicken seller at the wet market will sell it to you. Very easy.)
1 teaspoon of Sea Salt

Method

1. Boil enough water in a kettle and pour it into a large pot. The pot must be large enough to contain one whole kampung chicken.

2. Once the water bath is ready. Turn on the fire until very small. By now you can see water vapour but you can’t see bubbles. This is perfect.

3. Slip the entire chicken (breast side down) into the water bath and go read a book. Remember to add one teaspoon of salt before you go off.

4. Let the chicken relax in the water bath for at least an hour before taking it out to rest for a good 5 hours.

5. By the time it is ready for serving, debone the chicken and if you like you can add light soya sauce and some sesame seed oil for flavouring. That’s it!

Bon Appetit!

Boil chicken over a slow fire

Resting after bathing is important

Salted Fish White Bee Hoon

I was looking for dinner options just before going for a night meeting and I chanced upon this interesting dish at a coffee shop zi char stall. I usually get comfort foods like san lou mee fen but this one looks delightfully delicious.

There are some foods that you just know the combination of the key ingredients would work out nicely. This is one of those dishes. 咸鱼白米粉 or Salted Fish White Bee Hoon, it took them a while to prepare the stir fried noodles. What I thought was really interesting was it wasnt oily, the vercellini noodles were fairly soft and not clumpy and the ingredient portions were just simply excellent.

It was cooked by a master chef for sure.
I enjoyed the noodles thoroughly. Located at a inconspicuous coffee shop at Block 631 Bedok Reservoir road, the zi char stall was like any that you would find in heartland Singapore but the skills that took to fry up this dish was amazing. Try it.