Tau Huay Tarts, Tanjong Rhu Pau and the 3 Greedy Pigs!

My husband, my sister and I are like partners in crimes for FOOD! We have been doing little sinful trips (within sg.. :P) these past 2 weeks. yikes!

It all started from my craving for Tanjong Rhu pau. My husband's brother-in-law bought it back one day and got me hooked to its mini cha siew pau. I was craving for it 1 day over at my parent's hse and mentioned it to my dad. My dad was so surprised that I forgot I used to eat it all the time when I was young. He said there are so many branches around these days. He say he will bring me to the original stall to buy it. So off we go, after church to the place near old aiport road.. forgot the exact name. Turns out! It doesnt open on sunday!! Dammit! Wat a disappointment! My husband then mentioned they have 1 at geylang.. we went to geylang and found it has moved!! arghz!! wat a day that was. Due to us having other plans after that, we forgo with our pau hunting.. this leaves behind a very unsatisfied me.

Then the next week, i started to have a new craving... my good old tau huay tart. We were all lazying at my parents hse on a saturday afternoon.. then I turned to my husband and begged him to bring me to selegie to buy me my fav tau huay tart!! He agreed. My sister tagged along and told me something about mixed tau huay tart her colleague buy for her. I insisted they only come plain.. she insisted otherwise. Turns out.. they really sell mixed flavours tau huay tarts! So I bought a box of original and a box of mixed tau huay tart. My sis on the other hand went selegie beancurd stall and bought tau huay drink, tau huay, you tiao and on my request the salty crystal bun. Mind you! We jus had lunch like an hour before we left hse. Oh my! sinful!!


Here are the mixed tarts I never knew existed! suaku me! haha! Auntie there said its very popular! I took 1 of the last 2 boxes.



However, I dun fancy the mixed flavour tarts that much. The combi is wierd I still love my plain original tarts!

And ydae! We finally got to buy our tanjong rhu pau. This time round, after my husband had his lunch, my sis and I bugged him to bring us go buy tanjong rhu pau! haha! the poor guy! This time I finally got my pau and ate it! We had to buy a couple more boxes as my relatives are coming to visit my dad who recently had a mini op. Anyway.. the pau is really expensive! 60 cents for 1 mini pau! oh my! 3 of us were cash-strapped (why they dun take nets or credit? keke) and pooled our cash together to buy 4 boxes (1box has 10 paus) of cha siew bao and 1 mixed dao sa and leng yong bao. haha! so kelian. We still had a few dollars left and went to kallang macs drive-through to treat ourselves with milk-shakes. ANother sinful saturday.. oh my!




The mini 60cents addictive cha siew pau!


3 mini paus! (leng youg pau and dao sa pao are 50 cents each)


I m missing it already~ it was finished.... (i only had 4!!!! so small!!)

I wonder wat sinful acts will 3 of us get into again next week... haiz.. FATTY ME!

Chicken Rice cum Traditional Steamboat @ Golden Mile Tower

August's makan place was simple. Guess they are still nursing their pocket from their June's expensive meal. Perhaps its also showing signs that times are bad.

I nearly gave up joining the rest this time round as I finished work rather late. They were so nice to wait for me to start dinner. They must have been famished! (It was 8.45pm by the time I reached) Turns out there were 2 others later than me! But we started dinner without them as we were unsure of the time they will arrive.


When I arrived at Golden Mile Tower, I went straight to the basement level as I told it was at B1. I scanned around.. most of the shops are closed and the place seem dead. I thot I was at the wrong place. I turned into a corner to find it entirely different. There it was.. the restaurant... bursting with tables and tables of pple digging into chix rice and steamboat. I was welcomed with a strong fragrant smell of chicken rice as I went to look for my friends admist the crowded restaurant.




The moment I sat down.. food was served. Very prompt service! (think they waited very long to start serving our table.. :P) Chicken soup was poured into steamboat pot and the heat turned up.. 4 plates of veggies, 2 plates of raw mixed seafood, 1 plate of raw beef, 2 plates of chicken (1 and a half chix in all), 12 bowls of chix rice and 1 bowl of 3 raw eggs filled the table. The table was overfilled with food. Very good for hungry pple like us.
















We also had 2 plates of hainanese pork chop which I loved!!! So crispy and tasty!! However, for the rest of the food, it wasnt that fantastic.. the rice smells good.. tastewise.. normal.. the same goes for the chicken. Steamboat? still ok.. simple.. cant go wrong.. food quite fresh. We quite love the beef which was very tasty and tender. Price wise, it was reasonable. Less than $20 per person, considering all the food that we had.

The concept is very similar to Yet Con at purvis street, a place I went with my gal friends a couple of years back. (see post here). I think chicken and chicken rice wise, I think Yet Con will be better. I cant wait to go back Yet Con to try again to compare. Trying hard to convince my husband now... or maybe I should get my friends to organise a date to go back there again!

The wantan mee .. worth waiting...

My family (or rather my dad) has this thing for wantan mee or as he calls it "kolo mee". In fact, all his brothers and sisters and my granpa can eat it at least once every 2 weeks. There are 3 places of wantan mees stalls which the Tan Family are die-hard fans of(and we have our own names for them).. first is "Joo Chiat kolo mee" (known famously as fei fei wan tan mee), second "eng ko kolo mee" (named as such because the cook's name is Eng) and the last "Lor Mydin kolo mee" (its a wan tan mee stall along Lorong Mydin).

We used to patronise fei fei wan tan mee alot until after the old stall owner passed away then we frequent it slower and then hardly ever. Standard has dropped alot and it has become overly commercialised. I can still rem when I was a young gal.. where we had a long tables of 20 pple (family outing) waiting just for feifei wantan mee. We always had it with the rojak there. Nice!

Its only within these 2 years which I start to fall in love with eng ko wan tan mee. I dun rem eating it when I was young but I always hear my dad and uncle toking abt it. Apparently this wantan mee has killer chilli. So anyway, dad started tao-baoing it for me. U might think tao bao(packet) noodles will not be nice and be soggy. For his wan tan mee, u r wrong. The packed noodles of cos become "pong" (expanded) means i have a bigger pack to it. But the noodles is still al-dente and has soaked up all the flavours. ANd his chilli sauce! 1 teaspoon can kill! but yet, the excitement of the spiciness, i cant resist not to add it. Only thing.. his cha siews and wan tan are not much of a rave. Who cares? the noodles itself is making me crave for it again.

It was only until last month I managed to go down dunman food centre to eat it there. The place seems empty YET we had to waited for at least half hour. Waiting is no issue for my family when it comes to food we love. We used to wait for an hour for 85 ba chor mee.. and nearly every weekend an hour for simpang bedok ah lim mee pok! Even my husband (who comes from a family who hates waiting) also waits patiently with us for his meepok. keke! Greedy husband!


Ok back to noodles, the noodles came abit wet and messy. Guess good food matters over presentation for old stalls like his. It still taste good but i really prefer it packet. I thot I was being wierd until i brought my husband down to eat it himself and he agrees with me. So I should jus wait for dad to tao bao for me next time for i can minus the waiting time, get a "bigger packet" for the same price and taste nicer! MMmmm... sounds evil! keke!




The stall at dunman food centre.

Seletar Hill Restaurant

Just as I thought I should eat something light and simple, my dear husband decided we should bring his mother out for something nice for Sunday lunch. We watched a TV variety show together that recommended this place. He promised his mother that he will bring her there. N he wanna fulfill that promise! Wat a filial son!

(For reviews and details: http://www.hungrygowhere.com/singapore/seletar_hill_restaurant/)



Tea smoked Duck.. crispy skin and tender meat.


Some brinjal thing. Everyone else say this is nicely done. I dun eat brinjal... cannot comment.. :p


Fried wan tan! Kinda like it.. it taste freshly made. Pity.. think the chef trying to creative and fill each one up generously with mayo. Not everyone welcomes the mayo.. i dun mind the mayo! So i end up eating most of it.


Garlic chicken. Dun taste very garlicky.. instead the sauce taste kinda tangy sweet. Meant to be an appetiser.. more like a main dish to me


Claypot toufu... normal.. normal...


Their famous Dong Po rou... very tender meat. But we cant help comparing it to our normal kong ba which we love although they are different. No wow factor to us.


The nice soft chinese bun for the dong po rou


My chinese sandwich... I still loves my mummy's Kong Ba Bao... I need my chilli!!! belachan!! cannot eat the chinese sandwich without the chilli!!!


The fried rice... fragrant and not oily.. and with crisy little ikan bilis added.


Chendol dessert.. $1.90 (some offer... eh.. Normal too)


Mango pudding.. pretty good for a $1.90 dessert..

Will I come back again? I doubt...no dishes that entice me to...

The Patissier.. Steamboat dinner

It has been a long while since my friends and I had steamboat dinner. We decided to have it over at my parent's place (at the lift landing) like we used to. None of us have a place big and comfy place for a steamboat. Damnz! I need to have my own place soon!!!

The occasion? It's my friend's Sherrie's bdae! We bought a cake for her from The Patissier! Earl Grey Cheesecake.. chosen by the birthday girl! I got a shock when I collected the cake! So small! 40 bucks for a 500g cake. We reckoned cheesecake tends to be denser and heavier! The cake was rich and creamy with a tinge of earl grey taste. Yummy. The birthday gal loved it! Maybe I have not always been a cheesecake person.. dun fancy it that much.. but I am aiming one of its choc cakes! I wun mind a rich chocolate cake anyday!




The steamboat stock was cooked by my big chef husband this time round! He told me can use soyabean, pig bones and ikan bilis and boil for several hours can make a delicious steamboat broth. We also added some dried scallops as recommended by my mother. We simmer it for nearly 6 hours. Everyone loved the soup.. claims its yummy! haha.. we usually buy chicken stock and tom yum paste from the supermarket for our steamboat! O!

As usual.. our steamboat is always piling with food!











Think I need to go on extreme diet soon!

Seafood Kitchen @ Elias Mall

For the month of July, we headed to somewhere cheaper for our end of the month gathering. The decision was to feast on crabs at some zi char place. BC recommended a place which my family often frequents for crab beehoon!

This zichar place used to be at the open-air coffeeshop located also at the mall. Due to some reasons, the zi char place was moved to the aircon coffee shop. We tried the new zi char that took over open-air coffeeshop. (apparently they had a couple of the old cooks). We also tried the original zi char at the new coffeeshop. Both zi chars has the same kind of famous dishes. The conclusion by our family is dishes wise (yam ring, veggie with beancurd skin and butter squid) the new zichar place is better.. but for crabs, stick to the original! :P! Our family loves the crab bee hoon!!

Ok! Enough of long story! Back to our july's feasting!

My clever husband ordered 12 crabs for just the 9 of us. He claims he can eat 6 crabs by himself (i reckon he was toking about smallie crabs!). Anyway, he wanted to book 10 large crabs! Luckily...the lady say there were no large crabs that day.. only have medium smaller crabs that day. My dear husband wanted to have increase to 15 crabs! Madness! The so-called medium smaller crabs aint small at all. Thank goodness we insisted to stick to 12 crabs.

The crabs are sold at $38 per kg. The 12 crabs are weighed 15.6kg in total! Means its less than $60 for each! Not cheap.. but at least not extravagant! 6 female crabs and 6 male crabs: 4 crabs - crab beehoon, 3 crabs - salted egg (highly recommended by the waitress) and the last 5 crabs - black pepper!

The waitress and cooks knew how to serve the food in right order; first crab beehoon, then salted egg and then black pepper. This allows us to savour the flavour of the crabs properly. The waitress were also prompt with their service.. keep changing our plates as we pile it up with crab shells. Pity.. they served the black pepper crabs so fast.. by the time we tried to finish the rest of the crabs and came to them, it got a bit cold.


The crab beehoon! The best part of the dish? The bee hoon of cos! Absorbing all the sweetness of the crab! Crab was fresh and sweet too!


Enjoying my bowl of bee hoon with the roe I "kop" while scooping the gravy! keke!


This was an excellent recommendation! This was my first time trying it. No strong distinct salted egg yolk taste. Instead a sweet creamy taste feels my mouth!


I think the crab are deep fried in batter first before frying in with the salted egg sauce. There's curry leaves too! Fragrant!


The black pepper dish! Our final round! It was rather cold and I was very full by the time I came to this dish. Was not very enthu towards it but I had this before and thot it was pretty good. The black pepper was not very whelming or over spicy.



My husband deshelling his black pepper crab!


Crab roe overloaded!!


After spending so much, they gave us a complimentary dessert. Longan Sea coconut.. refreshing! Nice way to end the dinner!




Orient Succee Coffee House
Seafood Kitchen Pte Ltd
Blk 623 Elias Road, Elias Mall
#01-01
S 510623