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The humble minced pork is one of the most common and yet grossly underrated ingredients in Chinese cuisine. Paired with other ingredients, it has a subtly sweet and rich flavour from the pork fat.

Roughly minced pork with pieces of salted fish is steamed in a metal plate. It reminds me of a hand smashed burger patty with a good firm bite but yet remains juicy. The salted fish adds to a savoury and umami laden touch to this dish. I am not too sure but I thought there was a touch fermented beancurd or prawn paste in the dish as well but that may be the salted fish at work!

For a "balanced" diet, I highly recommend their fried bitter gourd with sliced fish.

The bitter gourd is crunchy and subtly sweet. Lightly battered sliced fish belly is added and the dish is finished with a fermented black bean sauce.

I like that you can taste the distinct flavours of each ingredient - the bitter sweetness of the bitter gourd, the rich creamy fish belly and the savoury fermented black bean. Yet, the flavours are well balanced and meld harmoniously.

For someone who hates bitter gourd, I must say that this dish was surprisingly good!

Hong Kong Style Kitchen (港式小炒) is a stall in the Toa Payoh Lorong 4 market run by a Hong Kong Cantonese couple serving da pai dang style dishes.

There is no menu per se but the stall helpfully lists some of their signature dishes on the signboard. They ran out of their signature steamed fish that night so we tried their sweet & sour fish. For slightly over $20, you get an entire deep fried grouper fish. The fish skin was shattering crisp and we were surprised to find the fish meat moist, flaky and steamy hot. The sweet and sour sauce also also well balanced and excellent with both the fish and over rice.

We definitely enjoyed the meal and have been back several times since! The food is always great and affordable.

This is really crunchy and delicious paired with a tangy dip.

A rare zichar stall that sells both types of Hokkien mee. Also two types of chilli lol. As you can tell from the wetness it's typical of zichar dishes. So-so lor.

Salted Egg Pork Ribs 咸蛋排骨 (S$12)
Sambal KangKong 马来风光 (S$8)
Sliced Fish Bitter Gourd Soup 鱼片苦瓜汤 (S$6)

Rice (S$1/ plate)

𝗪𝗼𝗸 𝗠𝗮𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗿 一品锅’𝘀 mission is to serve up authentic and premium zichars dishes all while keeping the price point affordable. We were treated to a feast of their signature dishes and were especially impressed by their 🥓 𝗣𝗼𝗿𝗸 𝗕𝗲𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗥𝗲𝗱 𝗕𝗲𝗮𝗻𝗰𝘂𝗿𝗱 ($𝟭𝟴). On first look, it seemed rather dry but it was actually soft, flavourful and the fermented red beancurd flavours really shined through.

Good things come in pairs and we also liked their 𝗗𝘂𝗮𝗹 𝗦𝘁𝘆𝗹𝗲 𝗣𝗿𝗮𝘄𝗻 ($𝟮𝟲) 🍤, which had chonky prawns coated with salted egg sauce and wasabi sauce. The sauces were rich and delicious and the batter wasn’t soggy despite the sauce which we liked!

Wok master’s 𝗗𝘂𝗮𝗹 𝗙𝗹𝗮𝘃𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗞𝗮𝗶𝗹𝗮𝗻 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗖𝗵𝗶𝗰𝗸𝗲𝗻 𝗙𝗹𝗼𝘀𝘀 ($𝟮𝟲) 🥬 played on the textures of deep fried kailan leaves and stir fried kailan stems and was a crowd favourite.

Their 🥘 𝗦𝗶𝗴𝗻𝗮𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝗖𝘂𝗿𝗿𝘆 𝗙𝗶𝘀𝗵 𝗛𝗲𝗮𝗱 ($𝟯𝟮) was served in a claypot filled to the brim with half a fish head and a generous amount of fried beancurd puffs, eggplants, lady’s fingers and long beans. The curry gravy was so flavourful and not too spicy, you would definitely want to drench a bowl of rice with it. 🤤🍛

(S: $16, M: $24) Pork spare ribs coated with wok master special honey sambal sauce was an interesting sweet-spicy combination, but we weren’t the biggest fans of it.