Jalan Besar Memories

After binging for so many days, I decided to have some light hearted YTF for lunch. In order to have the best of both worlds, I ordered beehoon mixed with kway teow. Admittedly these had contrasting textures which felt that they were competing rather than complimenting one another. It's chili was surprisingly good for YTF standards, where it wasn't crazily oily. Although it costs $4.50 for 6 with noodles, the dumplings, fishcakes and meatballs were large in size which made this meal value for money!

Knowing that school is about to start soon, I decided to try every single hawker stall found in the Jalan Besar area. Right beside Cold Pantry was this Lam's prawn noodle (not to be confused with the other Lam), selling noodles that come with huge prawns. This style of prawn mee is the kind one gets at the old Longhouse; just prawns, chilli, bean sprouts and dark soy sauce. It is simple, having straightforward taste of sweet and spicy. At $4 for 4 relatively big prawns, I couldn't complain much except that maybe some fishcakes could add some variety to the taste. There are many prawn mee gems around the area, I guess I just prefer Jasmine prawn mee over this one! I very much prefer the hot and spicy taste rather than sweet and spicy!

On my way to work I saw this "towkay SG50" promotion at Sam Leong road. So, why not? This "towkay" sells nasi lemak, mee rebus, laksa, etc... I decided to give their YTF a try. They had only give you 7 different choices, and the promotion was for 5? Well ordered the beehoon soup together at $3.50. Quite a decent meal, although there were only limited choices the food was legit, and flavorful. The soup base was a little different from the typical ones, a little bit saltier, could still raste the tiny pieces of Ikan Bilis. As they do not have the sweet sauce and YTF chili, the staff gave me a small plate of nasi lemak sambal instead! Pretty interesting way to eat YTF for me, chili wasn't too spicy, just alright. I will back to try out their laksa soon!

Having tried many char kuay teows in my life I understood that good ones are hard to find and usually crowded. This one was hidden at corner of Maude road was one of the more satisfying ones I ever had. At $3, a humble portion was given, the only rants I had were the small clams given, but nevertheless they were still quite fresh! The wok hei was so good and it was not overwhelming unlike some others. The fish cakes were delightful as it had a rich taste in it rather than those tasteless soy sauce coated ones. Opens from 11 to 5 plus Mon-Sat, they even maintain a facebook page!

($10.70) The main aspect of this Don was the teriyaki chicken which felt really good as compared to the normal teriyaki chicken that we normally have. There was no sauce and the teriyaki flavor was imbued into the chicken itself. Particularly liked the chicken skin too, however the onsen egg was just fanciful and wasn't really having much flavor other then being a normal egg to the Don, corn was pretty average too. Looking at their manpower at lunch time I would say that it is best to only go there where the crowd isn't that huge.

This bowl of noodles was found in a stall in a really old school coffeeshop, and we waited like for 20 minutes before ours came. This stall owner sells beef kuay Teow, Hakka Yong tau foo and the bee hoon soup. The Yong tau foo uses a special kind of noodle that resembles in between Mee Pok and Mee Kia, and it was pretty delicious! Okay back to the bee hoon soup, the handmade beef balls were fresh and full of flavor. The taste for the soup was light but might be too light for others. They also have two different chilis and the beef version was really good! They are usually sold out by 1pm though they are to be open till 5pm!

Located in the basement of the berseh food centre, sells really affordable beef kway Teow from $3.50. It comes with large chunks of beef, of at least 3 different parts (not a beef expert here). The beef parts were chewy and the soup had a light and smooth taste to it. Perfect comfort food for me when I can't eat those really spicy stuff for now. Did I mention their chili is pretty much customizable? With different condiments found at the stall front you can increase the kick of the chili to your own needs!

Most Chee Chong Fun these days are all machine produced and this stall at the basement of the food centre still sells those traditionally rolled ones. The Chee Chong funs were tender and warm, most importantly it had a "fresh" taste to it. 2 for $1.60 despite the sign saying $1.50 what can I complain really. The chili was old school and together with the sweet sauce, sesame sauce, sesame, fried shallots and spring onions, it was a mashup of spiciness and sweetness. Will definitely eat it again when craving arises!

It was a path that one took that one cannot just go back anymore. The pork slices were the most tender one I had ever ate, cooked to the optimal temperature, it was incredibly easy to eat. With the free flow of chili available, one is able to dip the pork into the sauce as much as he or she wants. Bonus item was the braised pork rice which my fellow intern recommended. In my opinion it was comparable to those that I had ate in Taiwan and was definitely good. The fatty pork given was sufficient and not overwhelming. At $5.80, it is a little pricey, but it is the quality that makes up for it!

This might look messy but it was really delicious. The chicken wings were what kept the queue going on non stop! They were tender, juicy and well marinated and cooked to the perfect temperature. Together with the rarely found achar-achar and cauliflower, this lunch was both homely and pleasing to eat!

Although incredibly pricey for the Yong tau foo category, the food was really good! Big handmade fishballs, handmade ngoh hiongs, meatballs. The noodles were so good that it could really stand out as a dish on its own! The sauces were above average and the soup was in the acceptable sweet range! Don't say I never warn, use a $10 note to pay in case of a nasty surprise!

It was my first time having this ice cream and it was pretty soothing to the minutes. It wasn't too sweet and the taste was remarkably soya. $1.90 for the cup version while $1.60 for the cone version. Colleagues helped me to get greater portions of the ice cream through ingenious ways! 😉