Cheap Finds

We ordered a pretty basic dish that couldn't go wrong - pineapple fried rice! The dish was really fragrant and slightly sweet, plus we liked that it was served piping hot. The serving size was also huge and it is definitely more than enough to fill your tummies, although we felt that the restaurant could have been a little more generous with the prawns (there were only three). The dish costs $6.50, definitely a very reasonable price for that serving size!

We came across this Thai restaurant and we decided to give it a try as the food were priced rather reasonably! For dessert, we decided to order the mango sticky rice ($5.50) and it was really good. First off, the serving was really generous for the price as we had many slices of mango and the glutinous rice is definitely enough to make you full. We were also pretty awed by the generous amount of coconut milk served and we were sure to finish every drop of it!

The restaurant wasn't that crowded and we could get a seat pretty easily on a Wednesday night. Will definitely be back for their other Thai dishes in future!

We were pleased to find that +886 Bistro has garnered a strong following since our last visit - the restaurant was full when we visited on Friday night and we had to wait a while to get a table!

This time, we decided to share a plate of deep-fried enoki Mushrooms with salt and pepper as an appetiser! While the dish comes with other flavours (e.g., mala, sour plum), we thought we would just go with the basics and request only for salt and pepper, which would be hard to go wrong! Indeed, the dish was great as we were served with around 6 bundles of enoki mushroom encased in really crispy batter and the salt + pepper added a yummy layer of seasoning! As anyone who eats enoki Mushrooms would know, it can be a challenge to chew an entire bundle together (especially since one bundle is pretty huge here) so you may want to break up each bundle into a few mouthfuls!

Highly recommend this side dish as it's very delicious and priced very affordably at around $5++!

We thought that Boon Tong Kee wouldn't be open due to the chicken shortage but thankfully, they were still serving chicken rice! We ordered the signature half chicken, which was more than enough for 3 persons. While we love the fatty layers and the chicken skin, we felt that the meat was a lot tougher now and parts of the chicken tasted a little overcooked. 😰 Nonetheless, the dish was priced pretty reasonably at $12++.

Glad that their rice and chilli sauce are still as fragrant as ever, and this more than made up for the chicken.

We were at See See Lok Lok for supper and we decided to try out their ke kou mian. Note that this is not like the Chinese version of ke kou mian, as it is dry and reminds us of Mee goreng instead! The noodles were springy and cooked in a sweet black sauce and they were really yummy.

The bowl of noodles was topped with a sunny side up, as well as a fried chicken chop and caramelised broccoli! We thought the fried chicken chop was really yummy as the skin was really crispy and lightly salted, while the chicken meat was tender and slightly fat! 😋

For $7, this was a really great dish for supper. Do note that you may need a while to find a seat because the eatery was fairly crowded when we visited on a Saturday evening!

A short walk away from Raffles Place MRT station, Hock Lam is a shop specialising in beef noodles (both dry and soup versions). We personally like the dry version more, so we decided to order the dry beef noodles with beef slices and beef balls for lunch on a weekday! You can choose your noodles and we went with 粗米粉. The noodles were served with slices of beef and 5 beef balls, mixed in a dark gravy with some salted vegetables and ground peanuts added. Our favourite parts of the dish were the beef slices and beef balls, as the beef slices were pretty tender and the beef balls tasted pretty legit and had a pretty strong beefy taste. 😋

However, we thought the gravy could have been a bit more flavourful, as we felt it become overpowered by the taste of the salted vegetables added to the dish. If you don't want your gravy to taste too sour or tangy, remember to tell the stall that you don't want salted vegetables!

The picture shows the large serving of beef noodles, which to be honest, we felt was a little small. The price of the dish, however, is on the high side and you should be prepared to pay close to $10 for this dish. Nonetheless, we felt it was a fairly decent bowl of beef noodles.

As the shop is near Raffles Place, it is packed with the lunchtime office crowd on weekdays so you may have to be prepared to wait a while before you can get a seat.

We were hunting for cheap eats in the Geylang area and we chanced upon L32 Handmade Noodles, which seemed like a really popular stall that has been receiving rave reviews! When we reached on a weekday evening, the coffee shop was somewhat crowded and we had to wait for a few minutes to get an empty table. You may have to wait for a longer period on weekends since the coffee shop really isn't that big to begin with.

While the stall sells handmade noodles in both the dry and soup versions, we decided to go for the soupy ban mian as we wanted something warm for a rainy day. We ordered the meatball version (~$5.00), which comes with a generous serving of ban mian, 6 meatballs, minced pork and a large amount of ikan bilis and fried onions.

The ban mian was slightly chewy and doughy, and we really loved that texture as it felt like authentic hand-pulled flour noodles. Don't worry though, as the noodles are not chewy to the point where they are hard to eat. Meatballs were decent too and the fried ikan bilis really gives the dish some flavour.

The highlight was really the soup, however, as it was pretty light and doesn't taste overly salty like that in most handmade noodle stalls. In fact, we thought the soup was mildly sweet - perhaps it has been simmered with seafood such as prawns for a while? In any case, we thought the dish was an especially comforting meal for a rainy day!

We happened to dine at the food court at Plaza Singapura and once again, we decided to try out the hor fun at Shi Hui Yuan as we found their herbal broths really special! We got the blissful set this time, which comes with a generous serving of duck and chicken meat alongside a braised egg, mushrooms and vegetables. The ingredients were far more generous than the hor fun with braised chicken dish that we tried previously, so we would highly recommend the blissful set if you are feeling hungry!

The dish uses pretty thin strips of kway teow for the noodles and you may wish to mix the noodles in the broth thoroughly before eating so that the noodles will be coated sufficiently with the broth. The broth itself has a light herbal flavour, which makes it enjoyable as it does not have a strong medicinal taste and yet it makes the dish unique!

This was a pretty great meal for $7.50 and we have always found it puzzling that the stall doesn't usually have many customers, even during mealtimes!

For our appetiser, we got the butter bun with condensed milk. The dish was basically a round bun slightly toasted on the outside, before it was cut into half and layered with butter and condensed milk. We really loved the buttery taste although we felt the eatery could be more generous with the condensed milk. It would be great if the exterior could be toasted more so that it would be even more crispy! The appetiser was fairly decent although we like the version at Tsui Wah a lot more. 😅

We heard that the Legendary Hong Kong outlet at Jurong Point is much better and their dim sum is actually great. We might consider paying a visit there instead because to be honest, our experience at the Funan outlet was pretty mediocre.

Legendary HK opened in Funan earlier this year and it serves meals tze char style - you choose a noodle base and decide what other dishes you want to add on, before topping it off with a sauce of your choice.

We chose the thin egg noodles, which came with a pretty generous portion. While the noodle texture was ok initially, it does get a little soggy if you leave the noodles in the sauce for too long.

For the dishes, we ordered the beef brisket and pork cutlet, as well as a fried egg. The beef brisket was one of the toughest I ever had and there were no fatty parts, only cubes of really tough meat. While the pork cutlet was softer, it would have been nicer if the exterior of the meat was fried slightly to give it a crisp outer layer.

We chose the satay sauce, which is presumably the restaurant's attempt to cater to local flavours, but we found the sauce extremely disappointing because it was way too bland. The satay flavour was nearly non-existent and it tasted like a pretty plain gravy.

The dish isn't worth $9 and we don't think the food here is great. That being said, the stall is still pretty crowded during lunchtimes so you may need to be prepared to queue if you want to dine in the stall (it's pretty small!)

We were thinking of a snack to get at Casuarina Curry and for a one-of-a-kind experience, you may wish to try out the sambal sotong at Casuarina! While the sotong was pretty standard, the sambal chilli paste used was EXTREMELY spicy so do beware before ordering it. That being said, we really loved the spicy chilli paste and we found that it can go pretty well with your Prata as well if you like spicy food and you think the curry is not spicy enough! 😝

For $5.50, the serving was fairly reasonable and we loved that the food was served pretty quickly at Casuarina too (everything came within 10 minutes), despite the stall being really busy with the supper crowd.

The main difference between the plaster prata and the egg prata is that for the plaster, the egg is outside and plastered above the dough! This makes the egg taste much more prominent, although we preferred the egg prata because the dough for the plaster prata wasn't as crispy. ☹️ Furthermore, it might be less value-for-money because it costs the same as an egg prata, yet the serving is much smaller. It's still a chef's recommendation so this is definitely worth a try!