Traditional Food

Date: 7/6/2020
No queue on a quiet afternoon.

After so long, I still think Borobudur Snacks Shop Pte Ltd has the best kueh Ambon.

Date: 3/11/19
Queue was short. Had wanted to buy Liho bubble tea but since the nearest outlet is at Tampines mrt, we decided to give itea a try. Bought two oolong latte at $7.80. Couldn’t even finished half a cup though I was really thirsty. Had to throw it away. Terrible👎.

The cups were full of ice, and the drinks simply tastes like diluted sweetened milk.

I had to enquire about the free cup that comes along with 2 same drinks ordered because the staff didn’t mentioned it verbally. Their business must be very goo.
The free plastic bottle with straw was out of stock, so I settled for the (porcelain) Mug. They passed me the Mug in a mouldy box. ☹️
The tea is really not nice. I’m not sure why famous food bloggers say it is not bad.

Edit:
Ok, just go for the normal milk tea. It is much better. 100% sugar is fine. Not too sweet.

Date Visited: 14/7/19 (Sun)

Was looking for a place to have dinner with my family. Browsed burpple app and found this place near my parents’ place.

Crowd built up after I reached at about 7pm. We were second in line.

Parking limited to parallel lots outside the eatery.

Order the following dishes
Their signature herbal Bak Kut Teh (Soup)
Their famous dry Bak Kut Teh
Hua Diao wine chicken
Oyster Sauce Cabbage
Pig trotters
You Tiao
(3X rice)

Use the one for one app and total cost for the food comes up to about $31 only. Really value for money.

Drinks are expensive though. Coke and coke light cost $2.30 each. Ordered 2 aiyu jelly at $3.50 each. So total damage for drinks >$11.

With one for one app I must say really v good value for money for the food.

My parents really enjoyed the food.
Dry Bak Kut Teh and Hua Diao chicken are stir-fried in their gd quality special dark soy sauce and has an intense aroma.

Trotters are tender. The gravy is GAO!👍🏽

BKT soup is herbalicious!!

Base soup for different soup items is the same. So order one or two soup items will do.

Most importantly, the service is very gd. Had multiple refills of soup. Refills came promptly. Refilled soup was equally aromatic and herbalicious! Not diluted Loh! 👍🏽👍🏽

Edit:
6/6/2020
Long Ji Wanton Noodle has shifted to
Bedok North Street 3
Block 509
Singapore 460509.

So happy to have found them again. I still think they are one seriously underrated wanton mee place.

They have updated their recipe for their sauce. STILL Good. But I prefer the old version. I remember it was more fragrant... even better! Hope they switch back!:))

—————————————————————————
This stall, Long Ji Wanton Noodles, used to be located at Kim San Leng Kopitiam just behind Tampines Round Market. They shifted to operate their stall in some industrial area and my hub and I miss their wanton mee since then.

Tried their wanton mee out (grudgingly) by chance one day when Tampines round market was closed for cleaning.
Boy I’m so glad I did! Amazing good!

Their thinner-than-usual al dente mee kia with their unique sauce is CONSISTENTLY GOOD. This is also what I love about this stall. The one who cooks the noodles is usually the Husband, but the Wife cooks just as well.

It is so good you can eat the noodles with JUST the sauce on its own. They have fried wantons for the fried food lovers, but their boiled wantons is what I love! There’s a subtle taste of aromatic “tee por“ (dried sole fish) that permeates their boiled wantons. Their char siew may not have charred bits but they are nice and not the paper-thin kind.

In my opinion, even the Xing Ji Noodles stall (with Super Long queues every weekend) that is located in the Tampines Round Market cannot match this! No horse run! Sadly, there are Long queues for Granny’s pancakes and the briyani stall but not for this good but relatively unknown small stall tucked in a corner.

One day, when we decided to visit Bedok North Street 3 Market for breakfast, I saw a banner advertising for Long Ji Wanton Noodles and decided to check it out. Bang! We found Long Ji again!!💖💖💖

Yes!! Long Ji has shifted out from dunno which ulu industrial area to Bedok North Street 3 Kopitiam!!!

I don’t know the name of the Kopitiam, but it (the Kopitiam) is at the corner of block 539, NEXT TO New Century Food House Kopitiam.

They used to work only the morning shift when they were in Tampines, but now, they are opened till 8pm.

If you were never a fan of wanton mee, you really ought to try this stall out. You will like wanton mee after this. If you like wanton mee, then you should also try this out because this is one up from your average wanton mee. This will set a new benchmark for your wanton mee. This is a mind-changing bowl of wanton mee! I am more of a hawker-centre person than a Kopitiam person but because of this stall, I am willing to head towards a Kopitiam for breakfast instead.

Like Ping Ji Bo Bia of Berseh Food Centre and Soon Wah Fishball Noodles of Newton Food Centre, Long Ji Wanton noodles is a gem 💎 that truly deserves more appreciation, attention and recognition.

By the way, next to the drinks stall in this Kopitiam, there’s a pancake stall that sells crispy pancakes. They spread a thin layer of savoury peanut paste on their thin, crispy pancakes. Makes a good snack! Yum!

As with the rest of their food, this pau is very well-made. It is a small pau that I can finish off in two bites.

Their paus has that fragrant pau smell that we are so familiar with and that I so love. When you try to tear the pau into two, you will realised that DTF’s paus have pau skin that is chewy (more so than at other places). At first sight, the yam paste look pastey and sort of rough, but is actually quite soft. Subtly sweet, the paste is actually quite nice.

Overall, quite a nice pau.

My favourite is still the black sesame pau though.

The beautiful thing about Din Tai Fung is, you can order just one of this to try out. As with the rest of their food, their paus are very well-made. It is a small pau that I can finish off in two bites.

Their paus has that fragrant pau smell that we are so familiar with and that I so love. When you try to tear the pau into two, you will realised that DTF’s paus have pau skin that is chewy (more so than at other places). At first sight, the red bean paste look rough. However, it is not. It is like tasting red beans without the ‘skin’. Not too sweet, the paste is soft and nice. I actually prefer the sweetness level of their red bean paste (rice) dumpling to this.

But I must say this is still a nice pau made with good quality red beans.

My favourite is still the black sesame pau though.

One of the most expensive traditional tau sar piahs in SG.

Love the supremely light, flaky pastry and the smooth, fragrant, and sufficiently sweet mung bean filling.

One of the best as well.

They can be a tad oily as well.

Just outside Chinatown point is Poh Guan Cake House; 531 Upper Cross Street, #01-57 Hong Lim Complex, 050531.

Poh Guan sells excellent tau sar piah that is on par with Thye Moh Chan's standard (in terms of quality/ taste of their tau sar piah), but at a much lower price, maybe around two-third the cost of Thye Moh Chan.

Bought from both and compared... Really can't tell any difference.

You can try both out. Maybe you can.

This is the one of the very few items on the menu here I won't recommend.

I love a good Liu Sha Pau, but the Liu Sha Pau here doesn't work for me. I prefer my Liu Sha Pau to be more savoury than sweet.

Theirs is just too sweet, oily and rich for me. In general, for salted egg yolk dishes, when it is too sweet, the sweetness hits you first, before the other flavours come out. Without the right amount of salt, it is hard to get a balanced salted egg yolk flavour. That's why for salted egg yolk stuff, if it is too sweet, it doesn't work for me.

Anyway just a word of caution.
I made the mistake of biting straight into this and the molten (I should say watery) egg yolk spilled over and scalded me. I did it very slowly but still, the hot lava goodness overflowed. It didn't just burn my mouth, but my fingers and hand as well.

If you love a sweet, watery Liu Sha Pau, this might work for you.

The beautiful thing about this is you can order just one of this to try out.

It is a small and very beautifully-made pau. I can finish this off in two bites.

The pau has that fragrant pau smell that I so love. At first bite, there is a very very subtle hint of bitterness, but this is the only time you will taste that.

The remaining bites you take to finish the pau off will only make you love this pau; more with every subsequent bite. The sesame paste is not too oily nor too sweet. It is very fragrant and has a nutty taste. It looks slightly pastey, but is actually super smooth; not the watery kind that drips out like a lava flow. This is pure unadulterated and smooth sesame paste. Delicious!

The pau skin is not too thick. It is soft and slightly chewy (more chewy than most other pau skin elsewhere).

It is definitely one of the best black sesame (paste) paus I have tried, if not the best.

Din Tai Fung at Tampines Mall is highly popular. If you are dining in a big group, go very early (4plus in the afternoon) or very late (8plus). The peak hour is usually from 5-7plus in the evening. The queue is not too bad if you go in twos. But just be prepared to queue otherwise.

Tried out their traditional steamed layer cake for the first time. It is pale yellow in colour and the layers are clearly obvious, reminding me of kueh lapis (but definitely not as dense/ oily as kueh lapis).

The steamed layer cake here is moist, very soft, and I could peel the layers off, layer by layer. The cake is smooth, yet slightly chewy. The texture reminds me of warm bread that is still chewy, albeit a bit softer.

Subtly sweet, this is a delightful snack!

The fan choy here uses the same wonderful gloopy char siew sauce as the char siew pau and the filling for the chee cheong fun.

The fun choy comes packed with ingredients; 1/4 of a hard-boiled egg, reasonably (thick enough) slices of char siew, fragrant mushrooms (and that delectable gloopy char siew sauce).

The rice is soft, but not mushy.

At first sight, the sauce on the fan choy looks gluey. But it is not.

I actually ordered another fan choy after I was done with the first.

👍👍

They offer prawn siew mai ($3.20 for 3 pcs) as well.
The good thing about this place is you can choose to buy just one (Pork) Siew Mai (for $0.80 or was it $0.90) if you wish to.

Pork used for siew mai is fresh. While the size of the Siew Mai here is not as big as Tiong Bahru Pau's one, I still consider the Siew Mai here pretty good.

Compared to other places where prawns and/ fish are added, their Siew Mai only consists of pork. This is the type of Siew Mai I had when I was young; Very savoury (no sweetness), meaty, but without any porky stench. And the meat is tightly packed as well. Yet, their Siew Mai is soft without being too fatty or oily.

Ho chiak!