Good food doesn't have to come from newspaper

How do you define good food? To me, it is something tasty, and worth the money you pay for. Only when you perceived there is value for the food, then you would keep visiting the stall/restaurant.

Singapore in recent years has evolved to be an eating country. Newspaper and media keep featuring the good food store, people flocking to the store based on recommendation. Believe it or not, not all are really good. When you walk past the hawker centre, there are many stalls with newspaper article. Some "famous" stall even penetrated the coffee shop, setting up many branches of their famous bak chor mee. To me, it is all hype, having many branches does not mean the food is really fantastic.

Today I tried the fish soup at one stall in Bedok area. The stall is just another stall in hawker centre, with no newspaper article. However, you can see the crowd waiting for their food patiently around the tables, sensing there must be something which draws the crowd, I also joined the wait. When the food is served, I realised the reason.

The fish soup maintains the sweetness as other stall. The key draw to the store is plenty of fish slices and vegetables. You can find many slices of fish and different vegetables like lettuce, chai sim, cabbage, all inside the bowl. It is really value for money - balance of taste, cost and healthy. So, the crowd knows which is good.

Eleven fingers curry rice at Bugis

The stall I visited this time is Hainanese curry rice stall at Bugis area.

At 11:30am, the Auntie told me the curry wasn't ready, I need to wait another 30min. By noon, when I came back, long queue was already in front of the stall. I guess this should be quite a good stall.

When it was my turn, I ordered these with rice - cabbage, braised pork and egg.


Curry rice with dishes, gravy and curry (of course)

Hmm... The taste is good. The rice is in perfect balance. The rice is just cooked, the individual grain doesn't stick together yet it is not too hard. The cabbage and egg with yolk not fully cooked were done right. The braised pork was good. All these were covered under the braised gravy and thick curry, it is not difficult to imagine how good it is. I would definitely come again.

The stall is found inside Rong Liang coffee shop which is opposite diagonally of Iluma.

Chili crab at Hua Yu Wee

Just went to Hua Yu Wee (华友园) at Upper East Coast Road with colleague. It was recommended by one of the colleague for seafood. The place is not so accessible if you are not driving. However, looking at the building which is an old colonial house, it gives a refreshing feel. The restaurant seems old enough just by looking at the signboard.

We ordered few dishes like baby kailan, roast chicken, steam prawn and deep fried small sotong. All the dishes taste good, prawn is fresh and roast chicken is crispy. The climate of the night is the chili crab and black pepper crab. The chili sauce is just nice, balance between sweetness and spicy, dip the bun inside to enjoy. Black pepper got its nice fragrance. The crab is big and fresh. Both are good.

Good food come with reasonable price. We spent average $25 per person for this meal