Sinho the best neighbourhood tzi char

The next day right after Long Beach i went to a neighbourhood tzi char that produces much better quality and quantity. Service was fine, we didn't have to ask twice for bowls, didn't have to bear with moody staff.
Treat from boy's uncle was great, with loads of dishes that we try to squeeze into our stomach.

First up: Fish maw soup with crab meat.
There were loads of other ingredients: Tofu, Carrots, Black fungus, Eggs Plus fish maw and crab definitely.

Crab meat was plentiful, i had approx 7 crab meat this size in my small bowl.

The table had 8 people and each had 2 servings.

It was as good as shark fin's soup, seafood freshness and smooth.....



2nd dish: 五香and sotong 油条 appetizer

the youtiao was better, crispy on the outside, sweet mayonaise, bacon bits to bring out the 咸香of the fillings.



The 五香lost its appeal because the batter wasn't thick enough to be crispy, the meat was not tender enough and wasn't compact enough to give the bite.

Roast chicken was good, crispy skin, not too fat. The meat was well marinated with 五香 powder. Yes, it is crucial to add that to roast chicken if you do not know. The meat was tender and juicy. Well cooked as even the breast meat wasn't too dry. They even put in effort to place some crispy keropok on top. Good job.

Exact same dish as Long Beach but a neighbourhood stall manage to do a better job.

Baby squid was well fried till crispy but perhaps it was bigger in size, it wasn't as dry as LB's. The colour of the sauce is lighter and most probably it was less charred and didn't taste burnt. Slightly on the sweet side. Sauce was lighter and more aromatic.

My fav dish: I call it the "ORH KUAN" which means yam ring in dialect

The yam was smooth and wasn't too dry, manage to fry it without leaving a tinge of oil. (to do this the stall must be very careful to change the oil used for frying the yam ring very often as the yam soaks up the oil very easily)

The vegetable: Sambal Kang Kong

The very common veg to order. Not too spicy, even suitable for children yet the sambal is very fragrant. Goes well with rice. You can also taste the little dried shrimps added. Good effort.

Boy's fav: Salad prawn

This simple dish can be done at home. Deep fried prawns tossed with mayonaise.

But the mayo sauce is different. It has a sweet and sour taste that is more intense than those off the shelves.

The voted best dish: Hot plate tofu

The hot plate tofu here is wonderful, home made tofu, it is not so eggy like egg tofu and much more flavourful than plain tofu. The tofu is soft and silky, moisture filled. The sauce is "mushroomy", with minced meat and even pork lard! What's more there were even prawns! Best for those who like to eat rice. Like me.

Fishy dish: Deep fried fish with sweet and sour sauce

Fish was normal. Not much taste. But the sauce was fine. Just very common sweet and sour sauce. Nothing special.

They even have a website. I'm amazed!

The pictures are clear.

Auntie note: The prices here are reasonable. On the cheaper side. Except for the fish.

There is a daily promotion that is worth going.

I ate 1 crab with boy the other day and it only costs $20. Good deal because it is on a friday when crabs are only selling for $28/Kg!!!!!!!

Please make reservations during special occassions.

Blk 515 #01-181 Bedok North Ave 2
Tel : 6445 7798 HP 9693 8265

Long Beach Seafood

This is where the originator of black pepper crabs came from.

Visited Long Beach at East Coast for father's day and my papa's real Bday.

There are 2 branches located at ECP.



The father's day set menu that we avoided because normally they have weird combinations. Plus the cheaper sets don't come with crabs.

We went to the one at UDMC. Which is near all the rest of the other seafood restaurants. There is another near Burger King.

First dish for the dinner is Deep fried baby squid.

The Baby squid is fried till crispy and stirred with a sweet sauce.

A pity is the over fried squid. The sauce taste good but after chewing you feel the rough and dry squid in your mouth with a slight burnt taste.

The chef recommendation dish

With a slight resemblance of salted egg crab, this dish is passable because its a tad too salty.

Prawns are fried till crispy and you can easily bite of any part without difficulty.

Can see some salted egg yolks in it but the rest i really have no idea.

It was fragrant and went well with rice. Portion of large came with about 30 prawns which is quite worth it.

Vegetables selection was pathetic. No special effort to design some more creative vegetables. Just the usual kangkong, kailan. We order 奶白 stir fry in garlic. Nothing special just to get our daily fibre intake.

Finally the crabs. My family can't really take spicy food so we wanted salted eggs but they didn't have it.

Thus this is butter crab.

Crabs at $38/Kg

The sauce is sweet and smelt good. Something i felt out of place was an artificial after taste that was similar to mango flavourings. The sauce weren't exactly enough for us to dip our mantous in.

Steamed crab with chinese wine and chicken stock.

This is a more chinese way of eating. The wine gave a pleasant aroma and brought out the fresh seafood taste. There was a layer of egg white similar stuff at the bottom of the plate to keep the crab in place. Good idea.

The crabs for the day was ok. Not too big because we wanted 2 to be cooked in different sauces.

The meat was sweet, texture also fine. However i think not meaty enough. But it is already lucky given that this Long Beach don't seem to serve very delicious food.

We had some dessert after dinner. During dinner we saw some amazing looking dessert and thought we might want to give it a try because the dry ice is so attention grabbing.

Desserts at $4.50 each.

We ordered and realise the dry ice is only for decorative purpose. Doesn't contribute to the taste at all. It was simply placed in a bowl of coloured water with your dessert on top.

We had 3, Black glutinous rice with ice cream, mango pudding and durian paste.

The best was the black glutinous rice. I had eaten it with loads of coconut milk but never will you ever discover that it taste best with vanilla ice cream. Creamy and smooth, the cold dessert melts in your mouth and gives a special texture of the rice husk. Perfect.

The other two was normal. Even when the durian is the specialty it failed to make it worth mentioning.

Overall dinner was bad, the restaurant was obviously understaffed. Servers and waiter, even the Manager had no smiles on their face. We had to wave vigourously before they took notice of us. Had to ask 3 times before they pack our left over. Had to wait for the baby chair. Some waiters even turned away upon seeing your hands (its very obvious they saw me)

Auntie note: no credit card discount, no seats even after you reserve, no smiles, no service, no delicious food, no free parking. Have to pay for tea, have to pay for towels, have to pay for peanuts, have to pay for GST, have to pay for service charge (even though its bad service).

I suggest you visit their neighbours.

Ready mix for the busy people

Was bored at home and thus needed something to do.
My all time passion will be cooking. So a pack of ready cookie mix will do the job for a lazy person.

Betty Crocker is good. Tested and Proven. Look at the packaging, it says "over 300 chips"
But ready in 20 minutes? not really......


The mix requires a stick of butter (half cup) and an egg.
The stick of butter is dependent on the size you want to buy. For me i added 1 stick of 250g butter and choose not to add the egg.
SCS has so far been the best butter I use for baking.


The flour looks something like this. With all the 300 chips inside.

Simply mix it up and you will get a dough of this "density" It should not stick to your hands.


Place it on the tray wrapped with aluminium foil (for the lazy people).
Preheat oven till approx 180 degress. (The directions on the wraper is in fahrenheit so i ignored it)
Bake approx 15 minutes till you see the sides of the cookies turn slightly brown.

I have some of them with sides burnt cos of uneven oven heat :(

But nonetheless, goodness cookies by me. Friends and boy says delicious. Even though its cheat.

Manage to store them in 1 huge tupperware. Can last for long long long time...... Yums.

Auntie Note: The cookies made are comparable to Famous *****. Try it!

The total cost is only less than $9 for i think at least 500g of cookies.

Taiwan Tea

With the recent bubble tea craze here in Singapore, I am once again hooked up.

But its always good if you can get it 24/7 and in the comforts of your own home right?

I got this from cold storage at $3.50 for 6 packets.

Rather expensive but i thought i shall give it a try.



The instructions easy to understand. I did the hot version.



This is unlike the normal 3 in 1 tea, its packaged it a tea bag and you drop it in your cup. This way you feel less cheated because you can see that tea leaves are used!

Miraculously, the tea turns out milky, i guess they added creamer in the tea bags!

Final judging: Tea is smooth, not very sweet. Not thick enough for my liking. But i guess light enough to allow 2 cups a day. The soft aroma of the tea lingers in your mouth a while. What i can't get used to is the colour of the tea, its simple too "white" for you to get the feeling that you are drinking black tea. (Yes, tea like lipton is called black tea)

Worth trying only if you like less sweet, not so thick tea.

Chewy Junior

Just to bring you all some first hand news.
The other i went to Tiong Bahru plaza and the chewy junior over there at basement 1 is currently having a "CLOSING DOWN SALE"

All chewy puffs regardless of flavour included, selling at 80cents each.
Yep, so for those who love chewy junior time to go grab them all!
I personally like those with fillings. The cream used for chewy junior is unlike donuts cream filling.
Less sweet and smoother. I like those chocolatey ones more than the fruity ones.
I bought 20 pieces!

The cream? always so mysteriously captivating.

There is a series of cheese fruity flavours and its my 2nd favourite. Try it when its cheap, if not before you know it, it'll be gone.

lunch with the sister

Had a quick lunch with the peeps and sis with her baby. Lovely wren was so happy to come out. We had thai express cos its like one of the more affordable food at tampines.
I was a bit sick, slight cough and flu so no tom yam for me. So i ordered olive rice instead....
Olive rice was ok. the only ingredients added were a few chicken pieces and egg. The olives were already fried inside the rice as we can see the purplish hue of the rice resembling brown rice.
Something that spoilt the dish is the extra tough chicken pieces that is almost tasteless. The sake of adding just because it is written in the menu.

Was served with this sauce. I thought it was simlar to thai pan's meat sauce but it wasn't. It is merely a salty super salty chilli.

Mango salad on the other hand was good. Even though not comparable to thailand's but it was ok. Mango was of the right sourness and some peanut was added to add to the fragrance. The salad was slightly spicy due to the chilli padi. More onions can be added to add more oomph to the salad.

Was quite skeptical to try this particular desert. Ye shi fu ordered this. Coconut ice cream with red bean paste. If this was sold in a jap restaurant and they name is azuki beans with coconut ice cream perhaps it will draw more customers. But! don't judge by its name because this is goodness! the coconut

Snacking time again.

Was out with Missy Loong to do our hair. We had lunch at Ximen before heading down. This is the first time i took a photo of the signboard. Notice the two words 人民 as a watermark, i tried to search for the website so that can enlighten me but i can't find.

Basically these small taiwan eateries offer good mee sua and chicken chop. Xi men offers a few variation for the mee sua, so for those who dislike "orh" meaning oysters, you can choose to add 鲍贝or crab meat. I am fine with oysters but ximen's are so huge, i dont really dare to eat them.

I had baby clams instead. The mee sua is taiwan mee sua so they are not like those we cook at home. It doesn't become too soft and mushy but maintain at a certain texture. The soup is thick and smooth. I particularly like them cos it taste like shark's fin soup when you add in vinegar and chilli. Plus the chicken shreds were added generously that makes it even better.

After about 4 hours of hair-ing, the hungry girls go and search for food again. Located at compass point, Pie Kia is a good choice. We had 1 pie each, mine was mexican blah blah pie(i dont rmb) and missy loong had chicken mushroom. Was $1 each. The pie was pipping hot and had generous fillings that was savoury and rich. The ingredients weren't mashed up and you can taste the goodness of the chicken pieces.

Pie plus tea? Perfect match. Ya kun was just beside so we sat down and took our afternoon tea.