Foodie Paradise

Maxwell Food Centre is one of my favourite hawker centres. It’s the place to go if you want to try out a huge variety of finger-licking local fare food in Singapore.

For Maxwell Food Centre (Part 1), I’ll be writing about some of the food that I’ll definitely try most of the time when I’m there.

Ratings: 4.5/5.0

Here they go:

China Street Fritters

“Wu Xiang Wei Chang” is a local food fare that allows you to choose what you want from a variety of ingredients, usually deep-fried, to go with a plate of beehoon. Sometimes, the beehoon is skipped and the plate of “Wu Xiang Wei Chang” is being eaten as a side dish.

Unlike most of the “Wu Xiang” stall out there, this stall has a very small variety of ingredients to choose from. This is because they have mostly stick to the original ingredients that makes up the traditional “wu xiang wei chang” dish.

The favourite food that I love from this stall is the “Egg”, which is actually a rectangular deep-fried item (left hand side of the photo) cut into many smaller rectangular pieces for consumption. It’s very sweet and it always gives me the feeling that it seems to melt in my mouth on the first bite.

The rest of the ingredients that made up the “Wu Xiang Wei Chang” is delicious. I love the accompanying sauces that come with each order. The accompanying sauces are a bowl of chilli and a bowl of non-spicy and sweet sauce. The chilli tastes especially good. I guess that’s the so-Singaporean thing about me. I just can’t live without chilli.

Next up:

Fried Sweet Potato Dumpling

The Fried Sweet Potato Dumpling are small, almost bite-sized food with different flavours in it, such as the original flavour (meaning no extra ingredients in it, just sweet potato and flour), peanuts, red beans and tau sar. To me, all the flavours taste equally nice so there’s no favourite flavour for me.

The Fried Sweet Potato Dumpling and the Fuzhou Oyster Cake (describing it later) are my favourite “second-helping” food or “deserts” at Maxwell Food Centre. They are the best food to fill your stomach further even after your “main course” there.

Note: Not to mention Fried Sweet Potato Dumpling is almost bite-sized, so there’s less guilt when you popped one or two of them into the mouth after a meal. :-p

Last but not least:

Maxwell Fuzhou Oyster Cake

Basically, don’t be deceived by the look of it. From the photo, it doesn’t seem very appetizing. However, it’s one local fare not to be missed because it’s going to be “extinct”. Ok…that’s a bit of exaggeration, but even if there’re stalls selling Fuzhou Oyster Cake at some other stalls, it just doesn’t taste so authentic and good.

The outer layer is very crispy, and there are oysters in it that makes it taste so aromatic and delicious. It’s one of the foods on my “Highly sinful food” list, but I just can’t resist having a bite of it whenever I’m at Maxwell.

Among the three foods at Maxwell that I’m writing on today, this is my favourite among the three. It’s the food to try when you’re at Maxwell Food Centre.

However, if you dislike the raw taste of oysters, you may not like the Fuzhou Oyster Cake.

The three local hawker food fare are not the only food to try at Maxwell Food Centre. This is only part 1. Well, part 2 will come when I finally find some time to go Maxwell to have my lunch again. :-p

~Sanz

After not taking a single neo print for the last 6 years, I finally took one yesterday.

Some things I realised:

1) Neo prints no longer cost $4. It costs $9 nowadays. [Where on earth do all the teenagers get so much money to take neo prints?!!?]

2) I used to think that “16 shots at one go” kind of neo prints was the best that technology can bestow us with. There are so many gimmicks for neo prints these days. There are not only the usual “face-level” cameras, but also cameras at your “foot-level”. You can edit your neo prints before they are printed, for example, blurring the faces of the people in the neo prints (haha, perfect for anonymous bloggers).

3) I tried peeling the neo prints off like stickers. Then I realised neo prints are no longer in stickers form nowadays (or maybe it still is…I’m just no longer up-to-date with all the latest trends).

4) I’m getting old……

5) Neo prints are actually very fun to take. I think I might have a go at taking neo prints again soon. :-p

~Sanz

Novelty Crispy Curry Puff
Blk 19 Toa Payoh
Lor 7 #01-264

There are four different flavours for the crispy curry puff: Black pepper chicken, sardine, yam paste, and the crispy curry puff, i.e. the first original form of curry puff that’s filled with potato.

Yesterday was my first time trying the crispy curry puff from this stall, and I was immediately addicted to them, so much that I went to get more of them today.

What I like most about the crispy puffs is the fact that the skin of the crispy puff is extremely crispy, and the thickness of the skin is just right. Curry puffs’ skins that are too thick makes you feel like you’re tasting flour, and usually, such curry puffs aren’t crispy.

The fillings in the crispy puffs are so delicious. In fact, for the sardine and the black pepper chicken, you might have sauces dripping out of the curry puffs if they are not held properly. It’s amazing how they can have such delicious fillings inside the curry puffs (including the sauces) and yet still has the most crispy curry puff skin ever!

I have tried three out of four flavours for the curry puff. My favourite so far is the original, potato-filled crispy curry puff, followed by the sardine. Too bad I couldn’t try the Crispy Yam Paste Puff, as it’s always sold out by the time I buy them. It’s such a pity especially since Crispy Yam Paste Puff is my favourite crispy puff in general!

Rose Veranda
Shangri-La Hotel

Orange Grove Road,
Singapore 258350

Operation Hours:
12pm to 6pm on Monday to Friday
12pm to 3pm and 3pm to 6pm on Saturday, Sunday and Public Holiday

Cost: About $40 per person

www.shangri-la.com

Ratings: 4.0/5.0

The place that I was at before I went for the blogger.sg after-party.

To be frank, I was torn between giving it a 3.5 star rating and a 4.0 star rating. The main reason is because I’m usually pretty sceptical about the quality of food served in buffet. Just like the saying “the jack of all trades is good at none”, this can also be applied to food. With such a huge variety of food served, it’s inevitable that there’ll bound to be some dishes on the buffet table that doesn’t taste good. However, the food at the buffet was surprisingly nice, in comparison to some other buffets that I’d gone to, and I love the atmosphere of the place. Thus, I gave it a 4.0 star in the end.

The lovely atmosphere for the place is not a surprise. It’s ultimately one of the best hotels in Singapore. The sofas are nice and comfy, and you’re being served with exquisite tableware and cutlery. Nice palm trees greet you when you look out of the glass panels. The glass panels allows ample afternoon sunshine to shine in, and with the sofas, it’s the perfect place in the afternoon to just kick back and relax, enjoy a cup of tea and some pastries, and have a engaging conversation with friends.

Basically, all I can say is that this place spells out the perfect lifestyle for the tai-tais.

However, I’m not a tai-tai and I definitely can’t afford to be one. Thus I definitely didn’t just have a cup of tea and some pastries while I was there. To be honest, I only had breakfast that day, and had combined my lunch and dinner into one meal for this buffet.

Shortly after I was seated, I was given a menu by the pretty waitress there. I was amazed by the huge selection of beverages there, which is mainly made up of tea (I’m a bit duh here..it’s high tea after all). Basically, the beverage there is free flow. Being totally a coffee person and totally not a tea person, I have no idea what are the best teas to order. I randomly ordered a pot of Nana Morcca mint, a herbal infusion tea. In the end, the tea tasted like toothpaste, so I didn’t finish my pot of tea. But I guess I was the unlucky one, or probably because the tea didn’t suit my palate. I tried the other teas that the others ordered, and they tasted great.

The buffet is supposed to be a local cum English high tea. The main local food they served when I was there was mainly the Indian cuisine. I was actually very sceptical when I first saw the variety of curry there (I think there were about 5 different curries). Somehow I can’t equate Indian cuisine with Shangri-la.

However, the first taste of the curry changed my entire view. It’s delicious. No doubt it’s not the best curry you can taste in Singapore, but it’s pretty good for buffet standards. My only qualms about it was that the curry wasn’t spicy enough, but I supposed it’s because of the crowd that they’re serving, or it may be also because my threshold for chilli has reached a state that can cause discomfort to many.

The salads there were really nice too. I know basically, no one can go really wrong with salads, but to have a salad that makes you feel like taking a second-helping of it is another matter, because that’s what I did in the end.

I also had my first taste of goose liver there. It’s the greyish brown gooey-liked food next to the smoke salmon. I’ll say goose liver tastes pretty ok for me, but a few small bites will be sufficiently enough for me personally, because I don’t think the entire taste will bode well for me if I finish the whole thing.

There’s also mee rebus there, which you have to prepare by yourself. It’s also ok, except I found it too sweet for a mee rebus.

The place also has a pretty decent selection of pastries. The pastries tasted fine, though not exceptional. However, do try the chocolates there. I love them lots! There’s also a strawberry dipped in white chocolate being served when I was there and it tasted marvellous. Two favourite foods of mine combined into one! Probably the next thing I should try should be a chocolate buffet.

After eating, we sat there for a long time chatting, despite the fact that the restaurant was already closed (6pm). The nice thing about the place is that they don’t start chasing you or hanging around you hoping that you’ll get the hint to start leaving.

Sidetrack: Haha, for the Blogger.sg party that I went after my high tea, Agagooga was asking me if I wanted to rate it 0/5.0. I’m not that cruel. DXO actually has a lovely setting and environment, and a centralised location. What’s missing I supposed, is people. A hype and happening crowd I supposed that wasn’t there (nope I’m not referring to the bloggers there. I suppose the bloggers are the only hype and happening people around there!).

~Sanz

A joke I overheard yesterday:

Guess who are the richest people in Singapore?

Answer: The old aunties and old uncles in Chinatown. This is because they can afford to have peanuts and porridge daily for breakfast.

Hint: The recent NKF furore. $600000 is just peanuts.

~Sanz

I think one of the most creative things that an ice-cream vendor has ever come up with must be the mini Cornetto.

Sometimes, when the strong ice-cream craving suddenly hits you, it’s so tempting to start peeling open the wrapper of an ice-cream cone, and start indulging in the lovely ice-cream in it. However, with all the (ah-hem) health education that we are subjected to these days, we’ll all know that ice-cream is high calories food with a lot of fats in it. Hence we should always stay off ice-creams whenever possible, so that we can remain healthy.

From an economics point of view, all these health talk might just decrease the demand for ice-cream, which means fewer profits. It’s a big “oh-no” for ice-cream companies.

But just to side track a bit, ice-cream is one food where the demand will forever be there, simply because who can resist such heavenly food?

Hence, the mini Cornetto is being invented. When the stress hits you, or the sudden craving hits you, and you long so much for an ice-cream, fear not of all the extra calories that you’ll consume. Here comes the mini Cornetto! You can finish it in just a few small bites, and you don’t gain as much calories as compared to eating a normal size ice cream. And you can satisfy your craving!

Yah, so the ability to ward of “evils” decrease, and you start consuming more ice creams simply because you thought that you are not consuming as much calories as before.

In the end, you realise your waistline has grown thicker. Actually, more calories are being consumed since you’re eating more ice-cream on the average now.

Don’t be mistaken, I’ve nothing against Mini Cornettos. In fact, I love it so much, especially the strawberry flavour ones. What I’ve described above is actually what has happened to me. Sigh…simply because I love ice cream too much.

~Sanz

Does anyone even read this blog?

I realise the only people who read this blog are probably those who happen to stumble upon it when they are searching for something using the search engines. Considering the number of entries I blog in a month, which averages out to be less than one a week, this is the inevitable case.

But I’m really too busy to even blog, what’s more to taste the delicious food around Singapore and to critique on them.

Today while I was shopping with my colleagues in the supermarket during lunch, I suddenly have a craving for cereals. I’ve been having either bread or “bao” for breakfast for the past few weeks, so I guess I’m craving for a change.

Thus after work, I went NTUC to shop for my tomorrow’s breakfast, and I got this:

It looks healthy and delicious from the cover. It claims to have a lot of vitamins and nutrients in it, and the calories seem pretty decent and low too (but don’t trust me on this, simply because I’m too tired after work today to do much decent comparison and maths).

I just hope it doesn’t taste healthy.

~Sanz

Ratings: 4.5/5.0

Blk 75, Toa Payoh Lor 5
Song Kee Fishball Noodles

I woke up this afternoon morning with a craving for my favourite fishball noodles. Without having my usual dosage of caffeine and dressed in an extremely sloppy manner, I went to get myself a packet of the noodles. Guess that’s what PMS blues can do to me occasionally.

The photo of the fishball noodles does not look as appetizing as some of the other photos that I have on the blog, but please don’t be deceived by it. I think I was really starving by the time I got home with my packet of noodles that I didn’t have the time and mood to take really good photo of the noodles.

Basically, there are many reasons why I love "Song Kee Fishball Noodles". The first and foremost reason is because of the chilli that they used for the noodles, which makes it really tasty. Hence, I’m forever asking the uncle to add more chilli in my noodles. Besides that, I guessed another reason is because this must be the most lard-laden noodles in Singapore. Most lard will taste good, but for some reasons, the lard used by this stall is especially crispy and delicious. Thus, a word of caution, despite how mouth-watering the noodles are, it’s not the healthiest food around. Preferably, it’s a food to eat only when you’ve a craving for it.

Moreover, for the price of $2.50, it comes with many fishballs, and the fishballs are really bouncy and chewy, making them very yummy. The funny thing is that personally, I hate fishballs a lot. Despite how yummy the fishballs are, I always give away my fishballs if possible. When I was young, my Dad used to buy fishballs for every meal almost daily. Thus I went from a fishball lover to someone who has a phobia of fishballs. By right, I shouldn’t be a fan of fishball noodles, especially since this stall loves to gives an exceptional number of fishballs (There used to be more fishballs in the noodles, but nowadays, they have substituted some of their fishballs with other ingredients like meat balls or tau pok). However, I love this fishball noodles too much to care whether there’s any fishball in the noodles or not.

Of course, the last but not least reason why this fishball noodles is so delicious is because the noodles always taste just right, not too overcooked or undercooked. Furthermore, it’s not just the "guo tiao" that’s delicious, its "mee pok" or "mee gia" will taste equally good. T

his stall is so popular that it doesn’t require any media advertisement for it. I got a feeling the owner does not want any advertisement for it too. Basically, the popularity of this noodle is spread purely by the word of mouth. On weekends, queues are formed for the noodles right from the lunch hour until the supper hour (10 pm?) or perhaps until the stall closes for the day.

Some extra tips on the noodles: The noodles are especially delectable when it’s prepared by its main "chef", which is an uncle with white hair.

~Sanz