Ah Tan Wings - Crispy Chicken Har Cheong Gai (Yishun Park Hawker Centre)

Atas Wing Meal $5.20

Ah Tan Wings located at Yishun Park Hawker Centre probably needs no further introduction since its food and even the background of how the owner created the dish is in many articles online.

To keep things short, the owner of the stall is 27 years old and he had experienced hundreds of variation and methods, ranging from seasoning, heat control to frying techniques. He participated in events to get feedback and learn about cooking techniques as cooking as a business entity is different from cooking as an individual since different equipment are used and you need to fry more at any one time. Kudos to him for his endurance and perseverance.

Today, he is selling as many as 900 chicken wings every day! Naturally, after knowing all these, I was so hyped up to try the chicken wings.

I visited on a weekday lunch time. Surprisingly, the hawker centre was not crowded. I wonder how the stall owners survive on weekdays. Even a popular stall like Ah Tan Wings, had just 1 person in the queue.

Ah Tan Wings basically sells prawn paste chicken wings, prawn paste cutlet, rice and egg. Since there was no queue, I received my order within 5 minutes after ordering.

Atas Wing Meal $5.20

Atas Wing Meal $5.20 consists of 2 shrimp paste wings, aromatic rice and egg. Yes, you read this correctly, aromatic rice! It is essentially plain rice.

The prawn paste chicken wings are very crisp and well marinated. Even the meat nearer to the bones has prawn paste flavour. Definitely, one of the tastiest prawn paste chicken wings I have tried. As for the downside, I felt that it was greasy, i.e. on the oily end. As for the rest of the ingredients, they were just average.

Atas Cutlet Meal $6.50

Atas Cutlet Meal $6.50 consists of a big chunk of prawn paste cutlet, aromatic rice and egg. Again, the cutlet was very well marinated and crisp on the exterior. However, it was very greasy. I am not sure what when wrong, whether it was the heat technique or the marination mix. All I know was that I was extremely disappointed by the dish. Needless to say, we did not manage to finish it.

Overall, I do not understand the hype. I like the wings for its taste. But for $1.70 and considering that it is on the oily end, I will give it a skip. As the saying goes, one man's meat is another man's poison.

Ah Tan Wings - Crispy Chicken Har Cheong Gai (Yishun Park Hawker Centre) 

#01-40 Yishun Park Hawker Centre 

51 Yishun Avenue 11 

Singapore 768867 

Opening Hours: Tue to Fri, 11am – 2pm & 5pm – 9pm 

                           Sat to Sun, 11.30am – 2pm & 5pm – 8.30pm 

                           Closed on Sun

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Kimdo BBQ 金都串串烧 @ JB City Square (Malaysia, Johor Bahru)

Lau Shu Fen Noodles (Silver Needle Noodles)

If you are someone who frequently cross the causeway using public transport (i.e. bus), you would likely know about Kimdo BBQ 金都串串烧 . Kimdo BBQ is a small stall located at City Square which you would need to pass if you are entering the mall after clearing the customs. It is popular for its signature BBQ Single Bone Chicken Wing and Lau Shu Fen Noodles (Silver Needle Noodles). Kimdo BBQ as its name suggests is a BBQ specialist. Their stall in City Square is in fact a BBQ expresss stall offering 15 to 20 BBQ items. Their main outlet is located at Taman Sentosa.

Lau Shu Fen Noodles (Silver Needle Noodles)

I heard so much about their Lau Shu Fen Noodles (Silver Needle Noodles) but have never tried it before since its quite troublesome and heavy to pack this back into Singapore. Fortunately, I got an opportunity recently. 

The Lau Shu Fen Noodles (Silver Needle Noodles) was delicious. It was filled with generous serving of ingredients ranging from salted fish, cabbage, mushroom, minced chicken and shallots. The soup was tasty too! 

Kimdo BBQ would among the first few stalls I'll visit. I think the concept of a barbecue pitstop in a shopping mall is pretty unique. You’ll get to choose from about 15 to 20 items for the staff to barbecue on the spot, ranging from the normal fishballs to the broccoli.

Single Bone Chicken Wing, Seafood Tofu, Curry Quail Eggs and Hokkaido Scallops

For the BBQ items, after you have ordered the items, the staff would BBQ them on the spot. Our favourite items are the Single Bone Chicken Wing, Seafood Tofu and Hokkaido Scallops. The chicken wings are unique as they are flat and just have a single bone. It was easy to eat it and the meat was full of smokey fragrance. Their homemade chili complement it perfectly even though it was so spicy. 

This is a stall that I always patronise for their BBQ items whenever I cross the causeway via public transport! If you have not tried this yet, you should! 

KIMDO BBQ 金都串串烧 @ JB City Square(Malaysia, Johor Bahru) 
J3-19B City Square, Jalan Wong Ah Fook
80000 Johor Bahru, Malaysia
Tel: 07 207 2838
Opening Hours: Daily 10.30am to 10pm

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Eng Kee Fried Chicken Wings 榮記炸鷄翅膀 (Commonwealth)

Eng Kee Fried Chicken Wings 榮記炸鷄翅膀 is a well known stall located at a old coffee shop in Commonwealth Drive HDB estate. 

Eng Kee Fried Chicken Wings is essentially an economic noodle stall offering bee hoon, noodles, sausages, eggs, fishcakes, otah, luncheon meat, vegetables, etc.

This stall is well known for their fried chicken wings. There is a perceptual queue at this stall even during non-peak hours. It has been said that the original owner sold the stall off and has opened a new one at Red Hill Food Centre. 

I have heard so much about this stall and has been wanting to try this for ages. Since I was in the area, I decided to try this for myself. I ordered the noodles, bee hoon and two pieces of fried chicken wings. 

The noodles were average, a waste of calories. As for the chicken wings, they were the bomb! The chicken wings were big, meaty, tender and succulent! Very well executed frying technique as they were not greasy at all. The wings were just so juicy. At $1.20, this is just so value for money. The chicken wings at Eng Kee Fried Chicken Wings 榮記炸鷄翅膀  is a must try! 

$1.20 each

It was so good that I queue up again and packed  8 pieces of chicken wings back home. I envy those who live at the HDB flats nearby. I would practically be buying this every week if I am staying there.

Eng Kee Fried Chicken Wings 榮記炸鷄翅膀 (Commonwealth)

117 Commonwealth Drive

#01-711

Singapore 140117

Opening Hours: Mon to Sat 12pm - 10pm

                         Closed on Sun

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Chap Chye Peng Stall (Golden Mile Tower)

I had my lunch and was exploring Golden Mile Complex for the first time. Little did I know that the basement was linked to Golden Mile Tower! At Golden Mile Tower, I saw a unique scene. There was a queue in front of a stall called "Dessert House". There was around 10 person queuing in front of the stall and the queue was not moving at 1220pm on a weekday. Being a kaypoh (busybody), I stood around and observed. This queue was not moving because the stall had not even opened for business yet.

 At around 1230pm, the stall opened for business.

The queue had already stretched to more than 20 persons long. I had to go up to level one to get a good picture of the queue. If I had not eaten and was not full, I highly suspect that I would be in the queue. Nevertheless, I made 3 other trips just to check out this stall for myself; why there were so many people queuing and waiting patiently.

On certain days, the queue moves very slowly. While on other days, the queue was fairly quick. Once, I queued for 18 minutes when there was just 5 persons in the queue. On another day, I queued for nearly half an hour when there was 19 persons in the queue.

Ps: Once, there was 32 people queuing up!

Now to the food! This stall sells Chap Chye Peng / Chai Peng (variety of dishes with rice). Amazingly right? Chap Chye Peng can be found everywhere! Yet this stall commands such a following! The variety of dishes are not a lot compared to others which I have seen. But a unique selling point (USP) here is the free flow soup! And its not any just MSG soup! There are ingredients in the soup! Customers can also help themselves to the curry sauce.

$4.30

After I tried the food for the first time, I knew instantly why this stall managed to command such a following. The food here are simply delicious! Comfort home-cooked food that simply warms the heart. The food here just taste so good. The steam egg was so decently executed; soft, wobbly and tasty. The fried chicken wing was well-marinated, tasty and well fried. If it was more meaty, it would be perfect. The curry sauce was addictive and goes well with plain rice. The fried vegetables which I hesitated in ordering was surprisingly good. Unlike other Chap Chye Peng stalls, this one was so fragrant, with hints of shrimp / hae bee along with sweetness of the vegetables.

Sweet corn, Carrot and Onion Soup

The icing on the cake was the soup which was free! Inside the pot of soup, there was sweet corn, carrot, onion and pork. These were the ingredients used to cook the soup. The soup was not salty and had a distinct (naturally) sweetness from the corn, carrot and onion. Very comforting bowl of Chinese soup. What a bonus!

$5

During my third visit, this was what I ordered. I ordered different items compared to my 2nd visit on purpose for comparison sake.

The curry sauce was the same; delicious. But the chicken given was just so-so. Probable because of the chicken part given. The vegetables was really just so-so (i.e. average). The fish cake was decent and I believe you can get this fish cake at most places.

Lotus Root Soup

 Just when I thought the food was just average, the free soup just wowed me!

Lotus Root Soup

This Lotus Root Soup was cooked with cuttlefish and pork. This soup was just fantastic! The lotus root flavour kept me longing for more. In addition, the plus was the pork meat came with soft bones (collagen).

$4.30

 This was what I had for my third visit. I arrived quite late at around 130pm.

The chicken wings was as good as what I had during the first time. They will always fry a new batch of chicken wings when the current one finishes. This is a huge plus point as no one likes soggy and cold chicken wings! The fried bittergourd with egg was excellent and well fried! No raw bittergourd taste. As for the braised egg, you can easily get that elsewhere.

This time, the free soup was radish and carrot soup. It was cooked with pork bones and red dates. I am really impressed with their soup. During each visit, their soup has never disappoint me! This is coming from someone who is particular about saltiness!

The value for money, delicious home-cooked style food and free flow soup are probably the factors which draw such a crowd to this stall during lunch time at a ulu (out of the way) place. These are also the reasons why the some of the office crowd who know of this place bother to walk from The Concourse to this stall!

Now you know where to go if you are looking for 3 dishes with 1 soup (三菜一汤) without breaking the bak! Glad to find this hidden gem. If you intend to visit, do note the opening hours appended below.

Chap Chye Peng Stall <Hidden Gem> (Golden Mile Tower)

Dessert House

#B1-62 Golden Mile Tower

6001 Beach Road

Singapore 199589

Opening Hours: Sun to Fri 1230pm to 5pm

                          Closed on Sat

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Vanda Terrace (Orchid Country Club) 2nd Post

Hainanese Chicken Rice $8.50

This is my second post on Vanda Terrace at Orchid Country Club. The first post can be found here. In a few words, Vanda Terrace is essentially an Alfresco dining outlet serving local cuisines. 

A notification system for calling the staff or asking for the bill. This is becoming common in F&B outlets with the tightening of the foreign labor employment. If you take a look around you whenever you eat out, you would likely have noticed the after effects of such a policy. Many F&B outlets have close down because of labour or rental issues. Well.. lets go back to the food. 

Hainanese Chicken Rice $8.50

Since I was here for lunch, I had to order the Hainanese Chicken Rice $8.50. It has been years since I ate this chicken rice. The reasons being that it would normally be sold out after lunch time and I visit during dinner time. The Hainanese Chicken Rice consisted of chicken rice, steamed chicken, soup and garlic-chilli dip served in individual bowls/plates. 

Hainanese Chicken Rice $8.50

Vanda Terrace does not serve roasted chicken. They serve only steamed chicken. The steamed chicken was cooked perfectly; so succulent and delicious. In addition, the portion given was so generous and meaty (not layered). As for the chicken rice, it was fragrant and not overly oily. The Hainanese Chicken Rice did not disappoint. Yummy! 

Laksa Paradise $7.90

Every time we visit, someone is bound to order the Laksa Paradise $7.90. 

Laksa Paradise $7.90

Consisting of thick beehoon, prawns, cockles, fish cake slices, chicken, quail eggs, bean sprouts and dried beancurd, this laksa was another dish that never disappoint. It may not be the best, but it was certainly above average. Worth the calories. 

 Javanese Chicken Curry $9.90

Another regular item which we frequently order is the Javanese Chicken Curry $9.90. 

 Javanese Chicken Curry $9.90

The main item in this dish is the Chicken Leg in cooked in Javanese curry. There are so many types of curry. This version is spicy, sweet with a hint of lemongrass and cinnamon spices. The curry itself is very addictive and it goes perfectly with plain rice. As for the chicken leg, it was cooked just right. So tender! 

Oriental-Style Chicken Wings

Oriental-Style Chicken Wings which was crispy and well marinated.  

A breathtaking view of the Golf Course from our table. =D 

Vanda Terrace (Orchid Country Club) 
1 Orchid Club Road
 Golf Clubhouse, Orchid Country Club 
Tel: 6750 2200 
Opening Hours: Mon to Tue 730am to 10pm 
                         Wed to Sun 730am to 11pm

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New Ubin Seafood (Sin Ming Road)

Soft Boiled Egg Special $9

New Ubin Seafood is a restaurant which first established in 1986 on Pulau Ubin before to mainland; Singapore. The restaurant has relocated to several locations before settling itself down at a quiet corner of Sin Ming Industrial Estate where several car workshops are located. With its location, parking at New Ubin Seafood was a breeze as there was lots of carpark lots with free parking. 

New Ubin Seafood as its name suggests, specialises in seafood and zi char. In additon, it also offer several localise international cuisines such as the US Black Angus Ribeye Steak, Soft Boiled Egg Special (with truffle salt and foie gras) and German Pork Knuckle.

We made reservations and visited on a Sunday. There was a air-conditioned room with around 5 tables. The rest of the tables were located in the restaurant or at its facade without air-conditioner. 

3 different types of chilli for the meal. 

Soft Boiled Egg Special $9

We ordered the Soft Boiled Egg Special $9 (per portion) which consisted of soft boiled egg (60 minute slow cooked egg) with truffle salt and foie gras. The mixture of the 3 ingredients caused a harmony of flavours when it was all mixed up - runny egg yolk with foie gras. A unique experience. But being a typical Singaporean, I still prefer my soft boiled eggs mixed with pepper and soy sauce (aka the Ya Kun style). This was the second most expensive dish if you calculate the orders by per person. 

Har Cheong Kai $18

The Har Cheong Kai (Prawn Paste Chicken Wings) was the best dish of the night. It was well marinated with prawn paste and well fried. Great flavour and tender and juicy. 

Hot Plate Beancurd $16

This was the Hot Plate Beancurd $16. 

Oyster Sauce Baby Kai Lan $12

The Oyster Sauce Baby Kai Lan $12 was a too oily. 

Angus Ribeye Steak served with Potato Wedges, Caramelised Onions and Fried Rice $72 for 600g

This was their signature US Angus Ribeye Steak served with Potato Wedges, Caramelised Onions and Fried Rice $72 for 600g at $12 per 100 gram.

Angus Ribeye Steak served with Potato Wedges, Caramelised Onions and Fried Rice (600g) $72

The Potato Wedges were average. Personally, I preferred the Caramelised Onions. 

 Angus Ribeye Steak served with Potato Wedges, Caramelised Onions and Fried Rice (600g) $72

We requested for the US Angus Ribeye Steak to be well-done as some in our group may not like it if it was medium-rare or medium-well. The beef was cooked with just salt and pepper. We all thought that this was just average and not fantastic. 

Black Angus Ribeye Steak served with Potato Wedges, Caramelised Onions and Fried Rice (600g) $72

The Fried Rice; rice fried with charred fat and burnt ends from the steak which was highly raved about was a disappointed. Such a waste of calories. The fried rice was oily, hard and not fragrant.

Fried Hokkien Prawn Noodle $24

As we were still hungry and not satisfied, we ordered a plate of Fried Hokkien Prawn Noodle $24 (the biggest size). The fried hokkien mee was served with prawns, baby squids, clams, pork belly and lots and lots of pork lard. It came with a lots of soup stock rich in seafood and lard flavour. It may not be the best, but it was one of the better dishes at New Ubin Seafood.

If you are interested in crabs, New Ubin Seafood (Sin Ming Road) is having a promotion where you can order two crabs and get the 3rd crab free.

Overall, we were not particularly impressed with our dinner at New Ubin Seafood. The service could be improved. On both occasions when we were ordering our food, we had to repeat it twice. One to the staff taking the order and next to another more experience staff who came over with clarifications. In addition, when we had queries on certain dishes or for recommendations, we had to wait for a more experience staff to come over. Food wise, we were disappointed with some of them. The better ones were the Har Cheong Kai Chicken Wings and Soft Boiled Egg Special.

New Ubin Seafood (Sin Ming Road)
#01-174 Block 27 Sin Ming Road
Sin Ming Industrial Estate Sector A 
Singapore 575680
Tel: 6466 9558
Opening Hours: Mon to Fri 11am – 2pm, 530pm – 1030pm 
                         Sat & Sun 11.30am to 2.30pm, 5.30pm – 10.30pm
Website 

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