Din Tai Fung

26th August, Wednesday

The outlet at Junction 8, forever with people queuing outside. Reached there at 7pm and had to wait half an hour for a seat.

Steamed pork dumplings (小笼包)

Din Tai Fung's famous trademark dish. This is also the only dish that is consistently good across all its outlets. As usual, it was good; the skin was of the right thickness, the pork was tasty, and the soup inside was sweet.

V's verdict: 8/10


Stir-fried spinach with garlic (蒜炒菠菜)

A simple dish. A bit bland though.

V's verdict: 6.5/10


Fried rice with pork strips and egg

The outlet at Wisma was better. This was not bad, but not as good.

V's verdict: 7/10


Steamed chicken soup with noodles

Disappointing. The noodles was average, the soup was not bad, but the chicken had the defrosted taste! And the weird thing was that only some pieces had that taste. Bah!

V's verdict: 5/10


Soup with vegetable dumplings

The soup tasted strongly of vegetables - the filling inside the dumplings. A bit bland, but otherwise quite okay.

V's verdict: 6.5/10


Noodles with minced pork in bean sauce (炸酱面）

Another of their well known dishes. I found this average only, though.

V's verdict: 6/10


My conclusion? It wasn't worth the 30 minutes wait for a seat. Perhaps it's the image they project? By utilising a queue system and having people hang around outside the restaurant to wait, they give onlookers the impression that their food was fantastic. Well, the food was only okay. I wouldn't mind going again, but not if I have to queue for another half an hour.

Pow Sing Chicken Rice

11th July, Saturday

A restaurant at Serangoon Garden which I have been patronizing since I was a small kid.

Steamed chicken

Ah, the steamed chicken that I grew up eating! Today's chicken was a bit tough, but I shall still rate them as per normal since I have eaten here countless times. Usually the flesh is very smooth, and coupled with their delicious gravy, it makes this a wonderful dish.

V's verdict: 8/10
K's verdict: 7.5/10


Fried beansprouts with salted fish

I ordered a medium portion, and it was really quite huge. (Anyway, beansprouts are dirt cheap!) This was not bad; the salted fish was crispy and good, but I found the whole dish too oily. And the taste of the salted fish didn't seem to have seeped into the beansprouts.

V's verdict: 6/10
K's verdict: 5/10

Kim San Leng Food Court

1st June, Monday

Steamed Chicken [ (Bugis St) Ming Kee Chicken Rice - Porridge ]



Ok, this is the supposedly famous steamed chicken from Kim San Leng. I went at 520pm, and true enough, this was the only stall that had a queue of 5 to 6 people. The other stalls had either no one or just 1 person queueing.

Well, I must say this wasn't as good as I expected. The chicken was tender and smooth, but it wasn't so good that I was bowled over. The flesh was okay, but not sweet enough. They were saved mainly by their sauce, but it had a tinge of sweetness inside which my father didn't like. I didn't taste it at first, but as I ate more it started to become more obvious.

Overall it was not bad, but I would take Pow Sing's steamed chicken anytime over this. $22 (whole chicken), $11 (half chicken)

V's verdict: 7/10

Hong Lim Food Centre, Aglio Olio

29th April, Wednesday

Hong Lim Food Centre:

Laksa (Famous Sungei Road Trishaw Laksa)

Forgot to take a picture of this, damn it. Anyway, this stall is on the 2nd floor. The laksa tastes way lighter than other laksa. It may be good for those who don't like their laksa to be too thick and filling, but it didn't really suit my tastebuds. I prefer my laksa to be thick and tasty. K gave it a total thumbs down. Maybe it's because I didn't add the chilli? But the chilli tasted sour, so I didn't dare to put any of it into the soup.

But the service was good; the stallkeeper was friendly and even apologized that she had a lot of orders to prepare first for the previous customer. I will consider ordering their mee siam next time. $2.50/$3/$4/$5

V's verdict: 5.5/10
K's verdict: 2/10


Chicken rice (Boon Tiong Kee Hainanese Chicken Rice)

Also located on the 2nd floor. Okay, I found the name quite amusing. It's obviously a lame attempt at confusing people with Boon Tong Kee. K found it decent, but I didn't like it. The meat wasn't tender enough, and the chicken flavour wasn't strong enough. The rice tasted a bit... weird too, I dunno how to describe it.

V's verdict: 4.5/10
K's verdict: 6.5/10


Curry chicken noodles (Heng Kee)



From the famous stall on the ground floor. They claim to be the "one and only stall" in Singapore, and I believe that they are the original, since all the other curry chicken noodles I have tried elsewhere don't even come close to their standard. Everytime I go there, I queue for at least 15 minutes and always order the biggest bowl ($6, to justify my queueing time). Their chilli was also fantastic, though a bit on the salty side, so take care not to add too much into the noodles. I added too much before and ruined my whole bowl.

The chicken they use puts some restaurants or stalls specialising in chicken to shame. I don't know where they get their chicken from, but it was so tender and sweet! Finally, if you don't like your food to be too oily, tell the uncle not to add oil into your noodles. Part of the cooking process is that he scoops some curry oil and pours it over the noodles! $4/$5/$6

V's verdict: 9.5/10
K's verdict: 9/10


Aglio Olio:



Soup

The soup was honestly quite lousy. In fact, I think Campbell soup tastes better. At least the prices were reasonable --- $2.20 for soup and lemonade.

V's verdict: 3/10
K's verdict: 3/10


Garlic bread

Not too good, but not too bad either. $2.90

V's verdict: 5/10
K's verdict: 4/10


Sotong Olio



Ok, my main dish saved the day. I ordered spicy -- 3 chillies out of the maximum 4 --- and it was not bad. The sotong was fresh and tender too. The reason why it didn't get a higher rating is because aglio olio style isn't really my favourite. $10.90

V's verdict: 7/10


Cream Bacon Olio



This was done very well! The bacon wasn't too fat, and the cream was delicious and in the right amounts. K loved this dish so much that she gave it full marks! $10.90

V's verdict: 8/10
K's verdict: 10/10