YummY!
Jotaro's Food Review
MEE POK @ GUAN'S, SINGAPORE
Maxwell Food Centre, Singapore - May 2015
We were down in Singapore for their 3rd Annual Singapore Brompton Day. Finished with the event, we decided to explore Singapore more on our bikes, but first thing first - LUNCH!
LK, our Singapore friend, took us over to the Maxwell Food Centre. This place is huge with many food and drinks stalls. I had thought that it was about an average size food court, that was until I walked through a short central corridor and found more stalls on the other side.
The good thing is that, although this place is fairly close to the Marina Bay area, it is not a touristy place and is patronized more by locals. So one can expect good food at reasonable if not relatively cheap pricing.
Most of us settled for Guan's Mee Pok. With the name Guan, I would have expected a man to be operating the stall, but instead I saw a cheery lady doing the cooking with just a single helper. I guess she is probably Guan's daughter. Help is expensive in Singapore and they learn to operate efficiently, in fact we did not have to wait long for our orders to be served.
Wanting to try some of their soup as a second order, I went for the basic Mee Pok. It came with some minced pork, a piece of fish ball, some vegetable, a small piece of deep fried cuttlefish (it's somewhere there hidden), and more interestingly it also came with half a slice of Japanese Tamago Egg. Talk about fusion!
I would not blame readers if they get confused between Mee Pok and Wantan Mee, the dry version one using thick noodles. The difference is that Mee Pok is of Teochew origin whilst Wantan Mee is Cantonese. The noodles may look similar, but Mee Pok's noodle although of the same width is slightly thinner. Another difference is the sauce, Mee Pok uses light soy sauce as compared to Wantan Mee's dark soy sauce.
The lard-soy sauce together with the mince pork just nicely coated the noodles to give them a good taste and aroma.
The Tamago Egg added that little twist to the dish, the nice sticky yolk contrasting with the crunchy noodles. The fish ball was just average, not having a strong fishy taste.
At S$3.50 the noodle was very reasonably priced (note it did not include that piece of fish maw that somehow crawled here from the soup that I ordered separately *smiles*).
This Fish Maw Soup is excellent, slightly thick from broiling the maw, it had that simple non-overbearing sweetness. The maw were chewy and absorbed the soup like a sponge; each bite of them would squeeze out the mixed flavour of the maw and the soup. Although they did not use the top-of-the-grade maw (those with sticky inner walls), at S$5-00 this was a steal. I would recommend not to miss this.
A couple of my friend's had the Fish Maw Mee Pok. It's the same as the basic but with a few pieces of maw added. We are lard people and had asked for additional fried lard bits to be added *grins guiltily*.
They went for the Teochew Dumpling Soup; I had thought that this was Sui Kow soup; they had wrapped these dumplings to look like mini-Sui Kows, the filling inside was similar to wantan minced pork.
Their soup here are good, sweet without adding any MSG. Nicely done!
Overall it was a very satisfactory meal; simple but not that simple.
A good taste of local Singapore.
Their noodles menu & price list.
The soup menu & pricing.
Feel a little bit extravagant? Then go for the Baby Abalone Mee Pok. At S$9-50 it's still reasonably priced.
Their Tamago Egg are home-made, that explains why they are so fresh.
The Extras price list.
GUAN'S MEE POK
Maxwell Food Centre, 1 Kadayanallur St, Singapore 069184, Singapore.
GPS: 1.280203, 103.844510
(Click here for Google Street View)
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We have heard much of Singapore's Chillie Crabs and it's listed as the 35th in the 2011 CNN Go's Best Food in the World List. So after a trip down south to attend the 3rd Singapore Brompton Day event, we took a cycle ride over to the Red House to savour this renown dish.
But first a bit of suspense, as they served other dishes first; keeping the crabs for last, the best for last.
Spinach Tofu, a nice soft tofu made with chopped spinach on top and then deep fried. It was served with a light sauce with a carpet of Bunapi (White Beech Mushrooms) and a sprinkling of deep fried mini anchovies on top.
The Megrim Sole from France came nicely steamed and served with a light soy-oil sauce. To me it was a bit bland in flavour with flesh that was a tad soft.
The Cereal Prawn came deep fried with a healthy dose of cereal with a light touch of butter. A nice dish that would have been better if the tastier white-shelled prawns were used instead of the red-shelled ones.
Sweet & Sour Deep Fried Garupa (Grouper).
Chicken In Thai Sauce.
Finally, the Chilli Crabs came, with pieces of the cut crab swimming in a reddish thick gravy.
The gravy was all that was expected it to be, sweet and sour with a bit of spiciness. It was good and soon the Mantao buns that we had ordered separately were quickly finished, being dipped into that delicious sauce.
The crabs were from Scotland, large but with hard shells. The meat from the claws were sweet but slightly hard. But the body was a bit of a disappointment, it was also hard, so hard that we had to use the crackers to break it. Even then it was difficult to get to the meat. And they were not cheap to; with two crabs costing us S$204/=. Perhaps we should have ordered Sri Lankan crab.
RED HOUSE @ THE QUAYSIDE
