I enjoyed a nice old school kway chap this morning in Kim Keat Palm Market & Hawker Centre (Singapore) thanks to buddy's tip off.
Kim Keat Palm hawker centre in Toa Payoh Lor 7 is a nostalgic place for me. We used to live in Toa Payoh Lor 5 in the 1970s, and often walked here for our favourite char kway teow. (That stall was long gone.)
Simply named Lor 7 Kway Chap & Braised Duck 7巷粿汁卤鸭, the little stall is under the social media radar. It is also partially hidden away behind a pillar at the hawker centre. Still, the stall was very busy especially during lunch as locals know what is best in their home ground.
Braised ducks hung in the window above a heap of braised pork and offal.
Braised offal is neither pretty nor look appetising to the uninitiated. It's a throw back from leaner times in Chaosan China and British Malaya where food was scarce and every part of the animal was relished.
Today, so many of us still pine for the taste of braised offal because our past lean years weren't that distant from today's affluence. It's uncertain though, if our future generations will still fancy such humble "spare part" meats.
Anyway, many of my cohort and I, are just grateful that we can still taste most of the old school flavours from our growing up years, thanks to hawkers like Ms Lim.
I didn't have a chance to speak with Ms Lim but her neighbour said her stall was founded decades ago in Singapore's Chinatown (and, they later moved to Toa Payoh).
This set of kway (rice sheets) and chap (offal) costs around $3 something. (I didn't look carefully at my change - just stuffed it into my back pocket.)
The bowl of brownish colour broth was filled with generous amounts of kway.
The brownish stock had medium smooth body. It tasted quite robust savoury sweet with a subtle underlying herbalness.
The kway (rice sheet) were thin, broad and smooth. It had a subtle rice sweetness as well as savoury sweet herbalness from the broth clinging to its sides. I like it.
Ms Lim gives a generous amount of braised pork and offal with the kway chap set. There were braised skin, big and small intestines, belly, tau pok, egg etc.
The offal were well cleaned and braised till tenderly soft to the bite. They were well infused with moderately savoury sweet herbal flavours and I am still able to taste a bit of fresh pork flavour.
Yeah, I belong to that era of folks who want to taste natural fresh fish flavour when eating fish, natural fresh chicken flavour when eating chicken, you get the idea. It saddens me a little when I hear people describe natural food flavours and aromas as "stench".
Recommended for you 👍 If you are a kway chap lover 🐖 , add Lor 7 Kway Chap & Braised Duck to your list of stalls to try. Cheap and very good like old times. Over value meal.
Shall try their braised duck next. I heard that it is very good too.
Restaurant name: Toa Payoh Lor 7 Kway Chap & Braised Duck 7巷粿汁卤鸭
Address: 22 Lor 7 Toa Payoh #01-32, Lor 7 Toa Payoh, Singapore 310022
GPS: 1°20'07.4"N 103°51'26.6"E 🌐 1.335393, 103.857379
Hours: 6:00am - 5:00pm (Thurs & Fri off)
Non Halal
Date visited: 19 May 2019
Sad to announce that they had ceased operations since last week. Wanted to eat but stall was closed despite not being their off days of Thurs & Fri. Learnt from a neighboring hawker that they closed for good. Unfortunately not able to find out why or is it they had relocated
ReplyDeleteDisappointed to go there and see the stall vacated. They served a mean bowl of kuey chap at excellent price point!
ReplyDeleteHeard they have reopened at an adjacent stall…
DeleteStill at the same hawker center. Roaring business....
ReplyDelete