The gang gathered at Hong Fuling 81 Eating House kopitiam (previous address) to feast on 天成 Tian Cheng Charcoal Roasted stall's duck and char siew. The stall has moved to 27, Jalan Berseh in 2023 and renamed Xiao Di Charcoal Roasted Delights 小弟炭烤烧腊.
It's one of Milton's favourite roast stalls.
✍ 21 Dec 2019. Tian Cheng Charcoal Roasted is a relatively new stall in the busy kopitiam and it has been building its clientele in the old neighbourhood steadily. That's no mean feat as roast stalls are everywhere in Singapore, and there is a long established local favourite at the coffeeshop just next door to Hong Fuling 81.
Ah Jun 俊, 26, hails from Ipoh and has been a roaster since he was 18 years old. Ah Jun runs the stall all by himself - prepare the meat, roast, chop, serve and collect money, everything - one leg kick as we say in Singapore.
Ah Jun 俊, 26, hails from Ipoh and has been a roaster since he was 18 years old. Ah Jun runs the stall all by himself - prepare the meat, roast, chop, serve and collect money, everything - one leg kick as we say in Singapore.
✍ 10 Mar 2024. My photo was used in Xiao Di's signboard and social media without my prior knowledge and without contacting me for permission. They erased my watermark.
To put it plainly, my photo was stolen.
Ah Jun roasts his meats in batches, serving from 10am to 7pm (except on Tuesdays).
Milton is a regular here, so we let him take care of the orders. We had half a roast duck plus an additional drumstick.
I like it that Ah Jun chops the duck cleanly into large meaty chunks (this keeps the juices and flavours in). The deep brown colour skin with a slight greasy sheen was soft with a slight crisp outside. It had deep savoury flavours with a bit of charcoal smokey taste. The meat was tender and juicy, well infused with savouriness and familiar flavours of Chinese 5 spice. I thought Ah Jun can push the savoury flavour a bit more in his duck. There was a bit of underlying duck gaminess which I like. The bird was quite lean, but Malaysian ducks are generally like that.... . I like Ah Jun's roast duck better than many other stalls that I have tried before.
We had two plates of thick cut charcoal roasted Kuala Lumpur style char siew.
We asked for the fatty cut, of course... . The meat and fat were tender and juicy, but there wasn't any natural porky sweetness. The sweet and savoury flavours came mainly from the sauce and surface of the char siew. The char siew was missing a slight smokiness. Still, this is a better char siew than at many other roasts stalls in Singapore.
I enjoyed this duck and pork soup. The layered savouriness is complemented by sweetness from the radish. Nice.
Ah Jun's sambal chili deserves special mention. The duck and char siew already have robust flavours, so I don't know how we are are going to use the sambal chili. But, this hae bee hiam had so much hae bee umami and nice hot spiciness that I was eating up everyone's dish of sambal chili on its own 😂
We all enjoyed Kiong Kee's sio bak (roast pork belly) especially for its airy light, crackly skin. Just the right amount of savouriness, saltiness for me but the meat didn't have much natural porky sweetness.
Kiong Kee's char siew tasted sweet but flatter than Tian Cheng's. All of us prefer Tian Cheng's char siew.
We didn't try Kiong Kee's roast duck as even we have our limits (of tummy space) 😂
Kiong Kee's soup is excellent, more robust and layered than Tian Cheng's. Kiong Kee's sambal chili is good too but I prefer Tian Cheng's by a wide margin.
Information for you 👌 One more good option for delicious, affordable lunch and dinner when you are in the Whampoa area. (We paid $44 for all the food we had at Tian Cheng.)
Previous Address (moved to Kelantan Lane / Jalan Berseh in July 2023)
Address: Block 81, Whampoa Drive, Singapore
Hours: 10:00am - 7:00pm (Tues off)
Written by Tony Boey on 20 Dec 2019 | Updated 11 Jul 2023
🎗 Opinions in this blog are all my own as no restaurant paid money to be featured.
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