I regularly guest on Susan Ng's Saturday morning show Eat Drink Singapore on CNA 938 FM. Places I cover on the show are some of my Singapore and Johor favourites.
I am sharing here short notes on the places featured in the show, for your convenience, in case you wish to visit them.
Clicking on the photos will take you to the podcasts. Clicking on the text links take you to detailed articles on the featured food stall or restaurant.
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| Podcast 11 Oct |
Dynasty Fried Porridge 30 Foch Road. What type of oxymoron is fried porridge? I mean, fried means must have wok hei and how can wet gruel possibly have wok hei? Right?
Yeah, I was skeptical, incredulous, doubting, maybe more so than most people.
It works like this - dried cuttlefish, dried shrimp, ginger, yam and other aromatics are stir fried in high heat till caramelised to extract umami savoury flavours and aromas. Caramelisation imparts the toasty taste of wok hei to the ingredients.
Then, cooked porridge is then added to the wok of caramelised ingredients and the whole concoction is vigorously stir fried. The wet pastey gruel itself will not have wok hei but it will infuse the umami savoury flavours of the fried aromatics. When we enjoy this flavour loaded porridge, we will encounter bits of dry cuttlefish and dried shrimp which carry the toasty taste of wok hei.
Dynasty Fried Porridge stall also serve good renditions of KL style fried Hokkien mee and JB style San Lou "Chao Tah" Bee Hoon.
Hong Wen Mutton Soup stall at Maxwell Food Centre. Hong Wen Mutton Soup is a stalwart of Upper Bukit Timah / Beauty World since the 1970s. There are two second generation Hong Wen stalls now, with their own loyal following. Younger brother's stall still at Beauty World Centre level 4 food court. The elder brother's stall is in Maxwell Food Centre now.
Hong Wen Maxwell's mutton soup is fall-off-the-bone tender, not gamey and served in a brownish soup with Chinese medicinal herbs and spices, savoury sauces and Shaoxing cooking wine. The sweet taste of gojiberry was pronounced.
Yeah, Chinese mutton soup is quite niche dish in Singapore but Hong Wen has a legion of followers built up over the past 50 years.
So, if you don't know yet, Hong Wen's Bukit Timah Hawker Centre stall is now in Maxwell Food Centre.
Chef Lup Roasted Golden Mile Food Centre. This year old stall has the longest queue in Golden Mile Food Centre now. Wait is around an hour for chef Lup's roasted trinity of char siew, siew yok and roast duck.
The char siew, I like the half lean, half fat kind. Heavily marinated with a savoury sweet sauce, freshly charcoal roasted at the stall, the marinate and its flavours seared onto the strip of pork outside. Inside, the tender and juicy fat still exude a gentle porcine sweetness. It is comparable even with the best of Kuala Lumpur.
The roast duck was on point too. Soft but well flavoured browned skin with tender meat well infused with Chinese spice and savoury flavours.
I haven't tried chef Lup's roast pork or siew yok yet.
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| Podcast 20 Sep |
Quan Xing Mei Shi at Mayflower Market & Food Centre serves Singapore laksa as well as Vietnamese dishes including com tam. Com tam is an iconic Vietnamese dish especially of Saigon which is made with broken rice. It is commonly eaten with grilled pork chop and egg meatloaf made with minced pork, tung hoon and egg yolk. Quan Xing make their com tam with whole grain rice but it is as close to the Vietnamese staple as I can find at Singapore hawker stalls now.
Chao Yang Fishball Noodle at Eunos Crescent Hawker Centre serves good handmade fishballs, fried tofu filled with fish paste, together with noodles well sauced with blend of savoury lardy spicy sauce. But, the thing that set Chao Yang apart from other fishball noodle stalls, in my opinion is their fish dumpling or her giao. It's like wanton but the minced pork with seasoning and ti poh is wrapped in rolled fish paste (instead of rolled flour dough). The dumpling is relatively big, rolled fish wrap is thick, gummy, and springy to the bite. Makes the dumpling feel and taste special.
KS Treasures at 157 Jalan Sutera, Taman Sentosa, Johor Bahru - the popular restaurant has revamped their menu. It now serves a more eclectic, casual selection of Chinese dishes while its fine dishes will be transferred to a new restaurant, opening next month (Oct) in Taman Pelangi. KS Treasures now have rice, porridge and noodle dishes with many options of side dishes. They have a very good pao fan - boiled and puffed rice in superior soup with five kinds of seafood like fish, prawn, clams, crab and squid. Prices are also very competitive e.g. their pao fan good for at least 2 people comes at RM28.80++ Plenty of other similar quality and affordable dishes to try here.
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| Podcast 14 Feb |
Written by Tony Boey on 20 Sep 2025
I occasionally share my foodie finds on CNA 93.8 FM, so I have this post where I put the stalls, restaurants or places mentioned during the programme. It gives you the basic information in case you wish to visit the mentioned food or places.
🎙 29 Dec 2023 · Black
My theme of this episode is dark or black colour food.
Lek Kee doesn't have a high social media profile but there is always a long queue of regulars and their ducks are always sold out in less than three hours.
Lek Kee's ducks are chopped into big chunks (instead of slices) but don't worry about chewiness. The meaty chunks are tender, moist and have a gentle natural sweetness which is complemented by slight savouriness from dark & light soy sauce with nice taste and aromas from Chinese five spice.
Bali Nasi Lemak is one of the Trinity of Chinese style nasi lemak stalls by three sisters - the other two are Mount Faber (founder late Mdm Koh Ah Kim) and Ponggol Nasi Lemak (founder Mdm Koh Ah Tan).
But, Bali Nasi Lemak has a unique signature black chicken wing. I asked founder Mdm Susan Koh about it and found there is an interesting and funny story behind it.
Mdm Susan's daughter Weimin was a SIA cabin crew and flew the Singapore - New York City route. She once took an excursion to city of Buffalo in upstate New York to see the Niagara Falls. While in Buffalo, Weimin of course, tasted the original Buffalo wings.
On returning, Weimin described Buffalo wings to her mum. Mdm Susan experimented with different recipes and flavours, finally coming with the black one with kicap manis. Her stall is Bali Nasi Lemak mah..... .
Bali Nasi Lemak's black chicken wing is crisp outside though slightly softened by the sticky kicap manis (sweetened soy sauce). The sauce tastes sweet savoury with traces of spicy heat from dried chili pepper. It tastes like an Indonesian version of Korean fried chicken but created in Singapore, inspired by USA. One chicken wing, three countries - we live in a world of borderless, globalised cuisines.
Everytime I am around the Muar - Batu Pahat area, I will look for an asam pedas place. Chun Hui Restoran along the coastal Jalan Abdul Rahman road has nice asam pedas dishes.
But, I want to tell you about their unusual black dish - black bean paste braised stingray. I mean, my expectation of stingray is red-brown with sambal, so I was a little surprised when a black dark fish landed on our table.
We tried it anyway and it turned out to be our favourite dish that afternoon.
The stingray fish was delightfully soft and smooth as silk. The fish meat was subtly sweet as it was very fresh.
The black sauce smothering the fish was savoury in layers with traces of earthiness like buah keluak (though there was none) and sweet. It was delicious and worth a diversion off the highway to try it.
There are several pork organ soup stalls / restaurants in Batu Pahat. The most famous is Ah Soon but we went instead to relatively unknown, Ah Khoon.
We came here because it is Andy's favourite. When it comes to pork organ soup, we defer to Andy. Andy was working at his parent's pork organ soup stall until the 1990s, when they retired when business was hit by swine flu. So, Andy knows pork organ soup more than most people.
One of the unique things about Ah Khoon pork organ soup is, the boiled offal is complemented by a full range of braised meats such as pork knuckle, shank, skin, belly, etc., i.e. pork organ soup stall also sell braised items.
The pork offal and meat are all very fresh. The offal soft tender and sweet, are served in a clear pork bone soup with preserved vegetables which gave it a slightly savoury tangy taste.
The braised pork knuckle, shank though fatty does not feel cloying, and we can taste the meat, fat and skin's natural porcine sweetness complemented by the savoury flavour from the soy sauce based braising stock.
Written by Tony Boey on 29 Dec 2023
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