Xiu Fa Vegetarian Cooked Food

Being old school Singaporeans, we like our breakfasts heavy and satisfying enough to get us through the morning.

Bee hoon is one of our favourite options, mainly because you can often find it at economic bee hoon stalls, where you can stave away your hunger pangs for a mere $2.90 in the typically overpriced CBD area.

Fat Chub, being an early riser, sometimes does a little exploring before she starts her day in the office. This morning, she found herself at Hong Lim Food Centre, craving chinese vegetarian bee hoon with their typical mock meats and oil fried bean curd skin, which is really supposed to be mock goose meat.

She found her fix at a place called Xiu Fa Vegetarian Cooked Food at level 2 of the food centre. The word “佛”, meaning “Buddha” is also displayed prominently on the signboard, which we take to indicate that this stall is suitable for Buddhists, meaning that garlic is not used in their food preparation.

There was a pleasant variety of dishes to choose from, ranging from your leafy greens to deep fried bean curd skin.

Fat Chub opted for mixed bee hoon, with curry sauce for an extra kick. The stall owner was generous with the serving and Fat Chub took away the following for only $2.50. The mock meats were tasty, but the fried mock goose was the real kick, and deliciously crispy. The curry was also rich and spicy and made a very good start to Fat Chub’s day.

Apparently, if you are not into bee hoon, the stall also offers the option of brown rice as a base. It was a tasty and economical meal, and Fat Chub is sure to be back for more. If you are also keen to try this, make your way to Stall Xiu Fa Vegetarian, #02-02.

 

重庆周氏砂锅米线

In Singapore, there are days when you just want to cuddle in a snug corner with a steaming hot bowl of noodles.  Today was one of those days.

After yesterday’s very disappointing meal where we were served lukewarm noodles and cold rice, we were craving for something hot. Lion Chub, as usual, had the answers. He directed us to this snug little shop in Chinatown where he promised us the noodles will be served in steaming hot broth.

This shop is located conveniently at People Park’s Complex and is but a short walk away from Chinatown MRT station. Follow this sign to the steaming hot noodles.

The shop is a small one and seats about 10 at any one time. The seating area is essentially just a narrow corridor bordering the cooking area.

There is a noodle menu in Mandarin which you choose from 3 different soup bases (spicy, preserved vegetables, tomato) and a variety of toppings (ham, pig liver, pig intestine etc). There is also the option of additional toppings such as quail eggs.

You can also choose from a selection of Sze Chuan spicy cold dishes on display. Among them are shredded potatoes, peanuts, beancurd skin, pig ears and cucumbers.

This is the vegetable noodles with the spicy soup base. The lady at the counter warned us that the broth would be very spicy. We asked her nicely if she could please help us tone down the chilli oil although she doesn’t usually do this for her customers.

This is $4 without additional toppings bug we added quail eggs and it cost us $5.50 for the bowl of noodles.

The broth was indeed spicy, even by Singaporean standards, but tasty.

We also ordered the pig liver noodles in preserved vegetable soup base. The lady at the counter said it would be mildly spicy but the spiciness is hardly noticeable.

The noodle portion is small but it came with plenty of vegetables such as preserved vegetables, bean sprouts and kelp.

This was $7.50 after topping up $1.50 for the quail eggs.

This is the pig intestine noodles, which also costs $6 for the regular sized bowl you see below.

We found the noodles tasted better with just a small scoop of chilli just for that extra kick.

Although the noodles were satisfying enough by themselves, we were tempted by their selection of cold dishes. We opted for kelp, beancurd skin, cucumbers and pig ears which they would mix with their spicy dressing. We went with “小辣” or “mild spicy” and found it just nice.

Overall it is a cosy place for lunch on a cold day and prices were very reasonable. The food was tasty and prepared to order which means you receive them boiling hot, which is a bonus for people who like their food hot. Due to the small size of the establishment, however, it can be difficult to find a place to sit down to enjoy your noodles, so do remember to make your way down early if you intend to have it for lunch!

Super Spicy Fried Hokkien Prawn Mee

When you are tired of food in the CBD and you have a little more time to spare, you can consider venturing a little further in search of food by utilising our well connected MRT network.

Old Airport Road is actually very accessible by MRT if you are near the Circle Line. Alight at Mountbatten MRT, walk 10-15 minutes, and here you are at a busy hawker centre that houses some of the most popular food in Singapore. Even if you do not want to go the distance for lunch, it is a good dinner option.

On this day, I was craving prawn noodles, which is very difficult to get in the Marina Bay Financial Centre area.

I was first attracted by the words “Super Spicy”. I am not a big fan of spicy food, but I was curious that in a place like Singapore, where the tolerance of spicy food is considered high, a stall like this can brag about their spiciness. I approached the uncle cautiously and asked, “Are the noodles really spicy?”

He told me that the spiciness actually comes from the chilli. The noodles are just regular hokkien noodles.

 

 

Judging from the sign board, it seems that this stall has been featured in a few television programmes. I decided to order a $6 portion with less chilli.

One thing that I wasn’t really pleased about was the serving size. You see, I eat a lot and thus when I upsize my meal (the regular size is $4), I expect it to be filling.

The noodles, in this case, however, did not even fill up half this standard sized plastic container.

It might be that I had to travel another half an hour before reaching home, but the noodles were dry and clumpy. You can’t tell from the picture, but underneath the noodles, there were prawns, squid and pork belly. One thing I didn’t like was that he cooked the noodles separately, and the assistant then added the toppings. I generally like my Hokkien noodles cooked together with all the ingredients and served soggy.

 

The chilli, as promised by the stall owner, was indeed super spicy. Before I started on my noodles, I had already scooped away most of the chilli. There were some stained on my chopsticks which I mixed in with the rest of the noodles, but even then I could taste and feel the sting of the chilli.

 

All in all, it wasn’t a rather average meal. The main draw of this dish would certainly be the spicy chilli for chilli lovers, but it wouldn’t satisfy any Hokkien noodles cravings for Hokkien noodles lovers.

Chinatown Beef Noodles (Marina Bay Sands Food Court)

It was time again for lunch in the busy CBD. As the weather was good, we decided to take a leisurely walk to the Marina Bay Sands Food Court to see what they have to offer wide eyed tourists and hungry locals alike.

We decided on the Chinatown Beef Noodles as Lion Chub had previously tried this and had good things to say about it.

Lau Pa Sat

It was another hungry day in the office and three little Chubs decided to make their way to the newly renovated Lau Pa Sat to have some good local cuisine.

The new Lau Pa Sat still maintains the the same roundabout layout with the drinks and dessert stalls in the centre. There are now more squarish or rectangular tables to maximise seating capacity and although it still gets stuffy and hot when you are trying to enjoy a hot soupy meal, the ventilation has greatly improved from the old layout.

A lot of the local favourite stalls have been retained and we went straight looking for the good stuff.

Thunder tea rice – the queues are just as long as we remember them to be, and Guest Chub was very hungry and asked for the chicken portion to be up sized in his basil chicken rice. This was $8.

Noodles for Lion Chub.

Fried carrot cake to share.

The carrot cake was tasty although a little salty. It was good as a dish to be shared among 3 but as a single lunch dish, it might be a bit too much sweet dark sauce in a meal. This was $3.50.

Prawn noodles for Bo Chub.

And ang ku kueh which rounded up the lunch.