The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted many of us in many ways. A lot of us lost our jobs and have to resort to other means to survive during this pandemic. During these dark times, it is important for us Singaporeans to help each other out. Our editor found this new home baker and decided to support them. We ordered their Lemon Tea Cookies and to our surprise, the taste exceeds our expectation! We got curious and order a couple more like their classic chocolate chip and Thai-tea pink salt cookies.

We can assure you that their tea infused cookies are something that you have never had before and it is a must try! Their chocolate chips cookies uses premium chocolate chips too which melts in your mouth!

They currently running a teacher’s day promotion! But sadly they did not include their tea infused cookies into the promotion. We highly recommend that you tried our their tea infused cookies because it is just so different from others!

If you wish to support local business do visit their website @ nomsssscookies.sg

Remember to use code: NOMSSSS10 to get 10% off your first purchase!

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No Successor

For many decades, we have enjoyed local food at our fingertips. Sometimes, we may also enjoy it with our parents and our children, spanning across generations. Not only that, there are many hawker stalls that are more than 50 years old. However, many parents taught their children, and still do, to be highly educated in order to have higher-paying jobs with very little physical work required. This resulted in many children having the wrong impression that hawker is not a worthy career to even consider.

As of right now, many hawker owners are getting older, some of them are in their 80s, yet they are still operating today. Many of them are not retiring due to some very simple reasons, some of them reflected me that either they do not want to end their business and spend the rest of the day doing nothing or they are hoping their customers can get to enjoy good food as long as they can.

It does shine a very sad light upon the future of our hawker culture, as many famous hawkers ended when their culinary skills and recipe did not get passed down to the next generation.

Increased difficulty in operating a hawker.

In contrast to many people’s prejudice, operating a hawker stall is not as simple as it seems. A hawker owner will have to adhere to many examinations and criteria before they can start their business, they have to attend hygiene course as a requirement from NEA, ensuring all operators are able to produce food in a hygiene manner. Not only that, each stall will be graded based on the standard of hygiene, if it is too low, the owner may not be able to continue to operate their stall. Although it is extremely important to the operator and hawker patrons, it does prove to be an obstacle for any potential hacker to start a new business.

All of us enjoy having our favorite meals in a hawker center, or a name is commonly known by older generations, “Kopitiam”. Roughly translated into “Coffee shop”, they exist throughout history and lasted to this day. Now, these coffee shops are facing the biggest obstacles of all, rental. As Singapore constantly developing its own infrastructure, the rental of each stall is also getting higher. If the location is good enough, the rental will reach a ridiculous price. Many operators wanted to maintain a low-priced hawker food, but the high rental fee proves to be the straw that broke the camel’s back, resulting in many operators to fold up their business for good. Rubbing salt in the wound, many large corporations also required the owners of the stall to pay 10% to 20% of their weekly avenue on top of the rental, this is not helping to preserve and prosper the hawker culture.

Change in eating habit

People’s eating habit changes every now and then, but they are mostly following a trend. A few decades ago, people looked at the taste and price of their food, which is the attraction of hawker food. In the last decade, people are looking for healthier food, low carbohydrate, salt, sugar or even trans-fat free food are the key components. Hawker food of the old cannot provide or very little healthy choice for patrons. Thus so, many patrons decided to avoid hawker food to pursue a healthier lifestyle.

Hawker food also faces the challenge from celebrities’ restaurants and cafés, eating places such as these offer food and creative dishes patrons won’t be able to find in hawker food. As such, many younger foodies will favor such restaurants and cafes. Some of these places even offer food at a lower price too, thus more attractive to younger foodies.

It is not all dark and moody

There are certainly a lot of factors that cause many hawker owners to end their business, some even put potential hackers at bay from starting their journey in culinary. However, there is still hope for our hawker culture.

There are some younger hawkers either started their business in the culinary world or taking over their parents’ legacy and continue on to bring good food to their faithful customers. We have mentioned quite a few times of the Delicious Boneless Chicken Rice, located in Katong Shopping center. As the first-generation owner was approaching their silver years, the future of their stall seems bleak. Until 2018, their son, Soki Goh decided to start learning their culinary skills and operations, so the first-gen owner can retire while the stall continues to the next generation.

Another stall that also successfully passed down to the next generation is “Teck Huat Coffee Roti”. The first-generation owner, Tony Soh, has passed the baton to his son, Alvin Soh, to run the multiple stalls around Singapore and seemingly operated with much higher efficiency.

Singapore government also implemented several policies to further assist hawkers to operate and keeping prices low. In 2018, Senior Minister of State in the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Environment and Water Resources, Dr. Amy Khor, mention focussing on improving the Social-Conscious Enterprise Hawker Centre (SEHC) model that was already implemented into the seven new hawker center back in 2018. The SEHC is programmed to give support to stall owners to manage costs better, allowing better oversight for a regulator like the National Environment Agency (NEA) to take care of hawkers. Singapore even nominated hawker culture for 2019 UNESCO Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage, in the hope to preserve the hawker culture in Singapore for future generations.

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Sushi

One of the most popular and iconic Japanese dish, eating with raw fish on top of vinegar rice. Introduced in the 8^thcentury, popularised during the Edo period (AD 1603 to 1868) and spread throughout the country.

Many of us may spend hundreds of dollars if not more on this dish, even though the quantity may be smaller than usual. There is a reason, the classic nigiri sushi was first made as a snack. Yes, it is a kind of fast food during the Edo period, made and sold on a mobile cart for patrons to enjoy on the go. So sushi was first made as a snack to enjoy on the go, we do not have the price of a piece of sushi 500 years ago, but judging that it was a snack, it should not cost much. Right now, you can pay up to 50 dollars in a restaurant for sushi, showing that Sushi has turned into an exquisite dish over time.

Lobster

Yes, this super expensive seafood was once considered cheap food. So cheap, in fact, it is believed to be as bad as eating a rat. In both European countries and North America, Lobster is considered a poverty food. All these are due to the ugliness of lobster and how hard it is to cook it, this only lasted till the 19^thcentury, when lobster is being widely appreciated for its taste. Although some still avoid eating lobsters as it is a taboo food in some religion. Not the Chinese culture though, Chinese people eat all sorts of thing.

Now, lobster is extremely expensive and many only get to have them during banquets. Depends on the grade, one lobster can easily get into the hundreds of dollars range.

Chocolate

Yes, everyone’s favourite snacks and definitely many lady’s guilty pleasure. However, many did not notice that the price of chocolate has been increasing over the years. Although the increase is not significant enough to feel the pain, and many consume chocolate on an impulse basis. However, the increase in price is due to the demand has spiked over the years and still raising. Adding fuel to fire, some scientists speculate that chocolate may go extinct in the next few decades as climate change and high temperature made growing cocoa more difficult by the year. So, you might want to enjoy this fantastic snack before it disappears, or decrease your intake so you can have it longer, it’s your choice.

Honey

Another favourite and healthiest food on this list, also the victim of climate change. Honey is highly regarded as perfect food as it is a healthier option of sugar compared to refined sugar, high antioxidant content and it tastes really good. However, because of the decreased of habitat due to human activities and climate change, bees population are decreasing as we speak, lower numbers of bees also mean less honey being produced by them too and so, it increases the price of honey. Now a jar of honey can cost anywhere between $20 and $100, depends on the kind of honey you bought.

Bak Kut Teh

For many local Singaporeans and Malaysians, this dish is not a stranger to our daily meal. For the convenience of our foreign readers, Bak Kut Teh is a dish where a pork bone broth is served to you with pork ribs dibbed in the soup. Although its origin is unclear, it is somewhat accepted by many historians that this dish is popular since the 1920s (almost 100 years ago, yes, it is that old), served to the labour workers as a quick meal to replenish energy, a thick oolong tea was also served to clear the fattiness of the pork ribs.

We know Bak Kut Teh used to be served to the labour workers, and the workers don’t earn much during the early days of Singapore, so the price of one Bak Kut Teh is extremely cheap, adding the fact that pork ribs were deemed cheap food as well since it contains very little meat compared to other parts of a pig and it is fatty. Right now, you can find Bak Kut Teh costs between the prices of 6 dollars to 15 dollars per bowl, raising the bar higher and into the ranch of casual dining.

Treasure what you taste, think of what you eat.

Food and cuisine has changed over the years and definitely will continue to change, but we cannot deny the fact that many of us like to eat good food. Remember that every bite you sink your teeth into, rethink that some of those food used to be almost dirt cheap and now it costs a limb for various reason, you might feel something different on your taste bud.

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Century egg is normally served in porridge but this Café bring it up to the next level by introducing “Century Egg Cheesecake Topped With Ikan Bilis”.

Yes, It’s a real deal and you can find this in our neighbouring country Malaysia, Penang.

This wacky cake is going for S$13.80/slice and it is served by Moody Cow Dessert Café in Penang.

Do not be mistaken with Oreo cheesecake. The black round stuff in the middle of the cake is actually a century egg!

It is topped with Ikan bilis and peanuts which adds crispness, savoury and spicy taste to a supposedly sweet dessert.

So how is the taste?

We have not tried the cake but according to food blogger, Rebecca It does not taste as revolting as it looks but be warned she also mention that the taste of the cake is quite an acquired taste.

Visiting Penang soon? You might want to drop by this cafe to witness and taste this strange cake.

• Location: Moody Cow Dessert Café
• Address: 170 Jalan Transfer, George Town, 10050 Goerge Town, Pulau Pinang, Malaysia
• Opening hours: 11-12am daily

Do note that the cafe rotates its flavours regularly. To avoid getting disappointed, we strongly advise reaching out on their Facebook before heading down.

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But! Beware of durian scams. A Singaporean namely, Eugene Lau posted on Facebook regards to his scammy experience by his wife when he is not around.

Mr Eugene claims that the durian vendor came knocking his door and market themselves with durians of Mao Shan Wang quality for only SGD$15/- per durian (Which is cheap if it is of that quality).

With such a temptation of price, his wife agreed to buy some from them and they started opening the durians. The durian vendor opened up 6 durians before she knows it and now they wanted to charge her SGD$15/- kilogram instead of the per durian which was agreed upon. The durian vendor then took out a weighing scale to weight the durian. The total cost now comes up to SGD$385/- with a total weight of 23KG.

Mr Eugene also posted the photo of the 6 durians that was opened and was place in tupperware.

These surely does not look like coming our from 6 durians.

He mentioned that his wife obviously did not pay the scammers and immediately called him which Mr Eugene Lau immediately call the police. The scammers than release something is off and told Mr Eugene Lau’s wife that they will come back to collect the money later which they never came back.

Do be careful of these illegal vendors this coming durian season.

You can view the original post below,

Some bastards came to our place today and tried to sell some durians to my wife for $15 per durian, claiming that it was MSW quality. My wife agreed to buy some from them and they started opening up the durians but before she knew it they told her that they had opened up 6 durians (surely these durians in the tupperware look like they came from 6 bloody durians) and wanted to charge her $15 per KG instead of per durian and insisted that she had misheard them. Next, they took out a weighing scale and wanted my wife to pay $385 bloody dollars – that’s 23kg worth of durians! Where is the rest of my durians?! Obviously my wife refused to pay and called me immediately and I followed up by calling the police. The durian bastards must have sensed that something was wrong and told my wife that they will come back for payment later when the husband is back. Mind you, all this while they were standing outside my door refusing to leave as they had already opened up the durians, with a knife in their hand. I was already in rage mode and was picturing myself smashing the durian shells into their face, but too bad those bastards never came back for their money or durians. It was then that the police informed me that even his own mother got scammed by these assholes. 
Kudos to these fellas for making the effort to rig their weighing scale and coming up with such a creative scam. Dear family and friends, please take note of this and warn your close ones to stay vigilant and not fall prey to these durian scammers.

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1. Sushi no midori

Sushi is one of the most iconic Japanese cuisine and there are many of them across the entire country. However, there is one sushi franchise that provided the strongest impression to me, that restaurant is called “Sushi no Midori”. Sushi no Midori has shops in several places around Tokyo and Aichi prefecture, they even opened two restaurant outlets in Hong Kong as well. The shop we visited are located in the fourth floor of Shibuya Mark City, right opposite the JR Shibuya Station.

Klook.com

What really caught many people’s eyes is the incredible freshness of the fishes and other ingredients. You can literally taste the natural sweetness in the raw fish, if you are having the fatty tuna or salmon belly, it will melt in your mouth, leaving only a small tint of the smell of the sea. I would recommend the kaisen-don, the seafood bowl, which you are given the luxury of their best raw fish and in large amount as well. Even their uni, the sea urchins, taste so incredibly fresh and sweet, there isn’t a smallest scent of fishiness in it, proving that the chefs are highly skilled and understand the ingredient fully to bring out the natural taste.

One of the most exquisite and delicious sushi in this restaurant, it has to be the premium eel sushi. The eel is shining with the oily glaze and sauce, the fragrance of the BBQ-ed eel slowly enters your nose, stimulating your desire to eat it. Upon putting the eel sushi in your mouth, the tenderness, the freshness and the sweetness of the eel fused into something, along with the rice, into something you can never imagine,

Address:

1-12-3, Dogenzaka, Shibuya-ku, 

Tokyo Mark City East 4F

Klook.com

2. Afuri

Ramen, one of the most competitive dish in Japan if not THE most competitive dish. Walking down the street and you would be able to spot at least five different ramen shops. In order to stand out from one another, some shops have special kind of ramen instead of the typical pork-based soup ramen, Afuri is exactly that kind of shop. The outlet that we visited is located in Sangenja-ya, not very far away from Shibuya.

Restaurants being spread all over Japan, Afuri’s signature is their Yuzu soup. It is chicken based broth, simmered with yuzu and accompanied with tangy noodle, egg, beetroot and cha-shu. Customers can pick either the shio (salt) or shoyu (Japanese soy sauce) flavour, I picked shio flavour as salt is the best kind of condiment to already delicious ramen. Upon my ramen being served, the fragrance of yuzu emitting out of the soup elevated my soul, all fatigues immediately being lifted away. The perfect combination of the yuzu, chicken broth and salt provided a less oily but strong taste. The noodles are also being handled well enough to retain the tanginess but not overly hard.

Seeing that they also serve roasted pork belly rice and smelling the incredible smell of it, I couldn’t hold onto it and ordered one serving and I wasn’t disappointed by it. The pork fat and the meat itself melts in your mouth, it is in chunk, so children will have no problem enjoying it. The shredded radish gives you a fresh taste and washes away the oily taste that may stay in your mouth.

Address:

2-12-11 Sangenja-ya

Setagaya-ku,Tokyo

Klook.com

3. Mutekiya

Let us go to another Ramen restaurant that serves the completely opposite and perfected the pork-based broth, Mutekiya. Surprisingly, Mutekiya has only one shop in Ikubukuro, they stated in their website and other medium that any other “Mutekiyas” are not related to them and this is their only registered shop.

Mutekiya are friendly to tourists and foreigners as well, they even have a list of suggested items if you visit the restaurant for the first time. Despite not my first visit, I still ordered the most popular and my favourite in their menu, “Mutekiya Ramen Nikutama”. This bowl of ramen comes with thick but soft roasted pork, boiled eggs and bamboo shoots. It is not exaggerating that I say thick, the roast pork slices are really thick, but not tough. The taste of pork-based broth has never been so good, it is extremely thick and not oily even if you drink it to the last drop. The noodles are satisfyingly tangy, you will be craving for more. The gyoza that they serve are some of the best that I have ever tasted as well.

Address:

Japan, 1-17-1 Tokyo, Toshima

Minami Ikkebukuro

4. Ajikura

If you are looking for something to fulfil your carnivorous desire, the best food will be BBQ meat. There is one special restaurant in the back alley of Shibuya, surrounded by clubs and love hotels. This restaurant is called Lorem Ipsom, located just right below Bar Armageddon. We came across this restaurant by pure luck, attracted by the smell of BBQ meat and charcoal, we entered the restaurant and immediately noticed the first unique feature of the place. Most of the employees are South East Asians, some of them came from Bangladesh and some even come from India, all of them are fluent in Japanese and English too, so there will not be a problem if you are a foreigner who does not speak Japanese.

The variation of Kobe beef, pork meat and chicken meat, we decided to go for the A3 Kobe beef, pork collar and pork belly meat, and this was a decision well made. The meat was served up, and it is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. The oil pattern on the beef is extremely balanced and it even glimmers when the light hit the meat, the pork belly and collar meat seemed normal when it was served. When the meat was placed on the BBQ mesh, that was when the magic happened, incredibly fragrant smell rushes through your nose to your brain. When you put the meat into your mouth, the deliciousness of the meat immediately made me rethink life itself. Accompanied by the Japanese highball, nothing can be compared with this BBQ meat.

Address:

10-10 Maruyamachō, Shibuya-ku, 

Tōkyō-to 150-0044, Japan

Klook.com

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The flash sale started on 25 Feb 2019 and ends on 27 Feb 2019 so what are you waiting for? Do take note each customer is only allowed to order 3 sets of this flash sale and there is SGD $1.99 delivery charge.

Time to nom nom nom on these juicy fried chicken!!

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One of the best thing in Singapore is our food culture, Singaporean literally can take any kind of cuisines the world throw at us and we will enjoy it. Like many other island state countries, Singapore is a large melting pot of people from different cultures and of course, cuisines. You can find food at every corner of the street, there are a lot of restaurants around the area as well, but Singaporeans and foreign friends alike still love to go to the hawker centre for their meals.

One common thing that most people like about hawker centres are the friendly uncles and aunties, some of them might even witness you grow from a young chap to a fine adult. For many years, that is what we witnessed, but if we see someone of our age appears behind the counter cooking our favourite dish, we tend to not hide our curiosity. Just so happen, there is one very famous chicken rice stall in the east with a young and suave man leading it.

One of the most common and most loved hawker food has got to be Chicken Rice. There are several styles of chicken rice and many people love it for various reasons. I, personally, love it because of the tenderness of the “white chicken” and the subtle changes to the styles between different stall owners. The east side of our small island happens to be one of the toughest battleground of food, just along the stretch of Mountbatten road, there are two of the biggest chicken rice chain restaurant in Singapore. However, there is one Chicken Rice that stands out among many food lovers and still somehow, unknown to many people. This chicken rice stall is named Delicious Boneless Chicken Rice.

This humble chicken rice stall first opens its shuttle back in 1988, at the People’s Park Complex, it then was moved to Katong Shopping Centre and has not move to any other location since then. Mr Goh Boon Hua, founder and current owner of Delicious Boneless Chicken Rice, he grew up in the farm during the 1960s, with limited education, like many during the early days of Singapore, practical skills like culinary are more valued to survive in the society. For three decades, Mr Goh has operated this stall with his wife, went through many crisis like the SARS pandemic, H1N1, 1997 Asian Economy Crisis and many more. Time has proved that this humble stall will stand through everything that were thrown at them, and now, Mr Goh is readying his youngest son, Soki Goh, to take over the stall.

Before we talk about the young man, let’s talk about chicken rice, it is the most important thing for any food lover. This is the classic “White Chicken”, accompanied with the fragrant rice and soup. Look the succulent chicken, not only the size of the chicken meat is larger than many others, the chicken is tender to the bite and not flaky. The sauce further enhances the savoury of the chicken, the fried garlic and coriander bring the fragrance to a whole new level, and the taste of the soup is also heavenly. Yes, some people like corianders, we exist. Other than the chicken, the chicken feet and Ah Cha are also the fan favourite of many customers. Simply put, you can’t find anything identical elsewhere.

At the young age of 27, Soki Goh started his full-time endeavor to inherit all the skills from his father in the art of culinary and managing the stall. Spending some time with Mr. Soki, it has shown that despite at that young age, he is most certainly wiser than many people. Soki said that many people of his age choose to work in a white collar job and sometimes even hate their jobs. To him, he savory to allow his father’s delicacy and legacy die off when his father retires and thus he favorites up the mantle and continuing the journey of hawker delicacy. Soki also mentioned that he would like to expand this stall into a franchise, although it might take some time for it to come to fruition. When asked about any interesting incident that he saw as a hawker, Soki mentioned that he had seen many people dive at the very moment when there is a free item. Soki said that there are many customers jumped into and sometimes aggressively, demanding free items or more free items. When the said customers were told that they have to pay for the extra items, they were angered. Soki wants to say that despite their salad is free on the first serving, don’t demand for a second serving for free. It stills requires manpower, craftsmanship, time and ingredients for them to bring you the free salad.

Having said that, Soki Goh, the youngest son of Mr Goh, is now learning the culinary skills from his father. Soki also recently worked out a better management method to the hawker culture to increase efficiency, according to him, it is working in favour of the stall. In the light of all positivity, Soki is looking ahead for Delicious Boneless Chicken Riceto expand further from a stall in a food court.

So if you want to have a fantastic chicken rice, or to look at the suave Soki, or both, this is how you can reach it. The closest MRT station is Dakota station, you can board either bus 10 or 32 outside Old Airport Road block 99, alight at Katong Shopping Centre five stops later. If you are driving, you can find the address as follow:

Katong Shopping Centre

865 Mountbatten Road

#B1-85/87

Singapore 437844

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However, with that many kind of cuisines operating on a small island, there isn’t guaranteed quality or taste for all cuisines and it is especially hard when you are operating a small shop with huge influx of hungry customers. There is this one casual dining place at New Taipei City that serves incredibly fresh and tasty Japanese style seafood don, or seafood bowl. This dining place is called 二男料理(pinyin: Er Nan Liao Li). Unfortunately, they do not have an English name, so we will refer 二男料理as it is in Mandarin.

二男料理is seated in the middle of New Taipei City, twenty minutes away from Banqiao station. Many people might miss it if they are not aware, this restaurant sits right between many motor and auto shops, unless you are trying to look for food in the middle of motor oils. However, even if you visit the area during the lunch hour, you will see a line of hungry people lining outside this one small restaurant. There are so many people that you have to take a queue number and expect to wait for a while before you have a seat. You have to make your order while you’re queuing, unfortunately there are no pictures on the ordering slip nor there are any language other than Mandarin, so you might have a little trouble to know what’s what on the slip. Worry not, the friendly staff will help you to understand what’s on the menu. 二男料理serves mainly Japanese seafood items such as seafood don, various raw fish sushi and several other kinds of gunkansushi(sushi wrapped with seaweed with various topping). My personal favourite and highly recommended by me is the 二男丼and their aburi salmon sushi.

Look at the size of the bowl, look at that prawn! All these at the price of 620NT$, you can’t find anything this good at this price. The freshness of the seafood is unbelievable, it’s so fresh that you can taste the subtle sweetness in the fish and prawn, you might just taste the sea itself. The prawns are extremely firm to bite, but not hard. The salmon melts in the mouth and the maguro has that sweetness upon landing on your tongue. There is really nothing to complain about the seafood don, if there is one, probably that I can’t have enough of them.

The aburi salmon sushi, in fact all other sushi, are prepared and made in front of the customers. You can see the chefs handling the rice and the fishes, after a perfect nigiri sushi is formed, the chef will then uses kitchen blowtorch and lightly fry the salmon on the top. The fat in the salmon fish will melt slightly and a fragrance will emit out from the fish. You put it in your mouth and it will immediately melts in it, the flavour of the vinegar rice and the salmon combine and form a heavenly taste. If you are a fan of ginger or wasabi, it will even further enhance the flavour.

There are a lot more seafood to choose and enjoy in the menu, but too bad that my stomach can’t take in that much food. I spent less than 1000NT$, which roughly translate less than $50SGD for a whole meal of seafood that probably worth more than that. This is one restaurant I will always return to whenever I visit Taiwan.

You can get to 二男料理by taking bus 307 from Banqiao bus station, which is located right next to Banqiao train station. Alight at Banqiao Motor Vehicle Office, 7 stops later, then continue walk forward and you will reach 二男料理in no time.

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