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Teochew Fishball

Ah, I am still in search of the illusive mee-poh-tah. Interestingly, while I was searching far and wide (where time permits), there was one just near to my house that was worth eating. And because I have been eating them at home (tah-bau, doggy-bagged) I did not know where the stall was until recently. So, I thought I should share with you.

Look at the extra large fish balls

If you happen to be in Chinatown, in the People’s Park area, look for this interesting stall with Thai name as well (if I guess correctly) and Malay (Indonesian) names! According to my Indonesian domestic help), she said that the stallholder told her that it has no pork and no lard.

The name of the stall is Teochew Bakso I think in Indonesia they have Mi Bakso. (^^) And it is inside the Food Court of the old People’s Park (HDB). If you were to go into the inner hall from Upper Cross St, it is the 7th stall on the left. I could not find a number to identify! (^^)

the signboard

Looking for a bowl of typical olden day prawn noodles seem to be a challenge. I thought we have found one that tasted similar, the Da Lu Prawn Noodles, that was situated in this coffeeshop lookalike at the corner of the Far East Square along Telok Ayer St.

One evening, I arranged for an evening dinner there, just before the nanyin concert at the nearby Thian Hock Keng. To my disappointment, the Da Lu Prawn Noodles were gone! The whole place was boarded up!

a nice setup

A couple of days ago, thanks to Doris, I saw a leaflet indicating its new location. And today, we went in search of it. It is located at the China Square, facing the square from the building that is back-to-back with those along South Bridge Road.

At least for me, in case of “emergency” I have one to default to. At large is another Prawn Noodles stall that used to be in the Opera Food Court in Far East Square. Opera Food Court is gone. This stall used to be at a coffeeshop along Seah St. Anyone knows please alert us!

the ubiquitous chopsticks

It is interesting but most would have taken for granted until one misses it. For the oldies, it could be what one misses from years ago. But for many, it will be telling when one is away from home or from the environment from where we live in. In this instance, Singapore.

Recently, my family went to China, accompanying Grandma on a Chinese Temple pilgrimage, the visit to the mother temple. It was like a tour, except that the programmes were very targetted. We were in QuanZhou (Juan-chiew in Hokkien or Minnan dialect) and that’s where most of the Singaporean Hokkien cuisine came from. So, we should be at home. Wrong! At least that is to my kids. And there were just KFCs, McDonalds and many fast food over there.

What did they miss most? Mee Pok Tah! That’s the flat noodles cooked and served with gravy of chilli sauce. There are a number of versions, in this case, it is fish balls that accompany these noodles. This is more Teochew in origin. I wonder if we could find them in Teochew (ChaoZhou) in China, but then, we were not there.

Some of us might missed the Char Kuay Teow. Or even Roti Prata. What would you miss?

———-
I was reading Tze Ming’s blog, Yellow Peril, recently and was surprised to find a mention on Mrs Lee’s Cookbook.

If you are a food lover who lives (or had lived) in Singapore, you might have heard of this cookbook. In recent years, Mrs Lee’s legacy received a new lease of life when Mrs Lee’s granddaughter, a href=”http://www.shermay.com/about_shermay.htm” target=”_blank”>Shermay Lee decided to republished the book, calling it The New Mrs Lee’s cookbook.

According to Tze Ming, a New Zealander,

Five hundred years later, they produced Lee Kuan Yew – go figure. His mother has a famous Peranakan cookbook, seemingly owned by all Singaporeans. Maybe it was a compulsory national purchase, I’m not quite sure. Ma got rid of her citizenship, but kept the cookbook, which says something. Here it is: ‘Mrs Lee’s Cookbook’, 1974.

What’s fascinating is the fact that a 1974 book survives and ended up in another part of the world. Okay, it’s not too far away but still. So I begged Tze Ming for some photos and she was more than happy to snap a few (as in, lots!) extra shots for Makan Singapore.

[more photos on Flickr]

I wonder how many original copies of the 1974 “Mrs Lee Cookbook” still exist, in Singapore and around the world, today? Do you still have a copy? Tell us.

[originally posted on 3 February 2006]

Cheap and good!

There’s a fish ball noodle stall, almost anywhere in Singapore. These days, they are mainly contained in the modern “KopiTiam”, hawker centres (called so because there’s no airconditioning) and food court (normally in malls). But getting a satisfying bowl of noodles that would elicit one’s return again and again is a challenge.

In my adult life, I think the one fish ball noodle stall that I would go, almost without fair, each morning for my tea break is in this typical kopitiam (coffeeshop) along Choon Guan Street. Alas, this coffeeshop is long gone, to be replaced by the Tanjong Pagar MRT station. Being a long time customer, despite price increase, I still had my mee-pok-tah (akin to the Italian linguine except that it is broader) at 60 cents a bowl. A complementary old-world-Singapore-kopi capped it all.

For the uninitiated, mee-pok-tah or sic-mee-tah (this is the oily noodles, known as sic-mee, meaning cooked noodles), this is the “dry version” of the dish, which  come with a concoction of gravy consisting of chilli paste, oil, lard remainant (what is left after oil has been extracted from the pork fat through heating in a wok), light soya sauce, perhaps some other secret ingredients that would make one noodle stall different from the other. A bowl of soup with fish ball swimming in it accompanies the noodles.

Because of different people’s liking for different kind of chillis, one’s great mee-pok-tah might not be so to another.

Soon, there was another search for the mee-pok-tah for me again. While there were a couple of acceptable ones, they were not the “die die must go” type.

Soon, I discovered yet another wonderful mee-pok-tah stall. Interestingly, sometimes, one need to take a few times to confirm if one would miss it after a few days. Locating at this rather old, dirty looking and yet quaint coffeeshop. The owner was, I think, Hainanese. The coffeeshop was at the corner of the famous “gao-lau” (Hokkien), the brick-flat at the corner of Pickering St and South Bridge Rd. This place used to be the modern landmark of Chinatown.

By the time I discovered this coffeeshop, the place was already ageing. The atmosphere was friendly but noisy. I used to walk there from home. And then, when I started driving, the nightmare was to look for the few carpark lots just next to the coffeeshop. Next was to locate an available table. It was the place for breakfast before we go to work.

When my kids came along, we would start with the handcarry baby basket and proceeded to strollers. So, for a good three to four years, they would stare and wondered what it was that we were enjoying. And then, they started eating. For kids, nothing fancies them more than fish balls. But they are dangerous food because they could cause problems if the kids should accidentally swallow them. So, we were careful.

Then, they came to the stage when they could eat the noodles .. first in soup, and then, “dry” and soon, they were curious enough to ask for some chilli .. and more.

All good things would come to an end. In Singapore, they seem to end earlier and faster! And so, one day, we found that the coffeeshop was gone .. and it was not long before the building was also gone!

The big hunt for the next mee-pok-tah began again. 

Thanks to a tipoff, we went to this small market at Aljunied, near to Joo Seng Rd. In the dirty environment, next to the wet market, this almost authentic Teochew fishball noodle stall was a good stopgap. This noodle stalls only offer noodles with fish balls and fish cakes. All, made by the stall .. signature produce. These days, the stalls do not have the time to make their own fish balls and fish cakes. And so, the fish balls taste almost the same everywhere we go.

And then, they moved to a new hawker centre. The taste was no longer the same again. I didn’t know why. 

We were on our hunt again. Once again, I spotted this old couple run noodle stalls at Hong Lim Complex Hawker Centre, nested between two stalls selling Prawn Noodles – from the famous Hokkien Street of the old days. The wife was doing the cooking and the husband the delivery. Over time, the husband took over. Somehow the taste was not the same. And then, we have to queue up for our noodles. It is self service.

One day, while doing my other favourite activity, that is tracking Chinese temple activities, I spotted this old kopitiam at Lengkok Bahru. The kopitiam looked boring, almost dirty with a display of tables of different sizes. It looked very local and everyone seemed to know everyone, almost like a village kopitiam. I decided that it would be worth a try on the noodles since it was the only and anchor tenant of the kopitiam.

I hit jackpot. Since then, my family and I would come here during weekends to enjoy our mee-pok-tah. The Singapore kopi was also good. Although the coffee powder is delivered instead of being roasted as in the old days, the kopitiam boss confided in me that he still tried to do some blending, like using some of the white kopi from Ipoh and mixing with the black kopi, which could be from Java.

On a lazy weekend, taking a cuppa while waiting for my mee-poh-tah, I enjoyed listening to the bantering flying across between the noodle stallholder and the kopi brewer, often each digging at the other. The customers joined in. While continuously engaging in the bantering, our mee-poh man maintained his memory of the numerous orders stored somewhere in his brain. He is indeed one of the rare breeds who makes good use of his brain and could actually multiplex the uses of his brain, taking orders, joking and entertaining customers.

Often, I wondered, in panic, what if .. the old man decided to call it a day. The hunt will begin again!

5pm to 4am

For those of us who missed the old days when we could sit by a “zi char” (literally meaning stir fry) stall, along the roadside and enjoy the food, and apart from going to Malaysia or Indonesia, Changi Road is one place. (^^) It was like the old Orchard Rd carpark, but this one holds on its own with only one zi char stall inside a terraced shophouse. The number of tables lined on the inner road to the shophouses could easily be 50, or more? As I went around 8-9pm, I am not too sure of the past midnight scene.

Reminiscent of the old Chinatown Days

Guaranteed fresh!

My favourite has always been the steamed little sotongs (squids) and they are not easily found, not to mentioned fresh! Here, twice, I could get them. At S$8 a plate, OK la. The lala (akin to the white clams) here is probably the freshest I have tried so far. In many of the Muay (Chinese porridge stalls), the lala are cooked with curry powder (I often wonder why, why cut chillis and garlic) and found to be sticky, to me signs of not being fresh.

Sotong! Sotong!

The long beans fried with hay-bee-hiam (pounded dried prawns with chilli) was good too.

Ah, but one man’s meat could well be another’s poison. So, if you have tried, share with us your findings. (^^)

For those driving, there are carpark space in the courtyard of the Chinese Temple opposite and if there is a spillover, the Shell Station. There is a friendly guy taking care of the carpark. I suppose he must have been hired for the job. Parking is free, but of course, some drivers might expressed some appreciations to these poor fellas directing the parking for you.

Fish Head steamed Teochew style, with a touch of spiciness

How to find this place, I remember that is extends right to the corner of Jln Masjid. So, that is a good landmark. And if you are coming from town, from East Coast Road side, turn in at Frankel Avenue to Changi Rd and you will see the brightly lit roadside “alfresco makan place”. From the Sims Ave side, look for Jln Masjid and turn on the next road to Changi Rd.