Jian Bo Shui Kweh: Everyone line up please! Tiong Bahru Market Part 1 of 6
This is the first of a six part series on the newly refurbished Tiong Bahru Market.
Somehow the name Tiong Bahru is synonymous with yummy hawker fare. Last time, everybody wants to tag Tiong Bahru in front of their stall name when they moved out of Tiong Bahru (eg Tiong Bahru Pao). Now everybody in this Food Centre wants to tag Tiong Bahru in front of their stall names to show people that they have moved back to the new Tiong Bahru Food Centre. (It's come full circle) The other thing you notice is that nobody bothers to tag other old food centres like "Bugis" or "Whampoa" in front of their names. It's like Bugis cannot fight with the power of Tiong Bahru. Know what I mean?
Indeed the old Tiong Bahru Market was famous for all the great eats and this Chwee Kueh was one of them.
Chwee Kueh is a very simple dish. Get some rice flour, mix with water and steam it. Then eat it with fried Chye Poh and chilli. So what's the big deal and how come this stall has been selling just Chwee Kueh and nothing else for the last 50 years?
I really like the texture of this Chwee Kueh. It is soft to the bite and you can basically eat it after you remove both upper and lower dentures. (No I don't wear dentures) The texture sets it apart from all the other Chwee Kuehs I have eaten. I found out why. They still mill their own rice to make the flour that makes the Chwee Kueh!
The second thing is that tasty fried chye poh. If you look closely, you will also notice the generous use of sesame seeds. Very pang (savoury) indeed!
Conclusion
One of the few original stalls from the old Tiong Bahru Market. If you like Chwee Kueh, you need to try this. 4/5
Jian Bo Shui Kueh
Tiong Bahru Market
#02-05
6.30am to 11pm daily
90223037
5 comments:
After posting my comments about Yuet Loy's hor fun as an "Anonymous" person, I have decided to register myself at your site. I just saw your Tiong Bahru market posting. I have been eating at Tiong Bahru market since I was a child, and now that I am a married woman who needs to feed my family, I continue the tradition passed down by my mother and do my marketing (and eating) every Saturday at the market as well. I think you have missed out altogether the
true gems in Tiong Bahru market. To me, after the old Ellenborough market was torn down, there is only one tau saun in Singapore that is worth eating, and it is found in the Tiong Bahru market, in the mornings. The stall is sandwiched between a stall that sells fried beehoon etc. and a stall that sells claypot dishes. There is also a meepok stall in the same row ("Hui Ji") - they make their own fishballs and fishcake. The meepok is, in my opinion, one of the best around. It is very fragrant, and a lot of care goes into making the lard/shallot oil - occasionally, you see a little dried shrimp which indicates that these have been used to make the oil/sauce.
There is also a forlorn lor mee stall at a corner that gets no business because everyone flocks to the stall that sells sharks' meat or the more established well known one that has been around for ages. This stall sells laksa as well. The laksa is forgettable, but I think the lor mee here is just as good if not better than the other 2 more well known stalls.
Excellent review! It would be great if you could post this in the Forum under Hawker Centres and start a new thread on Tiong Bahru Food Centre. This way it will be easy to find rather than lost in the comments!
http://ieatishootipost.proboards50.com/index.cgi?board=hawkercenters
I find the chwee kweh from this stall very very oily. Don’t believe me! Try tah bao one packet and by the time you reach home, the whole food wrapper is completely full of oil!
Due to health conscious, I tried asking them to scoop up the top layer of chai poh but in the end, ended up a scolding from them. Nowadays, the queue for this stall is getting shorter as compared to the time at the old market.
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