Carrot Cake: Lots of Stalls at Chomp Chomp with no name

With sumosumo, jems, carnineviand, ping, pong, champagne, Mr YaKwang, Holybro, Holydrummer


You would think that any stall that can do a white carrot cake will be able to do a black one as well right? Afterall, it is a matter of adding black sauce and how hard can that be? But the fact is that most Carrot Cake stalls I know of are either good for the white or the black but not both. Will that be your observation as well?



For this particular stall, it is the white version that is the best version. The carrot cake fried till it is nice and crispy and the nice savoury flavour comes from the secret recipe fish sauce which has gone through some tweaking, plus the addition of prawns when they fry the carrot cake. The outsourced carrot cake is not bad, quite soft, according to Jems who likes it this way. Sumosumo also gave his approval for the white without chilli. 4.25/5

This particular stall has been around for quite a while. It is one of these Heritage Hawker stalls where the business has been passed down from father to son. The old man used to peddle his carrot cake around the Philip St area in Serangoon and settled at Chomp Chomp since 1976. The old man is still around, but his son has well and truly taken over and Dad refused to have his picture taken and insist that the limelight be shone upon his son instead. But after much coaxing he finally relented. I just wanted to post his picture so that those of you who have been eating at this stall for eons will perk up and say, "Hey, I have been buying from this man since his son was still waist high!" Hands up anyone?

Conclusion

Very good white Carrot Cake and worth having a plate on your table as part of your hawker feast.

Carrot Cake
Stall 36 Chomp Chomp Food Centre
(Front of the food centre on the right)
Opened 5.30pm to 12 midnight
Closed on alternate Tuesdays



What to do next?

Check out other famous Carrot Cake places.
Try the two famous Hokkien Mee there Che Jian and Ah Hock!
Make sure you also get a plate of BBQ Stingray from Boon Tat Street BBQ.
RK House Prata from a across the road is also quite good.

....Read more!

Boon Tat Street BBQ Seafood: BBQ Stingray

My first introduction to the BBQ Stingray was during my dating days in RJC. I never used to like seafood until I met Amagada. What to do? You want to impress your potential in-laws you need to put in the effort which includes enjoying what the girlfriend's family likes as well as washing the windows before Chinese New Year. Yeah, PM Lee might be Singapore's love guru, but I also have a few tips up my sleeves (besides buying $228 mooncakes) and have two kids to prove it that it works.

Anyway the first, and for me, still the best Stingray, used to be the one at the coffeeshop just below her block of flats at Teban Gardens. For a guy who didn't like to eat fish, the Stingray was quite a revelation. It's too bad that the stall has since moved to who knows where.

The thing about BBQ Stingray is that this seems to be one of the very few ways people actually eat the fish. Stingray is a very cheap fish if you were to buy it in the markets, but somehow when it gets displayed on the bed of ice at the BBQ seafood place, the value suddenly increases exponentially. Afterall, no one really buys stingray except for the BBQ Seafood places right? Do let us know if your family buys Stingray to cook at home.

Amagada really likes the sambal chilli here and says that it deserves a 4.5/5. Yes, it is one of the better stingrays that I have eaten of late, the chilli is full of Hae Bee and is very fragrant. However, it somehow still doesn't measure up to what I had over twenty years ago.

Conclusion

Very good stingray here but I can't say that it was as good as what I had twenty years ago. I am sure you all can recommend Singapore's no. 1 BBQ Stingray right? And with around 3 BBQ seafood places at Chomp Chomp, which one is your favourite?

Boon Tat Street BBQ Seafood
Chomp Chomp Food Centre
Open 5.30pm till late

....Read more!

Che Jian Hokkien Mee: Now that's what I call traditional HKM!

With Amagada


If you are looking for a truly traditional Hokkien Mee, then this is the place to get it. It's got it all. The opeh leaf, the crunchy pork lard, boiled melt-in-your-mouth belly pork, cut chilli and most importantly, a stock made from Sea Prawns or "Sua Lor" as it is called in Hokkien.

Yes, the taste of farmed prawns still fails to meet up to what God originally created prawns to taste like. When you bite into a "Sua Lor", you can immediately make out that extra sweetness in its flesh which you don't get with the farmed tiger prawns. And when they are used to make the stock, it adds that special old school taste to the Hokkien mee the fills the air with the aroma of anticipation when the Hokkien Mee is being fried.



Chomp Chomp is a Hokkien Mee lover's paradise. Aside from this particular stall and Ah Hock which I blogged about in the previous post, there is yet another stall which is a branch of the famous Kim's which is not bad, but it can never compare with these two owner run stalls.



I think that there are going to be fans of both Hokkien Mees here. I ate both at the same sitting and in my opinion, Che Jian edges out Ah Hock in terms of the taste of the noodles, the use of sea prawns, the addition of belly pork AND the fact that they have crispy pork lard when you request for it. So for that, it deserves a 4.5/5. And on top of that, their signboard is also quite old school, as is the old man's 555 all cotton T-shirt!

Conclusion

Two great hokkien mees in the one Food Centre! So how many are fans of Che Jian and how many of Ah Hocks?

Che Jian Fried Hokkien Mee
Chomp Chomp Food Centre
Left hand side towards the back
Open 5.30pm till 1am

....Read more!

Ah Hock Hokkien Mee: The Old Man is Back!

With Amagada


Fans of Ah Hock Hokkien Fried Noodles at Chomp Chomp can rejoice as the Old Man who has been frying Hokkien Mee there for the last thirty years has finally come out of retirement and is now back in a frying frenzy.

Chomp Chomp is one of those places that somehow still manages to keep its old world charm despite its recent renovations. The fact is that I haven't been to Chomp Chomp for at least 25 years, so actually I am not that familiar with the place. But, when I got there I could just feel the buzz in the air. Maybe it is just that it is cramped and looks as if there are too many stalls and too few seats. Or perhaps it is the sound of clanging woks and the extra saturated smell of frying food in a tight space that creates the atmosphere of intense anticipation. Whatever it is, hawker food needs to be eaten in a place such as this which is why it loses its charm when served in a Hotel.



Yes, there is that element of authenticity in the Hokkien Mee. It could be because it was fried by a man whose white hair was flying in the wind like a modern day Beethoven conducting a symphony or the queue of people waiting in line, but somehow all these visual cues also add to the whole Hokkien Mee experience.

Tastewise, it was very good. They use the thin bee hoon here and the noodles were very well fried. I was a little disappointed that there was no pork lard or pieces of pork belly which would have added that extra oomph. Otherwise it was a Hokkien Mee that I certainly wouldn't mind eating again. 4.25/5

Conclusion

So are you a fan of this Old Man? Let us know how long you have been eating there!

Ah Hock Fried Hokkien Noodles
Chomp Chomp Food Centre Stall 27
Serangoon Gardens
5.30pm to 12 plus
Closed once a fortnight

....Read more!