ANG MO KIO. Singaporean Hawker Cuisine.

ANG MO KIO came to the rescue when Dan was looking for a place to lamon! Trying out new places to eat is our new hobby and since we've been to Yaku and Shi Lin, we decided to give Ang Mo Kio a try! :)

They have an awesome ambience which doesn't really look like an authentic singaporean escapade but I'm diggin' the painted palochina dining sets! They look so artsy and it's something I'd want in my kitchen too. :)

Let's fast forward to food. We were served with bowls of white broth, that same broth they cooked the Hainanese chickens and it's packed with richness and flavour. 

I ordered CHAR KWAY TEOW. It is made from flat rice noodles stir-fried over very high heat with light and dark soy sauce, chill, a small quantity of belachan, whole prawns, de-shelled cockles, bean sprouts and chopped Chinese chives.  The dish is commonly stir-fried with egg, slices of Chinese sausage and fishcake. 

I ordered this dish because it somehow resembled that same dish I ordered from Melaka, Malaysia. It is also made from transparent flat rice noodles, stir-fried over very high heat with light and dark soy sauce, scallops and a generous serving of oysters. It was also stir-fried with egg and fishcake. 

Now, Char Kway Teow may resemble the aforementioned dish in some ways but it tastes distinctly different. Different but delicious! I'm just not a fan of overly-salty dish but it's quite good. Maybe the chef poured a little too much of soy sauce but nevertheless, it's a good dish with noodles cooked to the tooth (al dente!) partnered with a good combination of ingredients but I think I'd prefer the noodles overpowering the meat than meat overpowering the noodles. It had too much sausages, fishcake, cockles and prawns. Now, I'm not complaining about the prawns but really, it had to much Chinese sausages.  

Dan went for one of their bestsellers, BEEF RENDANG. It was described as, "rich in spices; next to the main meat ingredient, rendang uses coconut milk, and mixture of ground spices paste, which include ginger, galangal, turmeric leaves, lemon grass, garlic, shallot, chillies and other spices.

As much as I'd like to say "no resistance, none at all", we actually had a hard time slicing the beef. Hamartia---a fatal flaw. 

But taste-wise, it was pure delish! One of the many reasons why I like Asian cuisine especially, Singaporean, Malaysian and Thai is because their use of various spices that perfectly marry together especially when cooked. I just wished they cooked the beef a little bit longer or until the meat separates from the bone. 

I just had to blog this because I kind of love their food. Not that I'm being biased with anything singaporean, malaysian or thai but maybe.... I'm quite biased. Haha!