Chong Pang Nasi Lemak

Chong Pang Nasi Lemak
Add: Opposite side of Khatib Camp, and just besides Chong Pang Camp.
Opening hours : no idea, always open when we were there around 10pm


GF and myself are big fans of Nasi Lemak. Some of the nasi lemak that we had are :

1) Hill Street - Near to the previous Malaysia High Commission in Singapore, the coffeeshop is on the side facing the Asian Civillisation Museum, between 2 other chinese-owned coffeeshop. Their nasi lemak cost about $2.50 and comes with a peice of fried chicken wings, an egg, a piece of ikan kuning and 2 slices of cucumber. Worth mentioning also is their chilli sauce. ( 4/5)

2) Those $1.99 Nasi Lemak chain. They do a pretty good version of the nasi lemak, especially their fired chicken wings. We always have extras. (4/5)

3) Changi Village Nasi Lemak - frankly speaking i dun understand the fab about their nasi lemak. Credit must be given to them for whipping us such a nice nasi lemak but there's really nothing to shout about.

4) Fong Seng Nasi Lemak - near NUS. This is one place where the standards varies from time to time. Sometime their good, most of the time they are just bad. Rice is cold, chicken wings cold, price is steep. Consider the location i rather have my fix at Chong Pang Nasi Lemak at Sembawang Road.

5) The best - This nasi lemak stall at Golden Shoe Complex in the CBD area. Their's a green nasi lemak but the best thing are their fried drumsticks and chicken wings. Enough said, must revisit them some day, when the queues are not so long.


So last night GF had a major craving for Chong Pang Nasi Lemak. So we went up to Sembawang for some good nasi lemak. Ordered the usual stuff ( Fried chicken wings, drumsticks, eggs, ikan kuning, ikan billis, fillet ) .

The rice here is damn lemak. And the chilli is among the best i had. Food here are served fresh and pipping hot. Their deep fried drumsticks and chicken wings are filled with meat juices and it's apparent that they marinated their chicken for quite a while. They are delicious and often we find ourselves ordering extras.

So please remember to try their chicken wings, drumsticks, fillets, "mei-ren-yu"

Xin Tao Yuan

Address : 63 Tanjong Pagar Road
Tel : 6323 6367


Xin Tao Yuan Restaurant at Tanjong Pagar. Being my first visit to this establishment, i couldn't help but feel the space was some how a commodity here. Or perhaps one time too many suppers.

Anyway Xin Tao Yuan was crewed by a staff of mostly PRC ladies ( well in actual fact, i didn't really notice any non PRC staff around) and they speak with perfect Chinese which i think most of us will be able to understand. Near the entrance is this space kitchen space where the noodle chef prepares the handmade noodles in full view of all the customers. Once heard a joke that while making homemade noodles, the chef dun have to add any seasoning to the mixture. They comes naturally through the plams and forehead.

Walking into such an establishment like this, complete with the presence of PRC ladies, seeing others digging into plates of jiao zhi, you will know the place will be good, and authentic.

So the order for the night was Shredded Pork in Special Sauce (Dou Ban Jiang), Zha Jiang Mian ( handmade noodles in special sauce ), Beef Noodles ( Handmade noodles in beef consomme ), Lobster Noodle ( Stir Fried ?handmade noodles with lobster ), Guo Tie , Xiao Long Bao, Chong You Bin ( Chinese Spring Onion Puff ), and Gou Qi Ye Soup.

WE had this special Chinese flower tea which GF commment cost $2.50 per serving. Taste wise, nothing much to shout about but the presentation was beautiful.

The handmade noodles were fantastic. They had the right amount of texture to it. But the sauce was a tad too salty for my liking. I like the chewy bits of savoury meat and the crunchy vegetables in it.

Shredded Pork in Special Sauce. We were supposed to wrapped the meat into tiny packets with the meat and the popiah skin. Eaten alone, the meat can be quite salty but wrap it all up and dump it into the mouth, it lightens up the salty taste of the meat and we found it very delightful.

The xiao long baos were one of the better ones we had. The skin were thin and each little mosels of dumplings were pack-filled with piping hot and savoury meat juicies. They were generous with the filling and eaten together with shredded giner and vinegar makes the whole experience a wonderful one. Think i saw on Zhen Guo Chen's "Mei Shi Da Shan Tong"' on the Xiao Long Bao, and i think in the making of authetic Xiao Long Baos, lard and water were added in a certain percentage to the meat mixture to attain the meat juices inside the baos. If my memory doesn't fail me, lard were finely minced and mixed together with the minced meat in a 40/60 ratio. 40% being lard. ( cue Star Wars opening music ) WOW!. Water is then mixed in together to form a rather watery mixture. So be wary when u asked for seconds on this.

I was most impressived with the quality of the Guo Tie here. They were huge and generously filled with some sort of meat and vegetable mix. I can see shredded carrots, Jiu Cai and spring onions in it. The based were crispy and the skin was al dente. And it's no surprises that people came here for their Guo Tie. And there are many other choices of filling for the Guo Tie ranging from different kind of meats to seafood to vegetables.

Next up, we had Cong You Bing ( Chinese Spring Onion Puff ). It was quite a disappointment. It's not that bad actually just that it pales inthe presence of the excellent Guo Tie and Juicy Xiao Long Baos. Nevertheless, i find the puff too thick but overall still savoury and filled of spring onions. Comparatively, the ones i had in Hong Kong and Taipei seems to a lot better.

The Gou Qi Ye soup ( the leaf of Guo Qi, the red little dates that mums used to add in the soup for that extra sweetness. Said to be able to improve memeory and eyesight ). My first impression when i had the soup was it's slightly more bitter taste and in fact it came across rather familiar to me. I think my mum used to cooked this soup with dried anchovies and egg. Anyway to me it's more like a feel-good soup to accompany the deliciously-high calories dishes were had. It kind of takes that little bit of guilt away. ;)

For dessert we had this very interesting dish. Can't remember the name but they are like some white fluffly balls fried to a light golden colour and topped off with icing sugar. We later found out the skin was actually made of egg white and the stuff was that of red bean paste. I believe egg white were beaten up til extremely fluffly and a small quantity of flour added to the beaten egg whites and folded in slowly like souffles are done. Then balls of red bean paste are den coasted in the mixture and deep fried. When served, they appears huge and puff up. But as they sits on on the dish, air started leaking out and the whole thing just slowly sinked into the shape of a lump of golden balls. I took a bite and found that i could still taste the egg white texture. the skin is thing but extremely oily. Quite a interesting item and we made a mental note to experiment this someday.

Overall an extremely satified dinning experience. I was filled to the brim but somehow GF have other ideas. So after dinner we made our way to Punggol Park for a drink and chat. Things started to get really scary when she ordered Fried Chicken Wings from the menu. I was like ..."Huh?!~!"She's becoming more and more hardcore than myself. I could hardly manage my cup of hot raspberry tea!~!~!~! Is this karma?

Anyway a friend called and asked if i could meet him tomorrow for a drink. He's a real estate agent and i mentioned to him about GF and myself looking around for a flat and our plans to settle down in the near future. In actual fact, before i even mention about looking for a HDB flat to GF, i have seek advice from my friend and seriously spending a good amount of time dissecting HDB's websai. I think i first mention about getting a HDB apartment to her when we were in Bangkok. Getting close to 2 years together, planning to settle down in another 2. Our plan is as such a i believe it's realistic and practical. Well at least both of us are committed everything is going smoothly.

So after the phone call i told GF about it and she asked if it was a proposal. Lolz. I'm not the romantic kind of person but i'm sincere serving, opps i mean spending the rest of my life with her. So as most Singaporean males, i choose the most straight forward approach, and asked the HDB question.

I mean this is the all important question when a man and woman in a stable relationship got to consider if they choose to walk down the aisle to holy matrimonial isn't it? And i was promptly warned of the 'consequences' should i dare try using the same method to propose. It's is scary... very scary.

So we met-up the next day for breakfast at a fastfood joint to have a chat with him and his wife. Found out more details on how first timer like us should take note, kind of options available to us, fitting our budget to something that suits our needs. I guess we learnt a great deal from them and they were kind enough to give us print outs on cost of flats , renovation costs, etc etc.

We came out more aware of our needs and requirement. We are in fact looking at 4-rooms HDB flats in Boon Lay / Jurong area. Near MRT station, neighbourhood shopping malls, market and coffeeshops. Punggol, SengKang, and anywhere from Lavendar to Pasir Ris, Bukit Batok to Toa Payoh are not in our consideration. Anyone got lobangs? ;)

Yong He Eating House - Yuo Tiao Da Wang

I'm sure many Singaporeans have heard and/or been to this eatery at Geylang Rd for their extra long You Tiao and Soya Bean Milk. Or they would have had the famous Beef Hor Fun at the Zhi Cha stall beside the eartery. Either way, Yong He Eating House or what we usually call You Tiao Da Wang ( King of You Tiao ) people here commonly rely to when they want some comfort food that they can trust.

Yong He Eating House is open 24 hours a day. I strongly recommend their Soya Bean Milk ( $0.70), You Tiao ($0.80) , Beancurd, and this fried raddish cake with omelette thingy. Tried their Xiao Long Baos a couple of times and we weren't impressed. Tao Yuan's version is way better.

Their soya bean milk is very good, though i'm not really a conosieur on soya bean milk but this one that they had was good in the sense it dun makes you thirsty after downing a glass of it like how some soya bean milk does. Similarly they beancurd was fantastic. To me it taste as smooth and wholesome as the one at Rocher.

Their You Tiao is one must-try when u visit Yong He Eating House. Their version is a whopping 35-40cm monster ( jus aga-ration but definately longer than the usual ones at the local markets ). Yeah, size doesn't matter. That's when you haven see the full glory of Yong He's You Tiao. What's amazing , apart from it's size, is the crispiness of the You Tiao. Try dipping it inot a glass of soya bean milk and take a bite off it. Leave the remaining on the plate and carry on with other items, come back 5-10 minutes later and your You Tiao will be still erected and crispy. That's what i call Da-Wang ( The King ) , You Tiao Da Wang that is. Kenny Sia has got 2 huge coconuts but does he have what it takes to be hailed as the You Tiao Da-Wang?


Alos must try is their this item which i always have problem remembering the name. It's basically a fried Raddish cake ( not the ones made from flour,.This one contains the real stuff, shredded Raddish ) topped with fried Omelette. Sounds slightly pretentious but this stuff is good. It's oily, it's sinful, it's flavourful, it's ... so good.... Please do try it if you'rew there. Only like $2.50.

As for the Xiao Long Baos, on the few occasions when GF and myself went, they were lackluste. My take is that they had steamed the life ( and juices ) out of the tiny little baos. However the Xiao Long Baos were still very tasty and meaty. Just lack the that bit of juices flowing out of the baos when you bite a small hole in them.

Overall it's a place where i will go for some late night supper for some You Tiaos and Soya Bean Milk. Quite convienently located near Sims Ave and some sleazy alleys of Geylang, and just besides the main road. Nearest MRT should be Kallang and from there a 10 minute walk to Yong He Eating House. Otherwise just flat a cab at Kallang MRT and direct the cabby to the famous You Tiao Da Wang. Alternatively you can hop on to bus service number 51 ( or some other bus service, not too sure abt the service numbers but i'm sure there's plently serving the area) .

Another thing to note is their service is prompt and food is served quite quickly. There used to be a lot of those Feng Chen Nu Zhi ( sex-workers) in ultra low-cut blouse, in thick makeups sitting inside the eatery for some snacks. Hardly seen any in our recent visits.

Bottle Tree Village

General Office enquiry@bottletree.com.sg
General Sales and sales of plants sales@bottletree.com.sg
Event Booking and Enquiries events@bottletree.com.sg
TEL: 67554056
FAX: 67532491

Restaurant Reservation And Enquiries
TEL: 67526953

Our Address:
60 JALAN MEMPURONG,
SINGAPORE 759058

GF heard so much about the Bottle Tree Villlage online that she makes it the venue for our dinner last Sat evening. I would say the map provided from the Bottle Tree Village wasn't that detailed. We made a few wrong turns here and there only to find our way there at the very last minute before we decide to abandon the idea of having our dinner there.

Apparently Bottle Tree Village serves "Zhi Cha" style food. From what i gather from GF, the atmosphere here is fantastic. Situated a stone throw away from the beach, the place looks cosy and most importantly, sea breezes blows in to keep the diners cool while they dug in into their chilli crabs, steamboats...

Flipping thru their menu, they have many interesting dishes ( Deep Fried Fresh Prawns with Salted Egg, Banana Scallops etc ) . And they serve many usual favourites like Chilli Crabs, Fishhead Steamboat, Steam Fresh Fish/Prawns, Hor Fun, Hokkien Mee, etc.

The constant problem about dining at such a restuarant with only a companion is always the food to order. So our dinner for the night was their Fried Rice ( GF is a major fried rice freak ), a Pai-Ku-Wang ( Sweet and Sour Pork Ribs ), and a Claypot San-Pei Ji ( 3-cup Chicken ).

The fried rice was so-so (2/5). It tasted a bit bitter, perhaps the cook didn't washed the wok properly before cooking up our fried rice, or he had take his attention off the wok while cooking the dish. Either way, we're not please with the Fried Rice.

The Sweet and Sour Pork Ribs was pretty well executed ( 3.5/5 ). The ribs were huge and tender. I kindof suspect they used curry powder to season their ribs as i felt a slight hint of curry in the ribs. The sweet and sour sauce was a little too thick but still good anyway.

The Claypot 3-Cup Chicken ( 3 Pei Ji ), a chinese dish that has its roots in Taiwan-China. Ever had this once when i was in Taiwan-China, for a government sponsored activity. Here, the chicken is coated with flour and deep-fried prior to cooking together with the 3 cups of all-essential sauces ( seasame oil, rice wine, soy sauce.. i think ). Somehow the meat tasted a bit bitter ( strangely bitter ) too.

Overall a good dining experience. Food quality was okie but some very fantastic HDB Zhi-Chas i've been will put Bottle-Tree-Village to shame. However considering it's ulu location, the place was near full house when we were there. IS there something that they know thet we dun? ... hmmmmHowever if u want a place for dinner without feeling stuffy, with sea breezes brushing by you, good atmosphere, simple food, quantity at the expense of quality, den do give Botle-Tree-Village a try.

For me and GF, we're probably making a trip soon to try their Fish-head Steamboat. No more Fried Rice though this time.

Bangkok - EatFatFat random pics

We went to the 4-face Buddha to pray for good luck. GF's in her final year of her degree and hopefully she can maintain her excellent results and graduate with a equally great degree. Before the trip she had been headhunted by a MNC for a position in Germany and she was confused whether to go for it or not. I know what's stopping her was our relationship.

You know the funny thing about the whole situation. Of course i would rather have her by my side then let her venture far away from me. I started worrying if she fall sick would there be anyone to take care of her, to keep her company. Den i reflected on my past and i thought a lot about many things.

"To love is to give it wings." I told GF that she should go for the interview and do her best to get the position. Be it 2 years, 3 years or 5 years, i would want her to try and live without regards. It's an honour to be offered a chance of a lifetime and dun want to see her miss it because of me. For me i'll just continue with my life, work hard and wait for her return. I even joked that if the appointment was to be a long term one, i wouldn't mind going there with her as her "Expat-Husband".

I even thought of things to do when i'm there. I'll cook German Baked Trotters, drink German beer, watch German tv, sing German songs, be a German desperate house-husband. Hiak hiak hiak....

Call me an idealist. I believe that as long as both of us are happy, we will enjoy doing anything together. I dun mind carrying a huge bottle of mineral water in my haversack, running around BKK with you, carrying your barang-barangs, obediently taking out the file on out itinaries from a ultra-pack haversack each and everytime u asked for it. Just as long as you're happy, i'll be happy too. But i really though you could do without that much Naraya bags... lolz.

We prayed for good luck and good health at the 4-face Buddha. Actually since i'm a novice to BKK, i had intitially thought the 4-face Buddha would be a huge establishment like say our Loyang Tua Peh Gong or the Guan Yin Temple at ( si-bey-loh aka 4-horse-road). That probably explains my reaction when GF brought me to this corner of the Hyatt Hotel and told me this was it. I was like huh, "what-the-my-amituofou, shan zai shan zai"


Really an eye-opener for a sua-ku like me. A simple offering with jokesticks , a candle and 4 bundle of flowers cost 200BHT.


Chatuchak Market

On the saturday morning, a day before our flight back, we went to Chatuchak Market (CTC) for some shopping.

Some really interesting happened to us. Coming out from the BTS station, we saw this huge group of people in white forming up along the road besides CTC. As we walked down towards CTC, we were quickly caught in the middle of the crowd. Den something happened. This group of aunties directly in front of us raised up a huge banner, chanting something in Thai we we dun understand.

Then it hit me. could we have caught outselves in the anti-Thaksin protest? Got so zun-bo. I grab GF's hands and we did a belok kiri to overtake the group, only to find a camera crew fliming us coming out from behind the huge banner. And the best thing was GF and i were in white polo Ts. I held GF's hands tight and made a beeline for the entrance to CTC.

Anyway we were being too nervy. We found out after our shopping at CTC that the crowd were a pro-Thaksin rally. Anyway back to our day at CTC. CTC was like this massive piece of real estate with nothing but a few huge metallic low-level structures, with perhaps thousands of stalls inside. We dun even know where to start.

The place is huge. And there are so many stalls selling the same thing over and over again that i thought gotten over at Suam Lum. Anyway GF made a few purchases there. Slippers, shoes, Voodoo dolls ... For myself i got a few of these really cute plastic thingy that resembles, say an egg. And you are suppose to throw the thing so hard it smashes onto the floor and spread itself out like a sunny sideup. So cute. GF got the tomato one whereas i got the egg and the smiley.

GF really took the effort to buy some simple gift for her friends. Take the voodoo dolls for example. We did find some common ones in small medium and big sizes. But these are the same design jus size difference. We search all round CTC and found these really interesting voodoo dolls costing like 35bht each. You do like the one below? The little red devil voodoo doll.

We also made our way to the pets section of the CTC market. There were lots of puppies, fishes, rabbits, parrots, squrriels out there. It's more like a huge pets section of the CTC market. Check out the cute little rabbits and squrriels.

Weather soon got hotter and the market got very stuffy. We decided to adjourned to some other place for lunch and perhaps go back MBK for some shopping. On our way out we tried the roadside stalls selling bbq chicken.



We tried the BBQ drunmsticks ( 10BHT each ) and it was well marinated, served hot and definately fresh. If not for GF, i would have been glad to exchange my 1000 thai baht note with the stall owner for the drumsticks.

We also got some fresh fruits from the fruit stall besides the drumstick lady's.

So many varieties and each and every one look so delicious!~~!~. ANd it's cheap. Do give it a try should you visit BKK. Ask for the spicy plum powder to dip your fruits in. It's great!

World Trade Centre

On our second last day, we went back to WTC to get some Dunkin Donuts back for our family. In all we got 4 boxes, each with 6 items for less than 400 Baht. Can't seem to locate the Krispy Creme in BKK so this was the next best choice.

MBK treats

More often than not, we made MBK our backup shopping cum makan heaven should GF want some more shopping before the night markets open or for some after lunch exercise.

Remembered reading so much about the Loh-Bak in MBK. Figured out we could give it a try since we were there. Situated in a food-court at the top level of MBK, one has to purchase coupons and use the coupons to pay for the food. Couldn't really figure out the logic behind it but we had only one goal, that was to try the Loh-Bak there.

The food courts there had so many variety. From beef noodles to phad thai to Japanese food. And all the food looks so tempting. GF adviced that we should just try the Loh-bak and reserve our stomach for some other food later on. I agree.

Costing 180BHT for the set, it comes with a whole piece of deboned pig trotter, 2 eggs, freshly cooked vegetables and preserved vegetables ( Kiam Chai ). The Braised meat was absoluting delicious. Soft and full of flavour it simply melts in the mouth. Actually i prefers a bowl of warm "bey" ( porridge ) to go with the loh bak than the rice.

Please do try this if u happens to be in MBK. you won't be disappointed. Oh and please dun forget to try the mango sticky rice there too. We got the 80BHT serving and the portion was quite reasonable. The mango was very sweet, the rice cooked just right. The sesame seed sprinkled on top lifted the taste of the rice. The coconut milk used was very fresh and that makes the whole dish so fantastic. We couldn't have enough of this in BKK and even now GF still suffers from Post-Bkk-Syndrome and i have to tao-bao Mango sticky rice from Bali-Thai to stop-gap her craving.




We also had Bird's Nest Soup and Sharkfin Soup at "Lam Seng" ( didn't really catch the name ). Actually the interesting thing about us is that in Singapore i eat more than GF. But in BKK, she's the QUEEN of the hill. Still filling full after the Loh bah Lunch, GF quickly brought me to this restuarant for Sharksfin Soup and Bird's Nest Soup.

I dun really know how to appreciate such delicacies so i just eat with GF by my side explaining how and why the soups were delicious... For the first time in BKK, i was really full.....

Bar B Q Plaza at MBK

While shoppping in MBK one day, we passed by Bar BQ Plaza and found ourselves looking curiously at the diners inside the restuarant, watching how much they enjoy themselves. And i must say their bronze grilling plate sure pulls your attention away from the shopping for a while.

Made a mental note to try it some other day an we continued with our shopping. MBK is huge. Make that very huge. Everything u need could be found here in MBK. So much so that i do find prices here cheaper than say Suam Lam Night Market. But then that's my personal opinion. Well at least they are airconditioned and having a meal in some creature comfort is not a problem here.

Back to Bar BQ Plaza. We were prompty served upon arriving. As usual there were some problems with communications but i guess some simple hand signals ( plus lots of Ji Tong Ya Jiang - Chicken and Duck Talk ) we managed to convey our message to them.

One thing i learnt from my trip to BKK is that the restuarant operators there are relatively generous in providing that special touch to their customers. Stuffs like providing free ice buckets, ice-green tea, ice chrysanthemum tea. I mean these are simple ( and inexpensive ) gestures but they goes a long way to show that they care about their customer's needs. Right here even in some cafes, pubs, eating joints, ice-PLAIN-water is chargable. I mean if you serve me Evian bottles water i LL but for some good-ole tap-water on the rocks you gonna charge me, then i'll probably say bye bye to you. Yes Tong-Shui-Cafe, i'm talking about you.

Flipping thru the menu, we were greeted with pages and pages of Thai. The only things i understand from the menu were some simple English translation of the items and their prices. Stating out preference for a non-beef menu, we were recommend Pork Set and Seafood Set. Perhaps we were surprise by how cheap the meal cost, we quickly ordered a Family Set ( with both Pork and Seafood sets ). Perhaps we were too ambitious cause the waitress looked at me in a "what-the-fark, you-mean-you-2-can-finish-our-Family-Set meals?" look. I admit we were both hungry and we weren't sure how big the serving would be. And did i mentioned we had ordered a serving of Fried Vietnamese Spring Rolls?
The Spring Rolls were very nice. Served hot, the outside was cripsy and the inside pipping hot. Radish, carrots, prawns, meat and spices made the filling. Wrapped them with the raw cabbage and thai mint leave, dipped the rolls into the thai sweet chilli sauce before popping them into the mouth. One work... S-H-I-O-K...

The Seafood set came with lots of fresh vegetables, fresh prawns, sotongs, chicken breasts, fish noodles, slices of fish and fishcakes.


The Pork Set came with lots of finely sliced pork tenderlion, livers, bacon, fish noodles, fishcakes and lots of vegetables.

The idea is simple. Basically to sort of pan-grill the meat of the round plate of to cook them shabu-shabu style in the groove around the outer rings of the bronze plate. Slices of pork lard were given to greeze the plate to prevent the meat from sticking to the plate.

For the vegetables, we dumped them into the outer ring to sort of shabu-shabu-ed them. Some how we could really figure out how the rest managed to scopes the soup out. Anyway we paid to cook our own food but we enjoyed it! The accompanying dipping sauce was damn shiok too. Taste like some sweet sauce with a hint of nutty flavour and a healthy mix of salt and sour in it. Dipping freshly cooked pork slices into it before sending it to you mouth... heaven...

GF's bowl of fried rice. Read "thai rice fried with EGGS and OIL".

On a hind note, Bar BQ Plaza. originated from Thailand, had started it's invasion down south. The last time i heard from my ex-NS buddy, now plying his trade in Malaysia, Bar BQ Plaza have set up shop in KL. Anyone can verify?