Food Choices N S E W!

It's been a while since I posted something about the variety of food choices we have around Viz. The post on the Commonwealth Crescent Food Centre is still valid, although precaution should be taken if you intend on using the shortcut. Use the main Queensway road if you intend to go there, for safety reasons.

For newcomers to Singapore or people unfamiliar with the area, we are literally at the crossroads of food delights...

Go North (Farrer Road and beyond) and you will encounter nearby middle- to upper-class Bukit Timah, with food choices ranging from reasonable budget meals to posh restaurants tucked away amongst landed properties.

Go East (Holland Road - Napier Road) and you hit the shopping belt Orchard Road and you'll be seriously spoilt for choices, although there are some good eating places within a 5km range (ish).

Go West (Holland Road - Ulu Pandan Road) and you hit residential condoland before getting to the Clementi Heartland, with pockets of decent food in between.

Go South (Queensway - Alexandra/Portsdown/Bukit Merah) and you get to more dining spots in the HDB estates, including plenty of hidden (decent) finds.

I hope to cover each of these areas soon, highlighting some of my personal favorites (although your taste and preference may of course vary!), choosing food places that are within a short (5-10km) radius so that it's easy for those who drive, or take public transport.

But some recommended sites (links included) for those too eager to begin exploring food choices around the area:

1. Hungrygowhere is a fantastic review-driven site listing out tons of eating spots around Singapore. You can narrow your search to specific areas or cuisine. Give that a spin if you're too hungry (or impatient) to wait for my subsequent suggestions.
2. ieatishotipost is a food blog run by Dr Leslie Tay and has been very popular for its focus on Singaporean foodfare, especially in the hawker centres around Singapore. These are cheap, good, meals.
3. I-S Magazine is available as a free magazine in various cafes in Singapore (eg Coffee Bean) as well as online. Recently, they have an iPad version which you can download their magazine and read on your device. The iPad version is pretty good! They have good recommendations for restaurants, albeit the more hip, happening (and expensive) stuff!
4. Ladyironchef is another food blog which has nice lists for best cafes in Singapore, best brunch in Singapore, best pancakes etc etc.

I'm sure there are more blogs or food sites out there. If you have a good one to recommend, put under comments here!

Tingkat - When you've too small a kitchen to cook (Or are too lazy!)

It's a strange thing - newer flats usually means smaller kitchens. Go see the showflats for some of the recent developments... their 2-3 bedroom flats have kitchens that are made for.. well, for show really. They are not designed for proper Chinese (or Western) cooking, even though it might have the swankiest kitchen electrical items. But anyone who's cooked knows that...

1. You need space, lots of space, to prepare your ingredients.
2. You need a well-ventilated kitchen area when you're cooking Asian food, particularly chilli, spicy or dishes that uses a lot of strong herbs.
3. You don't want your neighbours cursing at you for making them hungry with the wafts of your excellent culinary dishes, or for stinking up their laundry with your twenty-spiced quadruple-cooked essence soup.
4. You need space to keep your ingredients and utensils.

Viz kitchens are small. They're meant for breakfast cereals, microwave meals, instant noodles, coffee making. They're not meant for cooking 8 course meals for guests, and I'm sure people here struggle to cook their dinners in the limited kitchen space (how many pack and store your kitchen items elsewhere?).

So design-wise, our kitchens are not cooking-friendly. Which gives us 3 choices:

1. Grin and bear it.. cook in that cramped space. Helps if you don't have to do the cooking (ie you have a live-in maid or a very obliging husband/wife!)
2. Eat out.. Some people just find it more convenient to eat at the numerous hawker centres or restaurants and then come home.
3. Tingkat!

Tingkat (I think) literally means 'tiered carrier'. It's a metal container comprising of multiple, stacked, round containers (usually about 3-4 levels) which is sealed at the top, and used to carry food around. In the old days, people would cook their food in the morning, and bring them to work in such tingkats.





Nowadays, it's a term used to mean "home-cooked food delivered to your door so you don't have to cook". Something like that.

It's not 'takeaway food' (eg pizza, KFC, McD), but rather, the tingkat services pride themselves in cooking food that would taste like they're home-cooked rather than 'cooked-in-a-big-pot-that-can-feed-the-entire-Queenstown-Remand-Prison-guests'. It's useful for busy people, for mothers-to-be (whose hubbies are out working), for lazy people (like, erm, us), for people who are sick of deciding daily where to eat for dinner (like, erm, us).

There's quite a few tingkat services in Singapore. They usually have the following characteristics:

• They deliver dinners at about 3-4pm, which means if you get back at about 7pm, you'll need to microwave the food just to heat them up.
• They do change their menus (usually) monthly, and you can try to request for certain dishes (eg no meat dishes etc).
  
• Some have a 'trial' period of say 10 days, when you can try their meals for 10 days and if you don't like it, try another service or return to whatever you were doing to feed yourselves.
• Some pride themselves as being 'msg-free' or they use 'less salt or oil' etc. The more upmarket ones will feature better or larger varieties, or more interesting selections.
• You can usually cancel the food for the day (eg you have a dinner date) but that usually requires a day's notice (ie you can't spring a sudden dinner date or you'll find a tingkat at your doorstep).
  
• You can order with or without rice, up to 4 dishes with or without soup etc. Costs about $5 per person ($10 per couple) to $15 per person for the more posh ones.
• Some will provide the food in the metal tingkat containers, which you then wash and leave outside the next day for them to collect. Others will heat-seal the food in plastic, disposable, containers.
  
• They have specific areas where they will serve.

The last point is a bit annoying for Viz Hollanders. When we decided upon going the tingkat route, we contacted all the tingkat services that were within the reasonable range (about $10-20 per couple). We found that (a) not a lot of them have heard of Viz Holland (b) many do not serve the Queensway area that we are at.

There's two tingkat services that can/do serve our estate - First Cuisine, and Four Seasons. We've tried both and preferred one over the other. Without biasing people, I'd suggest that you give it a go yourselves if you wish to do the tingkat thang.

So here's some links for you to try out:
http://www.fourseasonscatering.com.sg/
http://www.firstcuisine.com.sg/tingkat.asp
http://www.houseofcatering.com/tingkat.htm
http://www.kimskitchen.com.sg/tingkat.html
http://www.jessie.com.sg/
http://www.empirefood.com.sg/tingkat.htm
http://www.select.com.sg/tingkat.htm
http://www.neogarden.com.sg/
http://www.lexin.com.sg/tingkat.htm
http://www.tongchiang.com.sg/delivery.htm

As mentioned, Four Seasons and First Cuisine will cater to Viz Hollanders, while the rest either refused to, or were not contactable at the time we were looking for one. Worth asking them though, if you want to.

You can read other forums which have some recommendations.. there are largely in the motherhood forums like this one here, here, or a women's forum here.

If you find others that service Viz, please put it in the comments. We're always keen to try them out ourselves!

Tags: tingkat, viz@holland, viz holland, viz @ holland, queensway, singapore

Venturing into Old Singapore - Margaret Drive (and Food Centre!)

For those who don't know, despite being called "@Holland", Viz is situated in the Queenstown area, and Queenstown has a long history in Singapore's development into the modern city state it is now. Queenstown is known for many 'firsts' - first branch library, first satellite town, first HDB flats, first neighbourhood shopping complex. And many of these are still in existence along Margaret Drive.



If you turn into Margaret Drive from Queensway (heading past McDonalds and the Esso Station), you'll see a part of Singapore that has yet to be redeveloped (although that will happen in 2010 when the Selective En-bloc Redevelopment Scheme tears down the remaining old HDB blocks to make new pigeon holes). Already the newer Dawson Place HDB blocks and Dawson 21 estate (designed by WOHA architects) have modernised the area, erasing some of the prominent histories of the area.

You can read the history of Queenstown here. This links to the Heritage Trails site, which contains a lot of information about specific locations in Queenstown and Margaret Drive.

Here's some interesting points that remains there, at least until the bulldozers and developers come, destroying the past in the name of modernity (and greed):

• Block 6C is I believe still occupied (about 50%) but it has a subculture that's developed over the years - skateboarders would train and learn there outside the Go Sports shop, one of the remaining shops in the block. You can find skateboarders of all races hanging out there. You can read about that here.
• Opposite 6C is an area long abandoned. You can spot a lone fire hydrant near the 'jungle', abandoned stone table-tennis table, and some stone benches.
• Going further in, the left side houses a Foreign Workers' Dormitory. Previously it was Queenstown Polyclinic.
• Opposite the dormitory is the Margaret Drive Food Centre, two stories of stalls, although quite a number of them are no longer occupied. There are some notable stalls here, in particular:
• Famous Char Kway Teow - This guy's stall has a damn long queue that starts as early as 5pm and lasts till 9-10pm (until his kway teow runs out). He cooks each order individually, hence the long queue. Yet people will queue up and wait, and wait. You can read a review of it here.
• Poh Piah - Featured as one of the 4 best poh piah stalls in Singapore, you can find this humble stall on the ground floor facing the carpark area. You can read a review of it here.
• On the side row as the Char Kway Teow is a You Char Kway stall, that sells deep fried banana balls, Ham Chee Peng, Butterfly can't-remember-the-name roll etc. They close early too, so take note. You can read a review of it here.
• Finally on the upper floor is a famous chicken rice stall, which also has a long queue of regulars. You can read it's review here.
• Finally, there's the western stall (same row as the Char Kway Teow stall), which have regulars frequenting it.
• Diagonally across the road is the National Library Queenstown Branch. For those of us staying in Viz where space for books can be a premium, there's nothing better than using the library to borrow books to read. Secondhand books are practically worthless in Singapore anyways, so visit the Library which stocks new and old books. New books can be 'ordered' from other libraries or 'reserved', such as Dan Brown's Lost Symbol (which we finally received notice that it's arrived at Queenstown... after almost 5 weeks' wait!).
  
• Across from the Queenstown library is a multistory carpark. Situated WITHIN the car park is the NTUC Fairprice, which will not be visible from Margaret Drive. You need to drive or walk in to spot this secluded supermarket. Still, it's the closest supermarket to Viz (aside from the more upmarket Cold Storage at Holland V). However, note that the fresh meat variety (and freshness) can be limited at this NTUC.
  
• Jalan Penjara, across from the multistorey car park, houses the now-empty Queenstown Remand Prison, a golf driving range, a spa, a restaurant for tourists, and a carpark area that was converted for use by remote-controlled car hobbyists. These have since moved out.
• If you go further down Margaret Drive, past Dawson Road on your right, you will eventually reach the Movement for the Intellectually Disabled of Singapore (MINDS) Centre, which houses a 2nd hand thrift shop which both sells, and accepts, 2nd hand items. If you have any, feel free to drop by the shop. Do take note of the opening hours - Tues and Thurs from 1030-3pm. Shop sells clothing, accessories, household items, toys, books. "Good as New Charity Shop" 800 Margaret Drive, Tel 74641043. They are looking for household and electrical items in particular.
  
• And for those who prefer the New and the Modern, you can read about the new developments at Dawson here.

Do feel free to explore a part of Singapore most Singaporeans would not bother to venture to nowadays, preferring the glitz and shine of Orchard Road to the memories of Margaret Drive.

Tags: viz @ holland, viz holland, viz@holland, holland, queensway, margaret drive, old singapore

Eating Spots Around Viz - Commonwealth Crescent Food Centre ... Right Behind Us!

I'm going to try to put up a number of posts highlighting some of the eating places that are nearby Viz. The closest location is right behind us, down the stairs after the rear gate (near the tennis court) - the Commonwealth Crescent Food Centre (FC).

The FC has recently been renovated and features a wet market selling fresh meat, eggs, vegetables, fruits on the ground floor (the food stalls are upstairs). There's also a GP clinic at one of the shops 'surrounding' the FC, and a few minisupermarkets (the equivalent of UK's corner shops). One of the minisupermarkets sell Coke Zero 1.5l bottles at $1.60 and that's quite a decent price :) (Yes, I'm addicted to Zero!).

You can find the FC on this map (follow the red arrows):



Located within the FC itself are several notable stalls:

• Recently, the dessert stall there's had a makeover courtesy of Channel 8's Buzzing Cashier. This show goes around Singapore helping out hawkers that are in financial diffulcty, and provide expert culinary advice and makeover. You can read about the Bee Garden Desserts here (food blog courtesy of ieatishootipost).
• On the same floor is Henry's Chicken Rice, which opens during lunchtime only. His chickens run out (well, not literally) about 130pm or so, so you have to be there early to get some. I like his roasted chicken (boneless!).
• The biggest stall there is the Hong Kong Street stall which is a Cze Char stall - they have a set menu of cooked dishes you can order from (although they do not provide a physical menu I think). They're open lunch and dinner, and we used to get food from there as takeaway, to eat back home. That's until we found our tingkat service (another post on this in the future)
• There's also a decent western stall (same row as the sugar cane/fruit juice stall) that serves nice chicken cutlet/fried rice meals, and same row, a noodle store that has decent jade (ie green) noodles with charsiew (although the charsiew isn't that good).

Venture out of the FC and there are several restaurants surrounding it that's been recommended by floggers (food bloggers), such as:

• Eng Kee Chicken Wings - This is in one corner of the 'square', and if driving you can't miss the huge chicken wings signboard. There's always a LONG queue for this stall so take note. It's famous for its deep fried chicken wings, and you order that with fried bee hoon, and other optional items (eg vegetables, fried egg, luncheon meat, sausage, fish cake etc). You can read about it here.
• Two Chefs Eating Place - Try the butter pork ribs.. That alone is worth the trip there. Food is served fast, and while there are other dishes there, we didn't find them as great as the butter pork ribs. You can read about it here, here or here too.
• Finally, the flogger ieatishootipost has highly recommended the Indian Mutton Soup in the same stall area as Two Chefs here. I have to admit not trying this yet, due to the high chloresterol content of mutton soup, but ieatishootipost has pretty good recommendations thus far, so for the adventurous (and those on xenical, crestor etc) might want to give it a go LOL.
  

Tags: viz@holland, viz holland, viz @ holland, singapore, queensway, commonwealth crescent food centre