每个人心目中都有记忆中的美味。在新加坡，同样地，每个人都有自己最常去的一家餐馆，最欣赏的一道菜，离开新加坡后最想念的一种味道。我个人心中的新加坡十大本地特色美食，是这样的：
1. 螃蟹。Crab. 这绝对最高大上的一道新加坡名菜，没有之一。基本上其他所有的新加坡美食，三到五块钱都能搞掂。唯有斯里兰卡螃蟹，平均要五六十新币一只。价钱不是问题的话，要选块头大，分量足，最好超过一公斤的。啃钳子肉时，大口大口的感觉就像啃大鸡腿一样爽，但肉却是螃蟹嫩嫩的肉感。挖膏或黄就像五六个咸鸭蛋黄放在一起，可以吃个够吃到胆固醇直线上升。有人喜欢辣椒螃蟹，并用馒头蘸着热辣汤汁吃。有人喜欢黑胡椒螃蟹，体验口中麻麻的感觉。有人觉得螃蟹米粉最好吃，因为螃蟹肉鲜美，汤头足，润滑的粗米粉还可以做主食。不要去游客吃螃蟹的地方。要找最好吃的螃蟹，就要深入新加坡居民区，找当地人排长龙的地方。吃来吃去，我最推荐龙海鲜螃蟹王。 地址如下： Mellben Seafood (Ang Mo Kio) Blk 232 Ang Mo Kio Avenue 3 #01-1222. 每次去必排队一小时以上，预不预定都要等很久。最近的地铁站是Ang Mo Kio。
2. 鸡饭。Chicken Rice. 最平民的本地美食。小贩中心Hawker Centre最便宜的只卖两块五新币一盘，还送碗汤。有人喜欢白斩鸡，吃原味，最多蘸酱油。有人喜欢烧鸡，金黄的鸡皮，里面的肉虽干但香。我个人喜欢吃油鸡，鸡皮是卤的，鸡肉是超嫩的，撒上香油，实在是诱人。鸡饭的饭都是用鸡汤煮的，每颗饭粒都喷喷香，干吃都行。每个鸡饭摊都有自制的姜末，辣椒，酱油，专门配鸡饭吃。大酒店也有卖鸡饭的，三四十块钱一份，但我并不以为然。我所推荐的最棒的鸡饭，依然是在街边摊儿上：107 Killiney Road, Chicken Express 快捷鸡饭。地铁站Sommerset附近。这地方颇靠近市中心，从乌节路可以走得到。但真没什么游客去。
3. 炒粿条，炒虾面。Fried Kuay Teow, Fried Prawn Noodles. 同样也是平民小吃，三五块钱可以吃饱。粿条就是宽米粉混黄碱面，用酱油，耗油，鲜蛤，豆芽大火炒制而成，大叔炒粿条时通常浓烟起四方，油香飘八面。虾面用的是粗米粉配黄碱面，蒜蓉炒大虾和鱿鱼。虾面的汤水较粿条多，粿条是干的，虾面是带汤儿的。商业化一点的炒虾面，大叔会带顶草帽，给你点半个世纪前街边摊的感觉。我推荐的炒粿条炒虾面在这里：Block 51 Old Airport Road Food Centre. 在地铁站Dokota 附近。有挺多家都做炒粿条炒虾面，找个队伍长的跟着排，准没错儿。
To be continued...
4. 肉脞面。Bak Chor Mee.
5. 印度大饼，印度馅饼。Roti Prata, Murtabak
6. 马来菜饭。Nasi Padang
7. 叻沙。Laksa
8. 粿汁。Kuay Chap.
9. 肉骨茶。Bak Kut Teh.
10. 椰浆饭。Nasi Lemak
Sunday 5 January 2014
Friday 3 January 2014
Where to Find Cheap and Good Beer in Singapore
Beer in Singapore is expensive, that is a fact. It is probably the most expensive place for beer. Even in supermarkets of Singapore, the relatively cheap but decent enough ones, such as Tiger Beer, is about S$5.20 to S$5.60 per big bottle (633ml), which is US$4.2 to US$4.5. In normal bars, one pint of beer easily costs S$15 to $20. This price I mentioned here has not included the 7% GST (Goods and Services Tax) and 10% service charge. And in some high class bars and restaurants, it is not surprising that one pint of beer can cost $30 or more.
But men love beer. This is also a fact. It makes men happy. If you are happy, you go for beer. Naturally. If you are sad, you go for beer. Also naturally. In fact if you stay in Singapore long enough, like more than 2 or 3 days, you will somehow get used to such price, and realize it is more practical to sit down and enjoy the chilled beer in summer, instead of wasting time complaining about it pointlessly.
If you are still grumpy about getting overcharged for beer, well, why not read on further, see whether you can find something useful to you.
Budget
If you are on tight budget, and can accept drinking at your own house or sitting on your own mat along the beach or in the public parks, following are my recommendations.
1) Duty Free Shops. When you arrive Singapore, buy duty free beer in Changi Airport or Tanah Merah Ferry Terminal. Beer usually cost about 20-30% cheaper than supermarkets. But there is a limit of 1 litre, so with that quota i.e. three 330mil bottles or two 500mil cans, it won't last too long.
2) Supermarkets. Price of beer in Supermarket is relatively fair. In most supermarkets such as NTUC FairPrice and Giant (Shop N Save now is part of Giant), you can get normal brand like Tiger, Carlsberg and Heineken, pricing ranging from S$5.20 to S$6.80 per big bottle. If you have a special craving for higher end beer such as Erdinger (around S$7 for 500ml), Hoegarden (S$4 to S$5 for 330mil), or Kronenbourg 1664 (S$4 to S$5 for 330ml), then you need to go to Coldstorage or Market Place. And if you would like to try some basic, down to earth, no frill beer, you can get those from Sheng Siong, like Zhujiang (珠江啤酒) or Weihaiwei (威海卫啤酒), at $3 per big bottle.
3) Special neighbourhood shops or special alcohol retail shops. I would recommend Ang Mo Supermarket as it offers the cheapest retail Hoegarden in Singapore. S$2.65 per 330ml bottle. Yep it is even cheaper than duty free shop. Ang Mo has many branches. I personally have bought from the branch at Blk 407 Ang Mo Kio Ave 10, and another one at Blk 639 Punggol Drive. Other than beer, Ang Mo in fact offers other cheap life necessities too such as toiletries and groceries. Cellarbration is a beer shop which frequently offers promotional prices for beer. You need to buy in bulk though. 24 cans of Heineken costs as low as $56 and 24 Hoegardens for $65.
Mid Range
Yeah if you choose mid range, you get a more decent place to sit, and probably you get served.
1) Hawker Centres. Here beer costs about $0.50 to S$1.50 more expensive than supermarkets, but you get proper table and seat. In certain hawker centres premier beers such as Erdinger and Hoegarden are available too. Sometimes beer ladies offer to pour beer for you. This service is free, and even if you order beer from the beer ladies they won't charge you a cent more than the retail price from the drink stalls. Their commission is included in the retail price of the beer. If this is the first time you are in Singapore and you would like to talk to local people, it is not difficult to find retirees at your nearby table, and most of them are 24 by 7 for you. Lucky for you, there are as many as about a hundred of hawker centres in Singapore.
2) Coffee shops and Kopitiam. Tables and seats here are cleaner, and lights are brighter than Hawker Centres. However beer normally costs S$0.20 to S$0.80 more than Hawker Centres. If you are lucky, some coffee shops and Kopitiam are equipped with air-con. Coffee shops and Kopitiam, like hawker centres, are available almost everywhere in Singapore.
Luxury
The topic is about cheap and good beer. So even in this section I can guarantee you real cheap beers, with good ambience. Yep by Luxury I mean decent bars. I also mean draft beer fresh from tap, but not cans or bottles.
1) Holland Village. Along this whole strech of a dozen of decent bars, beer normally is not as cheap as hawker centres or coffee shops. However, there is this good thing called "Happy Hour". Most happy hours are before 9pm daily. Some bars offer buy two get one free, some bars offer a fixed price such as $40 for a bucket of five 330ml bottles. I would recommend Baden Restaurant and Pub, which is opposite to the noisy Wala Wala. For happy hour, you can get 2 Erdinger or Guiness Draught for S$16. They don't charge GST, so there is only 10% of service charge. That calculates to S$8.80 for a solid pint of cloudy Erdinger or smoothy classy Guiness. If you can find anything better than this with similar ambiance, man, let us be friends.
2) Clarke Quay. Yep most bars and restaurants here are expensive. Except for one - but must be during Happy Hour. That magic place is none other than Brewerkz. It brews its own beer, and a lot of kinds. From noon to 3pm, one pint costs S$6 only. You can drink that while sitting along the Singapore River and watching to-and-fro boats, in the sunny afternoon. Nothing beats this. From 3pm onwards the same beer gets pricier, to S$9 until 6pm, and to S$12 until 9pm, and tops at SS$15 between 9 and 11pm.
3) APB (Asia Pacific Brewery Pte Ltd) Brewery tour. Yeah this is where Tiger is brewed. Heineken and Carlsberg are brewed here too. The tour is a normal tour, same beer tanks, same brewery processes as other countries'. But the finale treat is fantastic, considering it is Singapore. In 45 minutes to 1 hour's time, you have full access to all kinds of beer in this Brewery, including Tiger, Carlsberg, Heineken, ABC stout, Anchor, Baron and Archipelago beers. All these costs S$16 only. The only drawback is the location of APB. It is at Tuas, the west most part of the Singapore island. So if you have enough time and don't mind taking one hour of bus (taxi will defeat the purpose of enjoying the "cheap and good" Luxury), this should be your top choice.
But men love beer. This is also a fact. It makes men happy. If you are happy, you go for beer. Naturally. If you are sad, you go for beer. Also naturally. In fact if you stay in Singapore long enough, like more than 2 or 3 days, you will somehow get used to such price, and realize it is more practical to sit down and enjoy the chilled beer in summer, instead of wasting time complaining about it pointlessly.
If you are still grumpy about getting overcharged for beer, well, why not read on further, see whether you can find something useful to you.
Budget
If you are on tight budget, and can accept drinking at your own house or sitting on your own mat along the beach or in the public parks, following are my recommendations.
1) Duty Free Shops. When you arrive Singapore, buy duty free beer in Changi Airport or Tanah Merah Ferry Terminal. Beer usually cost about 20-30% cheaper than supermarkets. But there is a limit of 1 litre, so with that quota i.e. three 330mil bottles or two 500mil cans, it won't last too long.
2) Supermarkets. Price of beer in Supermarket is relatively fair. In most supermarkets such as NTUC FairPrice and Giant (Shop N Save now is part of Giant), you can get normal brand like Tiger, Carlsberg and Heineken, pricing ranging from S$5.20 to S$6.80 per big bottle. If you have a special craving for higher end beer such as Erdinger (around S$7 for 500ml), Hoegarden (S$4 to S$5 for 330mil), or Kronenbourg 1664 (S$4 to S$5 for 330ml), then you need to go to Coldstorage or Market Place. And if you would like to try some basic, down to earth, no frill beer, you can get those from Sheng Siong, like Zhujiang (珠江啤酒) or Weihaiwei (威海卫啤酒), at $3 per big bottle.
3) Special neighbourhood shops or special alcohol retail shops. I would recommend Ang Mo Supermarket as it offers the cheapest retail Hoegarden in Singapore. S$2.65 per 330ml bottle. Yep it is even cheaper than duty free shop. Ang Mo has many branches. I personally have bought from the branch at Blk 407 Ang Mo Kio Ave 10, and another one at Blk 639 Punggol Drive. Other than beer, Ang Mo in fact offers other cheap life necessities too such as toiletries and groceries. Cellarbration is a beer shop which frequently offers promotional prices for beer. You need to buy in bulk though. 24 cans of Heineken costs as low as $56 and 24 Hoegardens for $65.
Mid Range
Yeah if you choose mid range, you get a more decent place to sit, and probably you get served.
1) Hawker Centres. Here beer costs about $0.50 to S$1.50 more expensive than supermarkets, but you get proper table and seat. In certain hawker centres premier beers such as Erdinger and Hoegarden are available too. Sometimes beer ladies offer to pour beer for you. This service is free, and even if you order beer from the beer ladies they won't charge you a cent more than the retail price from the drink stalls. Their commission is included in the retail price of the beer. If this is the first time you are in Singapore and you would like to talk to local people, it is not difficult to find retirees at your nearby table, and most of them are 24 by 7 for you. Lucky for you, there are as many as about a hundred of hawker centres in Singapore.
2) Coffee shops and Kopitiam. Tables and seats here are cleaner, and lights are brighter than Hawker Centres. However beer normally costs S$0.20 to S$0.80 more than Hawker Centres. If you are lucky, some coffee shops and Kopitiam are equipped with air-con. Coffee shops and Kopitiam, like hawker centres, are available almost everywhere in Singapore.
Luxury
The topic is about cheap and good beer. So even in this section I can guarantee you real cheap beers, with good ambience. Yep by Luxury I mean decent bars. I also mean draft beer fresh from tap, but not cans or bottles.
1) Holland Village. Along this whole strech of a dozen of decent bars, beer normally is not as cheap as hawker centres or coffee shops. However, there is this good thing called "Happy Hour". Most happy hours are before 9pm daily. Some bars offer buy two get one free, some bars offer a fixed price such as $40 for a bucket of five 330ml bottles. I would recommend Baden Restaurant and Pub, which is opposite to the noisy Wala Wala. For happy hour, you can get 2 Erdinger or Guiness Draught for S$16. They don't charge GST, so there is only 10% of service charge. That calculates to S$8.80 for a solid pint of cloudy Erdinger or smoothy classy Guiness. If you can find anything better than this with similar ambiance, man, let us be friends.
2) Clarke Quay. Yep most bars and restaurants here are expensive. Except for one - but must be during Happy Hour. That magic place is none other than Brewerkz. It brews its own beer, and a lot of kinds. From noon to 3pm, one pint costs S$6 only. You can drink that while sitting along the Singapore River and watching to-and-fro boats, in the sunny afternoon. Nothing beats this. From 3pm onwards the same beer gets pricier, to S$9 until 6pm, and to S$12 until 9pm, and tops at SS$15 between 9 and 11pm.
3) APB (Asia Pacific Brewery Pte Ltd) Brewery tour. Yeah this is where Tiger is brewed. Heineken and Carlsberg are brewed here too. The tour is a normal tour, same beer tanks, same brewery processes as other countries'. But the finale treat is fantastic, considering it is Singapore. In 45 minutes to 1 hour's time, you have full access to all kinds of beer in this Brewery, including Tiger, Carlsberg, Heineken, ABC stout, Anchor, Baron and Archipelago beers. All these costs S$16 only. The only drawback is the location of APB. It is at Tuas, the west most part of the Singapore island. So if you have enough time and don't mind taking one hour of bus (taxi will defeat the purpose of enjoying the "cheap and good" Luxury), this should be your top choice.
Wednesday 1 January 2014
Sengkang Good Food
Is there good food in Sengkang or Punggol area? If you Google that, more often than not you would find threads of web links talking about ""Sengkang no good food". However, having been lived in Sengkang heartland for almost five years, I do have accumulated my own favorite list and I do have some recommendations for people who are fervently looking for good food or drinks at Sengkang area. Like it or not, there are about 170,000 people living in this new town (according to HDB), so I believe not every family cooks at home, right?
At first I intend to dedicate this post to Sengkang good food. As I wrote along, I found that there are a lot more to recommend =) So I decided to write a few articles on Sengkang good food. Perhaps on Sengkang good bars too. Today I will start from the infamous Sengkang Square Kopitiam.
Sengkang Square Kopitiam
Yes I know many people will shout, “I beg your pardon? Sengkang Square Kopitiam cannot make it lah, can't you see that more than half of the stalls are empty?” Well, my thought is, despite the fact that the turn over rate for this kopitiam is ultrahigh, those left behind are really the hard core ones. And the best part about Sengkang Square Kopitiam is, especially compared with the air-coned but stuffy and smelly kopitiam at Compass Point, there are always plenty of clean, empty seats in this windy place.
Tiger Beer
In order to attract customers, I believe Kopitiam has done the right thing - to bring down the price of chilled Tiger Beer to as low as $5.10 per bottle. Yeah man I am talking about the 633ml bottle. In the most nearby supermarkets such as Coldstorage, Prime (百美) or even Sheng Siong, the retail price for Tiger normally ranges from $5.20 to $5.50, and don't forget you still need to top up $0.15 to $0.25 for the chilled feeling. So if you are a beer person and you don't mind sitting in a Kopitiam enjoying the national beer, Sengkang Square Kopitiam offers you probably the cheapest Tiger beer you can ever find in a Singapore coffee shop or hawker centre. There are not only one or two but three drink stalls that sell chilled Tiger Beer in this kopitiam. So don't tell me you cannot find it. Oh ya, I forgot to mention that the drink stalls like to keep the temperature of the beer refrigerators to -1 to -4 degrees. So it is really close to draft beer feelings.
Stew Peanuts and Kuay Chap
If you like to drink beer, stew peanuts are a good company. Stewed peanuts go really well with beer. It is available at the Kuay Chap stall which also sells pretty-not-bad stewed pork knuckle. Each plate of stew peanuts is $1.20 only, and the taste is comparable to those atas Chinese restaurants.
Fried Kuay Teow and Carrot Cake
You will be surprised that although Kuay Teow and Carrot Cake are traditional Singapore hawker food, this stall became one of the most popular ones in this kopitiam by a PRC female cook! The portions are very decent, and the taste is a blend of traditional Singapore flavor and China north-eastern style. I will have a separate article particularly on China north-eastern food, for those who love salty, spicy and oily stuff.
Roti Prata and Murtabak
It simply tastes good. There are always a queue, especially during weekend mornings and weekday nights. And I often saw that their staff throwing all of the same-day cooked stuff off to the rubbish bin at midnight - which shows that their food is always fresh everyday.
Shen Xi Soup (老火汤)
Similar as its other chain stalls but simply cheaper, they have very nutrition-ed and delicious soups ranging from economic ones such as 苹果雪梨排骨汤 ($3.80 only) all the way to 十全大补鸡汤 ($5.00) and 佛跳墙(S$8.00). You can always top up soup when you finishes them.
Other Good Food
Some of my neighbours say that the fish soup stall is good too because of its freshness. Some say that the other Indian shop besides the prata shop offers authentic north Indian food. Well once you are here for sure you can come up your own favorite lists, be it Malay stall, Pontian Wanton Noodles, Nasi Lemak or even economic rice (there are more than one). A number of them open 24/7. And last but not least, if you have Kopitiam card, you get 10% off (except beer).
At first I intend to dedicate this post to Sengkang good food. As I wrote along, I found that there are a lot more to recommend =) So I decided to write a few articles on Sengkang good food. Perhaps on Sengkang good bars too. Today I will start from the infamous Sengkang Square Kopitiam.
Sengkang Square Kopitiam
Yes I know many people will shout, “I beg your pardon? Sengkang Square Kopitiam cannot make it lah, can't you see that more than half of the stalls are empty?” Well, my thought is, despite the fact that the turn over rate for this kopitiam is ultrahigh, those left behind are really the hard core ones. And the best part about Sengkang Square Kopitiam is, especially compared with the air-coned but stuffy and smelly kopitiam at Compass Point, there are always plenty of clean, empty seats in this windy place.
Tiger Beer
In order to attract customers, I believe Kopitiam has done the right thing - to bring down the price of chilled Tiger Beer to as low as $5.10 per bottle. Yeah man I am talking about the 633ml bottle. In the most nearby supermarkets such as Coldstorage, Prime (百美) or even Sheng Siong, the retail price for Tiger normally ranges from $5.20 to $5.50, and don't forget you still need to top up $0.15 to $0.25 for the chilled feeling. So if you are a beer person and you don't mind sitting in a Kopitiam enjoying the national beer, Sengkang Square Kopitiam offers you probably the cheapest Tiger beer you can ever find in a Singapore coffee shop or hawker centre. There are not only one or two but three drink stalls that sell chilled Tiger Beer in this kopitiam. So don't tell me you cannot find it. Oh ya, I forgot to mention that the drink stalls like to keep the temperature of the beer refrigerators to -1 to -4 degrees. So it is really close to draft beer feelings.
Stew Peanuts and Kuay Chap
If you like to drink beer, stew peanuts are a good company. Stewed peanuts go really well with beer. It is available at the Kuay Chap stall which also sells pretty-not-bad stewed pork knuckle. Each plate of stew peanuts is $1.20 only, and the taste is comparable to those atas Chinese restaurants.
Fried Kuay Teow and Carrot Cake
You will be surprised that although Kuay Teow and Carrot Cake are traditional Singapore hawker food, this stall became one of the most popular ones in this kopitiam by a PRC female cook! The portions are very decent, and the taste is a blend of traditional Singapore flavor and China north-eastern style. I will have a separate article particularly on China north-eastern food, for those who love salty, spicy and oily stuff.
Roti Prata and Murtabak
It simply tastes good. There are always a queue, especially during weekend mornings and weekday nights. And I often saw that their staff throwing all of the same-day cooked stuff off to the rubbish bin at midnight - which shows that their food is always fresh everyday.
Shen Xi Soup (老火汤)
Similar as its other chain stalls but simply cheaper, they have very nutrition-ed and delicious soups ranging from economic ones such as 苹果雪梨排骨汤 ($3.80 only) all the way to 十全大补鸡汤 ($5.00) and 佛跳墙(S$8.00). You can always top up soup when you finishes them.
Other Good Food
Some of my neighbours say that the fish soup stall is good too because of its freshness. Some say that the other Indian shop besides the prata shop offers authentic north Indian food. Well once you are here for sure you can come up your own favorite lists, be it Malay stall, Pontian Wanton Noodles, Nasi Lemak or even economic rice (there are more than one). A number of them open 24/7. And last but not least, if you have Kopitiam card, you get 10% off (except beer).
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