Fish Head Steamboat!!
This.Is.Powerful.Stuff.
I think this must be Whampoa market's worst kept secret. The whole market is like, reserved for this stall at night or something and the place is frickin packed after 6pm. Which is why we went at 5:59 haha.
The unsmiling auntie will take your order and peg it onto an extremely long line of pegs in front of the poor guy (yeah its just one person doing all the cooking). Once you're like, only 5 pegs away from the front of the line, they'll bring you the utensils and chilli and stuff like that. Usually by that time my stomach is really growling and I start to eat chilli. No, seriously.
When your boiling pot of heaven finally arrives after (number of pegs X 5-10 mins) they bring with them four optional side dishes.
So anyway, the food, the food.
We had the ang kor li (red snapper) fishhead steamboat. The pot comes to you brimming with ingredients like extremely fresh fish, sticks of fried yam, bits of dried salted fish and cabbage. It all sounds very blah and plain but I assure you, there's absolutely nothing blah about the rich stock or the unmistakable wok hei (taste of fire) in the soup.
I don't particularly like steamboat but this is nothing like anything I've ever tasted. The sweetness of the fish contrasts beautifully with the generally salty flavour of the stock. The chunks of yam retain their unique flavour, and even having been immersed in the soup for long periods of time still manage to retain a crunchy outer crust which yields to a gooey center.
Even the cabbage plays a part in this traditional teochew delight, its natural sweetness and wonderful texture giving the dish balance and the feeling that everything in the pot is there for a reason. Oh, did I mention that the salted fish is edible? It is an absolute delight to have a piece of this to slowly crunch on while mulling on your next forray into the pot.
Now on to the side dishes. As I mentioned before, the unsmiling auntie will bring you 4 sides: lor duck, buay chai, lor egg and something else in a tupperware container I have never tried in 5 visits.
The duck and the fermented veggie are POWER. I think they will survive just selling those two dishes with rice. The duck simply melts in your mouth, as does the veggie. The duck gravy is positively decadent and if you look closely enough you'll see many many spots of oil floating on the surface. Ditto the veggie. I suppose this is not a really healthy meal but I've never been a calorie counter now, have I.
The whole meal costs $15 for the small steamboat, and $3 each for the sides plus rice $1 = $22!! not really cheap but it works out better if you go in fours or fives.
PS: If you're picking a weekday to go, don't go on tuesdays. It's closed. I found out the hard way.
PPS: The sugar cane stall there cheat ppl money one, add water into your drink. pui.
Dessert!
Mango with sago
I think this must be Whampoa market's worst kept secret. The whole market is like, reserved for this stall at night or something and the place is frickin packed after 6pm. Which is why we went at 5:59 haha.
The unsmiling auntie will take your order and peg it onto an extremely long line of pegs in front of the poor guy (yeah its just one person doing all the cooking). Once you're like, only 5 pegs away from the front of the line, they'll bring you the utensils and chilli and stuff like that. Usually by that time my stomach is really growling and I start to eat chilli. No, seriously.
When your boiling pot of heaven finally arrives after (number of pegs X 5-10 mins) they bring with them four optional side dishes.
So anyway, the food, the food.
We had the ang kor li (red snapper) fishhead steamboat. The pot comes to you brimming with ingredients like extremely fresh fish, sticks of fried yam, bits of dried salted fish and cabbage. It all sounds very blah and plain but I assure you, there's absolutely nothing blah about the rich stock or the unmistakable wok hei (taste of fire) in the soup.
I don't particularly like steamboat but this is nothing like anything I've ever tasted. The sweetness of the fish contrasts beautifully with the generally salty flavour of the stock. The chunks of yam retain their unique flavour, and even having been immersed in the soup for long periods of time still manage to retain a crunchy outer crust which yields to a gooey center.
Even the cabbage plays a part in this traditional teochew delight, its natural sweetness and wonderful texture giving the dish balance and the feeling that everything in the pot is there for a reason. Oh, did I mention that the salted fish is edible? It is an absolute delight to have a piece of this to slowly crunch on while mulling on your next forray into the pot.
Now on to the side dishes. As I mentioned before, the unsmiling auntie will bring you 4 sides: lor duck, buay chai, lor egg and something else in a tupperware container I have never tried in 5 visits.
The duck and the fermented veggie are POWER. I think they will survive just selling those two dishes with rice. The duck simply melts in your mouth, as does the veggie. The duck gravy is positively decadent and if you look closely enough you'll see many many spots of oil floating on the surface. Ditto the veggie. I suppose this is not a really healthy meal but I've never been a calorie counter now, have I.
The whole meal costs $15 for the small steamboat, and $3 each for the sides plus rice $1 = $22!! not really cheap but it works out better if you go in fours or fives.
PS: If you're picking a weekday to go, don't go on tuesdays. It's closed. I found out the hard way.
PPS: The sugar cane stall there cheat ppl money one, add water into your drink. pui.
Dessert!
Mango with sago
After the thoroughly satisfying dinner, I went with darling to this quaint little traditional dessert shop on Liang Seah Street. I usually don't dig those places which bank on the nostalgia factor to draw in the crowds cos' I think its pretty cheesy, but hey, when its good, whatever man.
This place is known for their hot desserts like almond paste, ginko nut and tau kee and black sesame paste to name a few, but their cold desserts rock too. She had the mango with sago, a pretty simple dessert which is above average by virtue of the fact that their magoes are sweet and not too mushy. However, I felt that the coconut milk was slightly too strong and overpowered what would have been a very mango-ey dessert.
I had, this:
Almond paste
This place is known for their hot desserts like almond paste, ginko nut and tau kee and black sesame paste to name a few, but their cold desserts rock too. She had the mango with sago, a pretty simple dessert which is above average by virtue of the fact that their magoes are sweet and not too mushy. However, I felt that the coconut milk was slightly too strong and overpowered what would have been a very mango-ey dessert.
I had, this:
Almond paste
Shucks, everytime I get something I get so excited I start to slurp it down when i mean to take a shot of it first. Oh well, I suppose it'll suffice.
The paste is extremely smooth, probably because they actually strain every single bowl's worth of paste before serving it. It was also heartening to taste the bitter aftertaste (from the almond kerns) of the dessert, guarenteeing that it wasn't just almond essence they added to milk, but actually bothering to use real almonds. Not too bad, though pastes just aren't really my thing.
So anyway, the prices here are reasonable. Oh, and just get the small serving if you're there like, for dessert. It's pretty big already. I dunno who eats the large servings.
Until the next makan adventure.
Peace out~
The paste is extremely smooth, probably because they actually strain every single bowl's worth of paste before serving it. It was also heartening to taste the bitter aftertaste (from the almond kerns) of the dessert, guarenteeing that it wasn't just almond essence they added to milk, but actually bothering to use real almonds. Not too bad, though pastes just aren't really my thing.
So anyway, the prices here are reasonable. Oh, and just get the small serving if you're there like, for dessert. It's pretty big already. I dunno who eats the large servings.
Until the next makan adventure.
Peace out~
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