For complete review and pictures, please visit: http://theyummyyak.wordpress.com/2013/11/05/cheng-kee-beef-kway-teow-%E6%B8%85%E8%AE%B0%E7%89%9B%E8%82%89%E7%B2%BF%E6%A2%9D/

Cheng Kee Beef Kway Teow is one of the few places I remember my parents bringing me to, as it was within walking distance of the centre my brother and I had our weekly gymnastics sessions at. Incidentally known as Tumble Tots. Then we grew older and a mall was built right across the street from our place, so it's been at least 13 years since my last visit here. It's quite a famous stall in its own right, having earned a spot on the 2007 edition of Makansutra.

Beef kway teow (soup), $4.00 - This was a belly-warming bowl of beef noodles. The beef slices were tender and juicy, and the slightly herbal broth aromatic. I dipped the slices of beef into chinchalok, a fermented shrimp paste that's the Malaccan equivalent of Korean saewoojot - the similarity between the two condiments was a discovery which totally geeked me out. Then again, these beef noodles have Hainanese (a provincial group of people in China, and also one of the dialect groups of Singaporean Chinese) roots, yet to the uninitiated you'd probably be able to get away with calling them Vietnamese pho.

But back to the taste of the chinchalok, which added a tangy and rather refreshing dimension to the beef. Very interesting. I found myself slurping down spoonful after spoonful of the soft kway teow until nothing remained, although I'm supposed to be scaling back on carbs. On such occasions I tell myself that I'll compensate by having salad the next day. I didn't.

I remember the beef kway teow at Cheng Kee to be tastier in the days of yore, but you know how we tend to immortalize foods we grew up with. I'm trying to discount the nostalgia and not hold the food to an impossibly high standard that may not even have existed. Objectively speaking, it was good. Not wowWwwW fantastic, just better-than-okay good.

In any event this was still a way better bowl of beef noodles than the Hock Lam stuff I make do with on weekdays: Functional, yes, but commercialized and hardly satisfying. Alas the sad truth of life for an office minion is that your lunch options are restricted to the area you work in... meh, the stuff we do for money.

For complete review and pictures, please visit: http://theyummyyak.wordpress.com/2013/11/23/flock-cafe/

Flock Café is one of the more unassuming players in the thriving Tiong Bahru cafe scene. Somehow it feels genuine and laid-back, which can hardly be said for nearby establishments like Forty Hands and Open Door Policy, both of which have amassed loyal cult followings (quite deservedly) and lost their chill factor in the process. Well I suppose crowds are a good thing for cafes to have, though it would be nice to be able to have a meal without feeling like I'm in someone else's way all the time.

These crowds were absent from Flock when we visited one Saturday afternoon for tea. Bit of a welcome change from having to wait in the sweltering heat for a table. It wasn't that the eatery was devoid of people - there was a steady trickle of customers, and the staff looked hard at work.

Portobello, mozzarella & rocket sandwich, $13.50 - Since this was supposed to be tea we ordered one of their sandwiches to share. T'was a pricey sandwich, but I liked that the juicy portobello shroom was so big it occupied the entire pocket of ciabatta. This was quite delicious and would have made a substantial lunch for one, though y'know, the pig in me wishes they had fries on the side.

They have other interesting offerings on their sandwich list like prawn and avocado, as well as pork cheek and gruyere.

Orange bundt cake, $5.00 - Having had a disappointing encounter with a bundt cake the week before, we decided to give the orange bundt cake here a shot. I thought it had a nice citrusy fragrance and crumbled quite satisfactorily, but the others found it to be a little too dry.

Mocha, $6.00 - Flock sources its beans from the ever-reliable Liberty Coffee, which pretty much ensures quality coffee brews. The mocha we had was frothy, chocolatey and every sip was laced with a pleasant hint of bitterness.

In line with their philosophy of providing a "deliberately relaxed" ambiance conducive for weekend catch up sessions between friends, Flock was modestly, yet comfortably furnished and I loved the warm lighting. The food here is above average, and it's a lovely place to spend a lazy day, as all my weekends tend to be. Wouldn't mind coming back at all.

For complete review and pictures, please visit: http://theyummyyak.wordpress.com/2013/11/17/beach-road-scissor-cut-curry-rice-%E7%BE%8E%E8%8A%9D%E5%BE%8B%E5%89%AA%E5%88%80%E5%89%AA%E5%92%96%E5%96%B1%E9%A5%AD/

Food doesn't have to look good to taste good. This is particularly true of scissor-cut curry rice, which has to be one of the sloppiest looking dishes ever, but also happens to be one of my favourite foods. This dish has both Hainanese and colonial origins, as most cooks who worked for wealthy British families back in the early 1900s were Hainanese, and put an inventive twist on the pork cutlet by pummeling it flat, snipping it up over rice and coating it with curry.

My order the first time round comprised a fried pork cutlet blackened with gravy, a ngoh hiang (five spice pork roll), chup chye (stewed cabbage) and a fried egg. They're cut into bite-sized pieces with a pair of metal scissors, following which gravy from the lor bak (stewed pork) and then curry is ladled over, which renders the individual components of the dish quite unidentifiable.

The layering of the lor bak gravy and curry create a hybrid gravy that's... magic. It's only slightly spicy and possesses a starchy texture, which works as its meant to be drizzled over plain rice. It was the gravy which elevated the individual ingredients from okay to amazing. Honestly I found the ngoh hiang soggy and the blackened pork cutlet to be on the wrong side of salty. Also tried a bit of the lor bak and found it too tough. A fried egg isn't too hard to do, but the chup chye was great. Soft, sweet and distinctly shrimpy. Nothing goes better with curry than perfectly stewed chup chye.

I returned a couple weeks ago and we ordered dishes to share. The only new dish I had was the chicken chop, which was freaking awesome. The sesame seeds it was coated with made it super fragrant and it was snipped into itty bits which made it so moreish with the curry. I declare my second visit a complete win.

In short, stick with the fried egg, chup chye and chicken chop.

For complete review and pictures, please visit: http://theyummyyak.wordpress.com/2013/10/30/lian-he-ben-ji-claypot-rice-%E8%81%94%E5%90%88%E6%9C%AC%E8%AE%B0%E7%85%B2%E9%A5%AD/

There's nothing that warms the belly more than a steaming hot bowl of rice. That's probably why I've learnt to associate claypot rice with nighttime fare. Try consuming it in the afternoon in our climate without disintegrating into a puddle of sweat... confirm heatstroke lor.

The reason why Lian He Ben Ji's claypot rice is a cut above its competitors is precisely because it doesn't compromise on cooking time and ingredient quality. Each pot of rice is steamed for 5 minutes, after which ingredients are added and the pot left to sit over a blazing charcoal flame for the next 20 minutes. That guarantees you a minimum 25-minute wait per order, which can stretch to a waiting time of 45 minutes during peak dining periods. To get around the wait, regular diners know to call to place their orders in advance. Unfortunately we weren't as savvy.

Was the wait worth it? Abso friggin' lutely.

Mixed claypot rice, $10 for a portion that feeds two - After drizzling some sweet soya sauce over the rice and mixing everything together, the first spoonful of rice I had can only be described as a flavour explosion. The pieces of chicken were succulent, the lup cheong (Chinese sausages) and waxed meat firm and juicy, but the rice - the rice was in a realm of its own. You just have to taste it to know that charcoal makes one hell of a difference in cooking this dish. The rice in the claypot was smoky yet fluffy, and when drenched in sweet sauce was just... wow. We kept mumbling "so good, this is so good" in between mouthfuls of rice. It got even better when our spoons hit the bottom of the pot, where burnt rice, or what we call guo ba (锅巴), was clinging to the sides, just waiting to be scraped off.

And the chilli! The chilli here is the bomb okay. It was spicy, sour and caused beads of sweat to form on my temples, but I kept going back for more.

To be fair, the slivers of salted fish in the rice could have been less mushy. Plus the soup (lotus root with pork ribs) and stir-fried veggies we ordered were very average. But who really cares? It's a hawker centre, and there're about 50 other stalls if you must have your sides to complement this... claypot of perfection.

Now into its second generation of owners, Lian He Ben Ji is an established business that started off as a roadside stall in the same area back in 1979. The founder of the stall handed the reins over to his daughter-in-law, which I think is a really heartwarming tidbit of news in a society that unfortunately still tends toward the patriarchal. The daughter-in-law now runs the stall with her two younger sisters, which is why this place is also known fondly as "3 sisters' claypot rice".

Lian He Ben Ji gets my seal of approval for their dedication to their craft. I'll definitely be recommending this place to everyone I know.

For complete review and pictures, please visit: http://theyummyyak.wordpress.com/2013/10/18/cakes-literally/

Inadvertently noticed Cakes Literally as I walked down Dorset Road last Sunday evening, intending to head to L'etoile Cafe for a cup of tea as I do every week. Please trust me when I say I'm really not as old as I sound. Cakes Literally, located further down Owen Road, caught my eye with its immaculately white exterior and cursive typefont. I switched gears and decided to give this cafe a shot instead.

I was the only customer at the cafe when I arrived, but the lady boss of the cafe came out from the kitchen to greet me as soon as I'd entered. A Ms Carissa Choh, to be precise. She was very polite and helpful when I asked her for recommendations on cakes, providing a running commentary on the ingredients of each of the cakes on display.

Valrhona flourless cake, $7.50 per slice. 9-inch cake available at $72 - To be honest, this cake wasn't much of a looker. From a side view it kind of looks as if the base has collapsed. But what it lacks in the looks department it makes up for in terms of taste. This was a gluten-free cake made of premium quality Valrhona chocolate, topped with mousse. I thought the cake could be a little more moist, but the mousse was faultless. Atop each slice of cake sits a cute Belcolade shell containing little pieces of Venchi chocolate caviar. You're free to sprinkle the chocolate caviar on your cake for added texture, but I ate them together with the shell and it was pretty damn good.

Orange almond cake, $5.50 per slice. 9-inch cake available at $52 - Egged on (ooh a pun) by the success of the Valrhona cake I decided to take out a couple of cakes. My first choice was the orange almond cake because it looked so shiny and I'm a magpie. Like the chocolate cake, the orange almond cake here at Cakes Literally is also flourless and gluten-free. It's baked with slow poached oranges and contains no butter or oil. Although I did think this cake struck a balance between sweet and zesty, I couldn't get past how... wet it was. Also didn't really appreciate the coarse and grainy texture that the ground almonds lent to a soggy cake. It does seem like a relatively healthier treat though.

Avocado pound cake, $4 per slice - This non-flourless, gluten-ful avocado pound cake turned out to be my favourite of the lot. So much for clean eating eh. Rich and moist, with the flavour of blended avocadoes in every mouthful of cake. It's quite a firm pound cake, so Ms Choh suggests toasting it for a couple minutes before consumption, possibly to soften it up. I didn't follow her instructions because I took one testing bite and couldn't stop myself from finishing the entire slice. I loved, loved, loved this. Why doesn't anyone else bake avocado cakes???

Latte, $4.50 - Cakes Literally gets its supply of coffee beans from Papa Palheta (namely the Terra Firma blend), so you're assured of quality coffee. Price-wise their coffees are on the lower end of the spectrum, which is great. My latte was smooth and nutty, although a little too milky. Ya I know, that's like ordering ice-cream and complaining that it's cold.

Cakes Literally is a cafe that hasn't opened to great fanfare, but a lot of heart goes into what they do. It's evident from the smiles on the faces of those behind the counter (i.e. lady boss and her mom, who was super sweet as well) and the home-baked quality possessed by their cakes. I feel obliged to continue supporting this cafe for this reason alone, but I'm also glad that their avocado pound cake provides me with a great excuse to make a return visit this weekend.