Food Glossary at JTC Summit

It is not often one finds great food, reasonable prices and good people serving it. It should be easy, but it is not. When Good Morning Nanyang Cafe closed in Hong Lim, I was saddened...for Byron Shoh, who runs the outlet is a friend and he serves great food at reasonable prices in a convenient location.

When he re-opened with some partners, I was overjoyed...but on discovering that the new location is at JTC Summit, my joy was tempered. Its way out there in the West, nowhere near my habitual route, and opening hours of Mon-Fri 7am-4pm is also not convenient. But I always enjoy a chat with Byron, and always enjoy his food and kopi, so trotted over one weekday to sample his offerings.

Initially he had partnered with a friend, also an aquaintence of mine Jimmy Cheang to offer smoked meats, which also quite pulled on my heart strings...I always longed to re-live the smoked meats at Schwartz's in Montreal or those in the Texas towns. But when I arrived last week, they had closed the Western kitchen. Perhaps the taste of the local clientele, in a HDB area, JTC offices were not atuned towards smoked meats. The Local Kitchen seemed to be doing well, though. I sampled the Char Kway Teow and the Rendang Chicken with blue rice.

First the visually interesting rendang chicken.

Fragrant blue rice, with chicken rendang. The rendang was very fragrant, with chunks of tender well marinaded chicken within, and potato chunks. Full flavour. I found the rendang a tad too salty, but the taste was excellent and very fragrant. The blue rice, other than being a beautiful spectacle was also very fragrant

Topped with a fried egg, it was very nice. 

I also tried the char kway teow

The kway teow used is very wide, more like hor fun than kway teow. And fried very well. Wok hei is apparent, and the prawns were fresh, juicy and very tasty. A small but very important detail - the taugeh (bean sprouts) were fried just right, a tinge of wok hei, and still very crunchy.

Of course I had Byron's famous kaya toast and kopi for dessert

Hand made kaya, done by Byron himself, generously spread with slices of butter on crisp toast. Very nice. The kopi was nice and fragrant, though ultimately loses out in flavour and fragrance to the Hylam Street in ABC, was better than the fare served up at the big chain kopi joints like Ya Kun, Killeney, Toast Box and the ilk.

Highly recommended. I wish the location was more convenient, but even as it is, I will make my way to eat here frequently, I suspect.

Food Glossary

#02-01, The JTC Summit
8 Jurong Town Hall Road, Singapore 609434

Chin Mei Chin: traditional toast and kopi

Chin Mei Chin is an old establishment in Katong. Rumours abound that they were going to close, but I confirmed with the owners...and they do NOT have any plans to call it a day...yet.

The kaya toast is a bit different from the ones by Killeney and Ya Kun, it is served on a toasted bun, spread with their home made kaya and a rather large slice of butter. Beautiful.

The bun is toasted just right. A light crisp, with a very nice, smokey, charcoal flavour. And moist and fluffy within. They also serve a dark bun with raisins, which I found to be even more shiok.

The kopi is rather good too...dark, robust, with just the right amount of condensed milk. Very nice.

Highly recommended.

Chin Mee Chin Coffee Shop
204 East Coast Road
63450419
8.30am -4pm Closed on Monday

Mee Rebus at 60s Live Seafood, Singapore

What transcends race & religion? Not many things apparently, but ironically, food does at times... more so in Singapore than most other places i guess.

We have come to acknowledge that nasi lemak, satay, mee goreng, chicken rice and a host of other local dishes are uniquely local, enjoyed by all races and a great representation of this part of the globe, our northern neighbours across the Causeway included. Some of these local dishes may be prepared by Chinese, Malays, Indians, Eurasians or localised Ang-mohs who give their own different interpretation and signature style but we all claim it as our local fare.

However, there is one local dish that remains less highly profiled than say, nasi lemak, satay or chicken rice. While still mainly prepared only by the Malays, it has become an equally accepted and consumed local dish as the rest of the others. Sorry for this rather long winded intro for a ...(drum roll) Mee Rebus! (m.r.) Yes our very own local-style pasta man! Just like its sister dish, Mee Siam (m.s.), m.r. is as uniquely local and multi racially eaten and enjoyed as the other more famous local dishes i mentioned earlier. {Eh no gender puns intended in the acronyms lah}

The m.r. is yellow noodles served soaked in thick gravy, usually slightly peanut in taste with a good sprinkling of green chillies, taupok, dried shrimps ("hare-bee"), fried shallots, bean sprouts, hard boiled eggs and of course, one half of a single lime for extra tang.

And so it was, on this lazy Wesak holiday morning, when Peter and i went in search of breakfast/brunch. We drove past the idyllic Stable Club at Bukit Timah until we reached the Green Fairways - a 9-hole golf course packed with holiday golfers. Eh, can find food here one meh? Yes, promises hubby.

Really nice greenery all around (mostly provided by golf fairways on one side) and lo behold, an open style eatery called "60s Live Seafood"...

Whaddya know got local food! We ordered the set breakfast (4 slices of kaya butter toast, with 2 half boiled eggs and a coffee) and of course, my favourite Mee rebus lah!



When the m.r. was served, i must say the presentation was pretty nice to look at (as you can tell from the photos). It was with great anticipation that we savoured our Wesak day breakfast. Of course Peter, being Chief Taster, took on ze tasting first and he started to nod in approval after the first mouthful. Eyes gleaming, he said "Hmm, not bad! Not bad at all". Ok, here comes my turn... what was this yellow noodle boiled (rebused) in traditional peanut gravy (kuah) going to taste like??



Remembering all the lovely ones I've tried in katong, raffles place and some say in malaysia, I must say - this particular m.r wasn't quite as traditional or similar to the ones i've tried before. Firstly, there was a lot more dried shrimp than peanut in the gravy and there was quite a lot of kicap manis (sweet black sauce - which you can also detect if you looked closely at the hard boiled eggs in the photos). There was also the stray soya bean, seeming from a helping of tau chieo.

Suffice to say that the noodles were just right,not too soggy. The taste was really that of a very home-made style mee rebus, the kind you'd expect from your neighbourhood makcik but with a twist - the kicap manis with a hint of chinchalok. i would have preferred the gravy to be a bit thicker and more peanutty. But it was the kicap manis that differentiated it from all the other m.r eaten before and this puts this m.r. in a 'must try at least once' category. Of course, no one should expect any two m.r. from different stalls to be exactly the same. This particular m.r was really quite down-to-earth with some rawness yet remained delicately well-balanced and well, quite enjoyable and interesting. For S$2.80 a bowl, it was satisfying and worth a second visit i think (don't forget ambiance was lush green fairways on one side and birds chirping around - what more can you ask for?)



The breakfast set of kaya toast (cost:$2.99) was nothing to shout about - Ya kun and Killiney are still pretty safe. Our kaya toast today was, in my book, barely acceptable.



Don't know about Pete (who seemed to enjoy it all this morning) but personally, i found the toast a tad too dry, kaya did not have enough pandan and butter had already melted into bread. Thankfully the half-boiled eggs were done quite right (though Peter pointed out that with an idiot proof timer, shouldn't get the eggs wrong, right?). For me, it was the humble local m.r. that i would go back for (and also want to try their nasi lemak too the next time, as it was sold out when we arrived. shucks! must be good one hor, so fast sold out?)

So there you have it - a pretty enjoyable breakfast at the Green Fairways resulting in my first blog posting ever (goodness how did this happen?) Must be all that dried shrimp and kicap manis in the m.r. which I think was served in a pretty nice location.(ok,ok, east coast next to the beach could possibly surpass, but, gotta blog this lah before i forget!)



60s Live Seafood
60 Fairway Drive
Singapore 286966
tel: 6469-8060