Tekong at Changi

Shinta wanted to eat seafood and we found ourselves in my neck of the woods. The oddly named Tekong Seafood is at Changi Point, somewhat badly located in a building way to the back of the hawker centre. We were there on recommendation of Shinta’s guildmate and ordered most of his recommendations.

The gong-gong was decent, though nothing to shout about. A bit chewy, not particularly tasty nor fishy, went decently with the sweet chilli sauce. Next.

I quite liked the meesua though it’s not something that I’d make a special trip down for. I liked how the special meesua was just cooked so it was still rather stiff and almost chewy, a bit like very fine meekia. The sauce was the classic brown gloopy sauce that was very well made, aromatic and full of seafoody flavour. Yummy.

Things really started going when the deepfried squid rings appeared. They were so good that they disappeared before everything else and we had to immediately order a second plate of the stuff. The batter was very crisp and perfectly seasoned with plenty of salt crystals, aromatic curry leaves and a touch of sweet. I liked how the crispy outer layer gave way to the slightly chewy squid on the inside.

I thought the oat prawns were great too. I normally prefer prawns poached as it really brings out the flavour, but this time the flavour wasn’t sacrificed as they fried them so the heads were still juicy inside. Plenty of crunch from the batter and oats, prawns fried well so that it was so crispy that the shells could be eaten too yet still juicy on the inside. Nothing much to criticise here. Great stuff.

Aim of the next visit? To check out their crabs!

Tekong Seafood Restaurant
Block 6 Changi Village Road #01-2100 Changi Village
Tel: 6542 8923

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Chronicles of MPT: Opera

I’ve been a regular at Bedok South Hawker Cenre’s Opera for a long time. The auntie who took order would take one look at me and tell me my order immediately. It’s too bad she’s not there anymore, but the auntie who makes the noodles is still there.

What I love about this stall is how healthy and clean everything tastes. It’s not your usual fishball noodle nor bak chor mee. It’s invariably full of fresh ingredients like baby romaine lettuce (which other stall uses baby romain?), sprightly beansprouts and incredibly fat free minced pork. Coupled with homemade fried shallots, good chilli sauce and excellent vinegar,  the dry version is heavenly. I could eat here every day. In fact, I see lots of old-timers order their daily fix from this stall. (For the record, it’s not the one with the queue, I personally can’t see why people like the famous fishball stall with the long queue.)

I also ask for extra vegetables for $0.50 more and they give me a much bigger bowl of soup plus extra fishballs and other ingredients. This is worth my while because it’s the only accompanying soup worth drinking. At other places I invariably leave the soup untouched because it’s just msg and water. Here, things are quite different and I always finish every drop of the soup. It’s fantastic.

What’s not so great about it? The meatballs are only a notch above run of the mill and the meepok can sometimes be soggy. Go for the meekia or meesua, both the dry version. Both are excellent.

Opera
#01-175
Blk 16 Bedok South Road Hawker Centre