East Coast Ngoh Hiang

Its a usual practice that patrons of Blanco Court Prawn Mee will order some Ngoh Hiang from East Coast Ngoh Hiang while waiting for their main dish to be served. This practice is seen at most of the Prawn Mee Shops where Ngoh Hiang Stall is just readily available beside them.

Stall of East Coast Ngoh Hiang

Buzzer was given after our order. Though waiting is needed, the speed of serving Ngoh Hiang is still definitely faster than the Prawn Noodles.

Buzzer

My selection includes Tau Kwa, Chinese Sausage, Egg, Ngoh Hiang and Prawn Crackers. These items were fried, chopped and served piping hot. 

My Selection $9.70 

Though deep-fried, items were not oily and instead they tasted crispy and addictive. Both sauces,the sweet sauce, and chilli complemented the items well.

Egg

Its definitely a great choice of snack at any point in time in the day and a good side dish to pair while we are enjoying our bowls of the famous Prawn Noodle.

Rating: 3 / 5

East Coast Ngoh Hiang
Location: 243 & 245 Beach Road Singapore 189755 (Beach Road)

Blanco Court Prawn Mee

With so many Prawn Mee Noodles available everywhere nowadays, we are all spoilt for choices. My last visit to Blanco Court Prawn Mee was in the year 2016 and it seems like the interior has no changes at all, even that signboard at its entrance.

Blanco Court Prawn Mee

Blanco Court Prawn Mee is still famous and considered one of the "must-try" in the category of Prawn Noodles. For they have been business for a long, they are well-loved by many and have a steady stream of supporters over the years.

Blanco Court Prawn Noodle in Chinese Characters

Despite the long queue, the service remains friendly and polite. I queued and order to pay but I didn't know my table number. The staff was friendly enough to let me check and update her in a while. With the table number given, food will be served to our seats.

Stall of Blanco Court Prawn Noodle

We ordered the classic style of prawn noodles as it is our comfort food. We had it with yellow noodles but you can choose to have Kway Teow, Vermicelli or even thick Bee Hoon. The dry version of prawn noodles was accompanied by a bowl of strong flavour soup. It was satisfying. The yellow noodle was tossed in chilli and crispy pork lards that elevate the taste.

Prawn Noodle 虾面 - $6.50

Prawns in the bowl were halves and served with bean sprouts as well as kang kong. The fried shallots added fragrance to the dish but were not oily. 

Prawn

The soup version of prawn noodles was better as it has the naturally sweet taste of the pork ribs. 

Prawn & Pork Ribs Noodle 虾排骨面 - $6.50

The pork ribs were cooked to a perfect texture where it falls off the bone easily without losing their taste. 

Pork Ribs

I love the robust and savoury prawn broth that packed a bit of the old school prawn noodles flavour.

For those who are waiting for their food, most of them will order Ngoh Hiong from the adjacent stall.

After all, Blanco Court Prawn Mee is still will be in my dictionary of Prawn Mee if I'm thinking of recommending Prawn Mee in Singapore.

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Posted 16 June 2016

The prawn mee that I have always been wondering of every time I pass by Beach Road. It was an impromptu decision on a Saturday morning and we made a trip down for breakfast, finally!

Blanco Court Prawn Noodles

The man prefers to have a bigger bowl for his stomach and got himself a big portion at $5.80 instead of the smaller portion that cost $1 less.

Prawn Noodles - $5.80 (Big)

Prawn noodle soup was topped with fried onions in oil, enhancing the flavours of the original bowl of noodles. The broth of the noodle plays an important role and at a very first mouthful of it, the taste of it had already stolen all my tastebuds away. It's sweet and rich flavourful soup was awesome.

Closer Look

There are not too much prawns in the prawns and pork ribs noodle. Sharing the same taste in the soup, this delicacy is undeniably one of the best in Singapore. Pork Ribs were cooked to such a way that meat fell off easily from its bone.

Prawns and Pork Ribs Noodle - $5.80

Yummy! I'm glad a trip to Beach Road is all worthwhile after all, the taste was real good!

Ribs

There are a few handfuls of tasty prawn noodles I have known and Blanco Court's prawn mee was somehow comparable to those. If you have more to spend, try ordering the 3 in 1 Noodle that consists of Prawn, Ribs and Tail to enjoy a full dining experience or if you are keen on bigger prawns, try out the Jumbo Prawn Noodle!

Rating:  3.5 / 5

Blanco Court Prawn Mee
Location: 243 & 245 Beach Road Singapore 189755 (Beach Road)

Flying Pig

Ever since watching Jay Fai's Thai Crab Omelette on Netflix, I have been longing for a bite on her dish but it is not easy to get a seat at the eating place in Bangkok even before this pandemic hits. While the shop opens at 5pm for dinner, there was already queue formed outside before it even opens.

Flying Pig

Interior was simple and casual, painted with grey walls by the side. One side of the wall adorned with traditional metal trays.

Interior

While the other side of the wall was decorated by weaved baskets. 

Interior

The drink menu is pasted on the wall beside your table and not shown in the menu.

Lemon Grass and Lemon Butter Fly Pea - $2 Each

I came here for this and was quite excited when this dish came. The egg was runny and spread over the rice with chunks of crab meat and coriander leaves topped on it. It also comes with a bowl of soup and 2 slices of beautifully cut cucumber.

Fried rice omelette (crab) - $10

The fried rice in general was just white rice to us, nothing more fragrant compared to the usual way of Chinese Cze Char Fried Rice which consist of "Wok" taste. The egg has a milky taste and was rather addictive with the given chili.

Closer look for egg with crab chunks

Slices of pork were definitely spicy and reminded me of Shabu Shabu we have from steamboats. The pork was blanched and topped with garlic as well as chili, beware of the chili seeds. Given another try, I will not want to have order this dish again.

Spicy Pork with Lime Salad - $12

Pork Skewers were good but not to die for. It lacked the kind of fragrance that I had from the stalls outside the supermarket upstairs in the golden mile complex.

Pork Skewer (Moo Ping) - $2 Each

The special grilled chicken tasted not too bad in its Smokey aroma and the meat was still tender with some edges charred.

Special Grilled Chicken - $9

There is only one Tom Yum soup to choose from in the menu. The soup was appetizing with tomatoes, celeries, mushrooms in its orangy soup. Its a tad spicy and good for sharing.

Tom Yum Kung - $12

We decided to order additional drinks to cool down the burning tongues and extinguished the fiery heat caused by the chili padi. The take away drinks are more expensive than dining in as they explained that the volume of the drink is more.

Green Tea Thai Milk Tea and Thai Milk Tea - $3 Each 

In general, the food is acceptable but the dishes were not that tasty enough for me to make a return trip in months to come. We could have a better taste and style of individual dish from other Thai Cuisine eating place out of Golden Mile Complex.

Rating: 3 / 5

Flying Pig
Location: 5001 Beach Road #01-39 Golden Mile Complex Singapore 199588

Chang Xian XO Seafood (Try Fresh XO Seafood)

By the look of "La La Bee Hoon" Sign board that is located in the food court of Sultan Plaza, one may feel that it's just another ordinary stall. As its not a place that we will pass by, we made a trip down purposely to the place and check out this popular KL Noodle.

Stall with TV advertisement

The dish was executed differently with cooking wine, Hua Diao. Seafood soup was packed full of the taste if you are a fan of it. Having paid $6.90, I think it's pretty worthwhile for the ingredients that were generously filled in the bowl. Lala, prawns, cuttlefish, vegetables and spring onions were spotted in the bowl. 

Hua Diao Seafood Bee Hoon Soup 花雕海鲜米粉汤 - $6.90

Bee Hoon is unique too which is imported from Malaysia. The texture is springy and close to "Dong Fen" aka vermicelli.

Bee Hoon

This dish would probably appeal to salted egg lovers and since such trend still have not lost its shine. Luckily, the gravy was not thick and gluey type and instead its more watery. It was made from crumbled salted egg. Taste was robust and satisfying. Worth trying if you are a salted egg lover.

Salted Egg Seafood Bee Hoon 咸蛋海鲜米粉- $8.90

Yummy!

Given the chance, I will like to revisit and try out the braised seafood Mee Sua. I see that these Mee Sua is of a different texture too.

Rating: 3.5 / 5

Chang Xian XO Seafood (Try Fresh XO Seafood)
Location: 100 Jalan Sultan Road #01-06/07 Sultan Plaza Singapore 199001

East Coast Ngoh Hiang 東海岸五香

If you are visiting Blanco Court Prawn Mee stall, it is unlikely that you will miss out this Ngoh Hiang Stall that is right beside the famous Prawn Noodle in Beach Road. It seems to be a common practise for patrons having East Coast Ngoh Hiang while waiting for their bowls of Prawn Noodles to be served.

Picking out the favourite items from the display rack, we had the usual few with century egg, meat, prawn cracker as well as fish cake.

Ngoh Hiang - $8.20

Having Ngoh Hiang was a good way to fill the empty stomach with some food. Surprisingly the plate of fried Ngoh hiang Items was good. These items were warmly served and prawn crackers were crispy.

Century Eggs

Chinese with sesame seeds were given and if you ordered the "chinese sausage" the starchy sweet sauce will be provided too.

Rolls

Rating: 3 / 5

East Coast Ngoh Hiang 東海岸五香
Location: 245 Beach Road Singapore 189755

NOX - Dine in the dark [Closed]

Have you all dine in the dark before? We all heard a fair bit about the concept of dining in the total darkness, haven't we? I think NOX need no further introduction.

NOX along beach road

NOX is located along the shop houses of beach road occupying 2 level of shop space.

NOX - Dine in the dark

The service staff welcomed us into the lounge and gave us a drink menu to choose upon. The moment I sat down, the plushy sofa seat reminds me of Gold Class Cinema lounge, quite similar in a sense. Servers explained there is no food menu to choose from, rather there is a secret menu at $88++ per pax that consists of 12 dishes spreaded into 3 courses, appetizers, mains and desserts. Restaurant menu will be change every 6 - 8 weeks and should you have any dietary preference, e.g. vegetarian, please highlight to them.

Lounge Area

Mocktail

A citrus combination of orange with a bittersweet finishing taste from a pomelo. Its more sour than sweet per say with grapefruit, lemon juice, simple syrup and Grenadine that give a tart and sweet flavour to the naturally sour fruit.

Grapefruit Spritz - $14

The zesty and minty flavours make this quencher such refreshing. Out of 3 drinks tasted, I rate this the best. Ingredients were close to other drinks with passionfruit, simple syrup, lemon juice, lime juice, fresh mint leave and ginger ale.

Virgin Passionfruit Julep - $14

Being described as not the ordinary strawberry milkshake, it really make me wonder how does it taste like. Drink was milky pink served with little ice cubes and a strawberry. It was more of sweet and less of the sour taste with fresh milk, vanilla syrup, simple syrup, lemon juice and Amaretto Almond Syrup.

Strawberry Shaker - $14

Starters

We were served with the starters with a vegetarian on the left and 2 mini cones on the right for the non vegetarians. The fried vegetarian had a pleasant scent of truffle oil smell and looks good with its creaming sauce at its base.

Starters

Starters for the non vegetarian was miniature. Raw salmon was served in the tip of the ice cream cone biscuit added with caviar. The presentation which depicts some plants on the soil had totally taken me away.

Before Proceeding into the darkness

We was told not to bring any of our belongings to the dining area and had them kept in the given lockers, not even our handphones or watches with illumination / glow in the dark function. Instagrammers, sorry! For those who needs to go toilet, its best to have the "passage" clear before entering into the darkness.

Entering the Darkness

We were quite excited while the door to the dining area swung open and we were greeted by the service staff. Have you wonder how to walk up a flight of steep stairs in total darkness? Well, we conquered the first stage by having 1 hand tapping to each other shoulder in a line and walk up the stair and into the dining.

Dining in the darkness

It all started with uneasiness, getting ourselves up at the dining area. When we reached our table, we were led to the back of the chair and have to figure ourselves to take a seat under the clear instructions of course. We were briefed to locate our cutleries (spoon and fork) and the position to place our drinking glass on the table. With every course served, we was told to lean backwards to our chair as these visually impact servers placed the dishes onto our table accurately. 

Each course consist of 4 dishes served in a wooden tray and placed in a "t" shape. The rule to dine is to start with the dish nearest to ourselves at the "6" needle base on a analog clock and go clockwise.

It was a challenge as well as fun locating the dish and place our spoon correctly into our mouth without dropping off the food, afterall this was my 1st time ever dining under such environment. 

I vividly remembered that our appetizers consist of rocket salad, foie gras, fried calamari, chick peas, lentils etc. While the mains were duck confit, wagyu beef cubes, cod fish. Meat was tender and tasty. Desserts was lava chocolate, popcorn ice cream, lemon sorbet and strudel. 

Finishing the meal

We stood up and walk a few meters on the carpeted ground using the same "tapping shoulder method" in a line before heading back to the stairs. Luckily the stairs were dimly lit and we could see and walk down under the shades of light. As we proceed back to the lounge, our eyes were tired and as though we had just woke up.

We were told to fill up a questionaire to recall and guess what we had eaten. After which, the person in charge will come with an ipad, showing the pictures and naming out the 12 dishes we had. We were surprised by our guesses as it really gave our taste buds a good test.

Conclusion

All in all, it was a good 1.5 hours session of experiencing the life of a visually impact human, coping with darkness in their moves. We took our 5 senses daily for granted and being in such environment really gave us a good reminder of how lucky we are to be able to see, hear, touch, taste and feel. Not only that, such dining concept keeps us away from the usual social media / electronics distraction we had during our meals with our friends / partners / families.

The only disadvantage here I could ever think of is perhaps not to bring someone here for a first date where you cannot see each other. Ha!

We spent about $120 including drinks per pax and reservation is recommended.

Rating: 3.5 / 5

NOX
Location: 269 Beach Road Singapore 199546
Website

Zheng Swee Kee Chicken Rice

Located just beside The Toy Museum, anyone who loves chicken rice would have know of this legendary Hainanese Chicken Rice Stall with the name of "Zheng Swee Kee"

Frankly speaking, dining in Zheng Swee Kee has always been in my mind since the branding name has such a long history in its industry and I am rather curious of such traditional chicken rice stall's product and wonder could it be something different from what we usually have outside?

Zheng Swee Kee

Surviving in the food industry of Singapore is no easy task and it is more likely that business will diversify and in such case though chicken rice may be the signature order of your trip to Zheng Swee Kee, it also opens up another option to Cze Char Items.

Menu

But still we kept to our original plan to try out their chicken rice and made our order with the 2 pax meal which consist of a quarter of kampong chicken or roasted chicken, oyster sauce vegetables, honey sauce or thai style deep fried beancurd accompanied by rice and soup.

Soup & Chilli

Vegetables were nicely blanched, retaining its refreshing green color and its succulency in its stems. The taste of plain greens were elevated with the help of delicious oyster sauce.

Oyster Sauce Vegetables

The quarter portion of poached chicken did not impress much. It was mediocre with presence of bones and for spicy kick, it is best to grab some chilli and dab the meat onto them. Don't expect too much.

Quarter Chicken

However on the other hand, the deep fried beancurd was good. The Thai Style Sweet & Sour sauce and the scotching hot beancurd beats any other dishes in the meal. Simply loves its crispy exterior and its wobbly pearl white tofu under the layer.

Deep Fried Beancurd

Carrying so much enthusiasm to this long awaited meal, my hope to have an awesome chicken rice meal had gone down the drain somehow. Meal was neither impressive but rather of an average fare which any of the chicken rice stall in hawker centres may out do them. And still, I still prefer the chicken rice like Boon Tiong Kee.

Rating: 3 / 5

Zheng Swee Kee Chicken Rice
Location: 25 Seah Street Singapore 188381

Mrs Pho

The search of a bowl of good Pho still hangs around in my head and thus we head down to the reputable Mrs Pho in Beach Road which was being raved sometimes back on the media. Located along the main road, the facade of Mrs Pho look nothing spectacular and why would they be the talk of the crowd? I was pretty amazed by the bustling place when i came close to its door as majority of the neighbouring eating places still have more than half the shop space unoccupied, unlike Mrs Pho, we have to side on the tiny table outside her shop screening through the piece of menu while we wait for the turnover.

Facade of Mrs Pho

It felt as if I went through a magic door when I  pushed opened into Mrs Pho. Rustic interior with both cement screed flooring as well as walls with intended grafitti and hanging wires, the feelings were something which I can never imagine I was in Singapore.

Interior

There were narrow aisles from tables to tables and assistant were well trained to serve their hot bowls of noodles in a careful manner not to topple over.

Another part that enlighten me was the used of Mandarin and English in their Vietnamese Accents. Their work efficiency was great and once every few minutes I heard they would check on customers if they had taken their order. Not only that, they were quick in clearing the tables knowing that we have other dishes coming.

Counter

Even the old school style iron grill gates were filled of some old school stuff.

On the Grills

Do not worry about the authenticity as sauces like these were from Vietnamese besides being served by them.

Sauce

While most of the Vietnamese eateries provide a wedge / slice if lime, diners are free to grab theirs free flow on the table, likewise for any sauce and utensils.

On The Table

The Fresh Prawn and Pork Spring Roll or usually the Summer Roll is my all time favourite in Viet Cuisine. Fresh ingredients were all wrapped securely in a most and chewy rice paper and into a roll.
Peanut sauce is superb and I have to emphasize this dish is definitely recommended despite thats its already mentioned as one of Mrs Pho Favourites.

Fresh Prawn & Pork Spring Roll - $3.50

Not to less out the Mamma's Secret Recipe, these pork meat balls were the recommendation by Mrs Pho too. The marinate taste had seeped in pretty well into the meat, allowing a favourable taste with crunchy peanuts as its toppings.

Hanoi Pork Meat Balls (Mamma's Secret Recipe) - $3.50

Fish Sauce and fried chicken wings? That seems a good idea! Came in a pair, both drumlets and wings, the taste was coated with a layer of sweet fish sauce, addictive with its crumbly golden brown outer layer. A satisfied portion though we only get one each.

Fried Chicken Wings in Fish Sauce - $3.50

Avocado Smoothie was creamy and tasty. Must Try! Not only that, if you are game for some Viet Coffee, do try them now. It come with or without condensed milk, at your choice.

Viet Iced Coffee with Milk - $3 & Avocado Smoothie - $4.50

The default dish is always their Beef Brisket Pho for me. Soup was reasonably flavoured with hints of herbs as well as beef flavours.  The kind of soup base with pho (we called it Kway Teow Kia)  was simply addictive. Having tried many Pho in Singapore, I would position them as another Vietnamese Cuisine Restaurant to revisit.

Sliced Beef Noodle Soup - $7.90

Looking around me, there were also tables of Vietnamese patrons who were there enjoying bowls of Pho.

Special beef combination consist of meat balls and slices of beef brisket besides the sliced beef. Onions, spring onions and basil leaves were part of it.

Special Beef Combination Noodle Soup - $8.90

Additional bowl of soup was included in the combination noodle soup too and it contained raw egg.
The temperature of every bowl of noodle was warm enough to enable a half boiled egg.

Side of Raw Egg in Soup 

Slices of beef brisket were tender and soft on our teeth. What I like best was the beef balls that have a "Q" texture and tasted as though it was hand made. You will definitely like it if such style floats your boat.

Brisket & Beef Balls 

Overall, I'm quite contented to have another Viet option here in Singapore. The price is reasonable I would say and food were delicious. If you like Vietnamese Cuisine, Mrs Pho is not to be missed. For those who will be heading down, do note that only cash is accepted during payment.

Rating: 4 / 5

Mrs Pho
Location: 349 Beach Road Singapore 199570