Jin Hua Fish Head Bee Hoon

One of the most popular stalls at Old Airport Road Hawker Centre is none other than Jin Hua Fish Soup. I had been eyeing their fish soup ever since my previous visit. Unfortunately, I missed out that time as they were on their lunch break.

This time around, I finally got my chance, though it came with a price: a 30 to 45-minute wait in the queue just to get my bowl!

Jin Hua Fish Head Bee Hood

I ordered the mixed fish bee hoon soup. The broth was milky and rich, with subtle hints of cooking wine that added depth and warmth to the flavor.

The bowl was generously filled with sweet cabbage and slices of ginger, which not only added flavor but also beautifully balanced the soup's richness.

Mix Fish Bee Hoon Soup - $7

We also ordered another bowl of mixed fish soup without bee hoon, and noticed some interesting differences. This version came with tofu and tomato, which weren’t present in the bee hoon version. The tomato added a light tanginess to the broth, while the tofu gave it a comforting, silky texture. It was a subtle but notable variation, perhaps tailored to let the broth shine more on its own without the noodles.

Mixed Fish Soup - $7

The slices of fish were thick and smooth in texture, a clear sign of freshness. Each piece held up well in the hot broth without falling apart, offering a tender bite that paired perfectly with the soup’s clean, comforting flavours. 

Fish Slice

If you were to ask me to choose between the fried and non-fried fish pieces, I will go with the non-fried version. While the fried pieces add a nice and a different layer of flavor, I personally prefer the clean, smooth taste of the regular fish slices. They soak up the broth beautifully and highlight the natural sweetness of the fish, simple, yet deeply satisfying.

Fried Fish

If you ask me whether the wait was worth it, I will say yes, but with a caveat. The soup was undoubtedly comforting and well-executed, but I will be more inclined to buy it again if there isn’t too long a queue. It’s the kind of bowl you crave on a rainy day or when you're in need of something soothing, just better enjoyed without the 45-minute wait.

Rating: 3.25 / 5

Jin Hua Fish Head Bee Hoon
Location:  Old Airport Road Food Centre, 51 Old Airport Rd, #01-120, Singapore 390051

One Ocean 天翼海鲜

 One Ocean, located in the food court of Grantral Mall at MacPherson, specializes in Cze Char dishes. They recently launched a promotion offering selected dishes at just $8.90, available for both dine-in and takeaway.

One Ocean 天翼海鲜

We tried the Braised Sea Cucumber with Fish Maw, which came with fish maw, mushrooms, greens, and carrots. The gravy was well-balanced, flavorful, and not overly sweet.

Braised Sea Cucumber with Fish Maw 海参鱼漂煲 - $8.90

The Kam Heong Clams were fragrant and flavorful, packed with an aromatic blend of dried shrimp, curry leaves, shallots, garlic, and chili. The rich, umami-packed sauce coated each clam perfectly, delivering a delightful mix of savory, spicy, and slightly smoky flavors.

Kam Heong Clams 甘香花啦 - $8.90

The Deep Fried Seabass with Assam Sauce was a satisfying dish. The fish was crispy on the outside while remaining tender inside. The tangy assam sauce was used sparingly, ensuring the fish didn’t become too soggy, allowing its natural flavors and crispy texture to shine. 

Deep Fried Seabass with Assam Sauce 亚参炸金目鲈  - $8.90

Definitely a dish to enjoy again!

Fish

With its enticing $8.90 seafood dish promotion, this is definitely a steal for office groups and diners who enjoy sharing a hearty meal together.

One Ocean 天翼海鲜
Location:  Grantral Mall, Grantral Complex, 601 MacPherson Road, Singapore 368242

Warm Up Cafe

Good news for lovers of authentic Thai food and late-night eats!  If you enjoy a Thai live band, you're in for a treat—they play Tuesdays to Sunday, 715pm to 12am

The dining area is beautifully themed under a big tree, with leaves and plants overhead, creating a lively and vibrant atmosphere. The combination of lights and thoughtful furnishings adds to the charm, making it a delightful spot to enjoy your meal. 

Don’t miss out on this unique experience!

Warm Up Cafe

We enjoyed a plate of fresh, healthy greens topped with generous chunks of crispy roasted pork. The contrast between the crispiness of the pork and the refreshing crunch of the greens made this dish a delightful and satisfying combination.

Interior

The Thai Lemongrass drink was simply refreshing when served chilled, providing a perfect way to cool down the heat from the spicy dishes. On the other hand, the warm honey lemon drink was just as enjoyable, with its balanced sweetness that perfectly suited the cold and wet weather—it was a comforting choice.

Thai Lemongrass & Honey Lemon - $3.90 Each

We were served Isan sausage, cut into bite-sized pieces resembling fish balls. The exterior was nicely charred, while the interior had a mince-like texture. Staying true to Thai traditions, the dish was accompanied by raw vegetables and chilli padi, enhancing its authentic flavours.

Isan Sausage - $11

The seafood Tom Yum clear soup we ordered came with two prawns, along with the usual seafood like squid and others. Despite its clear appearance, the soup packed a spicy punch. However, it lived up to expectations as an appetizing and flavorful dish.

Tom Yum Soup Clear - $16

The omelette was of the creamy and runny variety, generously topped with large chunks of crabmeat. While it was a tad too milky for my taste, those who enjoy watery and creamy omelettes will likely find it irresistible.

Creamy Crab Omeleete - $21

Boat Noodles are always a favourite of mine when ordering from a Thai menu. Unlike the typical one-mouthful serving, the portion was generous. The bowl was packed with meatballs, lean meat, liver, kang kong, and innards, making it incredibly hearty

Thai Boat Noodle

The broth had a rich depth of flavour and was simply delicious—comfort in every bite.

Boat Noodle

We tried their Seafood Vermicelli Salad, which was a refreshing and appetizing choice. The dish combined seafood such as mussels, squid, prawns, and minced meat with vermicelli, all tossed in a tangy and zesty sauce. The flavors came together beautifully, making it a vibrant and satisfying addition to our meal.

 

Vermicelli

We enjoyed a plate of fresh, healthy greens topped with generous chunks of crispy roasted pork. The contrast between the pork's crispiness and the greens' refreshing crunch made this dish a delightful and satisfying combination.

Kai Lan with Crispy Pork

The braised pork was served in eight generously sized chunks, with distinct layers of fat and meat. We absolutely loved how the braised flavours had infused deeply into the meat. The texture was springy yet tender, making each bite a delightful experience.

 

Braised Pork - $16

Steamed Seabass with Lime & Garlic is a must-have for me in any Thai meal. It’s served with a bowl of zesty gravy to pour over the fish as it cooks over the fire. I absolutely love how appetizing this dish is, with its perfect blend of spiciness and tangy goodness, which pairs beautifully with the tender flesh of the seabass.

Steamed Seabass with Lime and Garlic - $31

No meal is complete without dessert, and we opted for the Thai Coconut Milk Custard, also known as Kanom Tuay in Thai. This traditional dessert featured two layers—a creamy coconut layer on top of a pandan-infused base—and was served in small ceramic cups with wooden spoons, adding an authentic touch.

From the very first bite, we were captivated by its homey yet delightful taste. The salty coconut cream perfectly balanced the sweet, aromatic pandan layer, and the smooth, custard-like texture made it light and satisfying. It was the perfect way to round off our meal.

 

Thai Coconut Milk Custard

We also had Red Ruby as dessert, a delightful choice to end the meal. The mildly sweet coconut milk paired perfectly with the gelatinous coating around the crunchy water chestnut pieces of the red ruby. Adding to the experience was the natural sweetness of the jackfruit, which brought everything together beautifully and completed the meal on a satisfying note.

Red Ruby

To sum up, the Thai staff were warm and friendly, and despite the busy peak hours, our orders were served fairly quickly. The food was authentic and absolutely delicious. If you’re a fan of genuine Thai cuisine. Warm Up Café offers an impressive spread that’s sure to satisfy. Plus, they feature a live band during certain times, adding to the lively dining experience. Definitely worth checking out!

Warm Up Cafe @ Grantral Mall Macpherson
Location: Grantral Mall, 601 MacPherson Road  #01-37 Grantral Complex, 368242

Crazy Scoops

 After dinner, we decided to go to Circuit Road for Ice Cream by Siao Ah! for she has yet to try other flavours of ice cream in Crazy Scoops. If you have been on social media especially TikTok, you would probably come across the guy, Mr Vincent Lim, who is behind this Ice Cream Shop. He is known for being pranks by his daughters online which has gained him lot of fans base. Can you spot him in the picture? 

Crazy Scoops

Based on the video by his daughter, it has been always Vincent childhood dream to run an ice cream cafe and now that the dream has come through in this December 2023. 

Pick your selection

They have both outdoor and indoor seating, allowing you to park your bikes and enjoy the ice-cream. Service are friendly for sure. The White Chrysanthemum Ice Cream had a good strong hint of chrysanthemum fragrant with sweetness while the Oolong maybe a little bit on the bitter tea side but these 2 flavours complemented each other well.

White Chrysanthemum & Osmanthus Oolong

We went for something out of the ordinary, Coriander Ice Cream. Those who love Coriander will love it. As a coriander fan, I find that the taste was pretty acceptable complemented with a vanilla base. The White Christmas is similar to the raspberry vanilla flavours we had with added Lotus Biscoff Biscuit (or similar) for texture.

White Christmas & Coriander

The last flavour we had was Bluepea Vanilla. Take a closer look into the cup and you will find the vanilla beans within. While Bluepea itself does not have much flavour in nature, this flavour is mostly vanilla taste in its natural blue colour. 

Bluepea Vanilla

They aim to keep their prices reasonable to serve local people with great affordability and cater to the masses. Overall quite decent with their ice cream Service will need improvement as they had oversight of one of our orders and we waited for quite some time. 

Rating: 3 / 5

Crazy Scoops
Location: 77 Circuit Rd, #01-460, Singapore 370077
Website

Western Barbeque

While the friend has the strongest craving for his childhood favourite Western Food in Old Airport Food Center, we headed down to this ever-popular Garlic Sauce Western Barbeque Stall.

Western Barbeque

We were given 2 pieces of Pork ladled with their signature sweet savoury garlic sauce over this tender meat. The main was paired with fries, coleslaw and a small packet of old school cream bun. This kind of serving was rather unique and perhaps one of its kind in Singapore. The coleslaw tasted average and I would prefer if the cabbages were not shredded to such a fine texture. 

Pork Chop - $7

Similarly, the chicken chop was slathered with the ever-signature garlic sauce. The BBQ slab of Chicken soup was absolutely tender and succulent in its charred taste. The sauce enhanced the taste of the meat. 

Chicken Chop - $7

The nostalgic taste and unpretentious old-school Western Food is just simply the best in their sauce. Do head down to Western Barbeque if you have not tried it.

Rating: 3.25 / 5

Western BBQ
Location: Old Airport Road Food Centre, 51 Old Airport Rd, #01-53, Singapore 390051

One Prawn & Co by Red Marble

One Prawn Noodle is by a band of young and passionate individuals who seek to keep the Singaporean culture and heritage alive. Their prawn noodles came from inspiration from both Penang prawn noodles and Japanese Ramen Broth. Gwyneth Ang with an experience of more than 10 years heads One Prawn Noodle.

One Prawn & Co

I went there on a weekend and there was already a long queue in this coffee shop environment. A good thing was that we were handed the menu and got to decide what to order while in line waiting.

The Corner 

The Corridor of One Prawn & Co

While waiting for the food, we ordered some beverages.

Ice Lemon Tea & Barley - $2.50 each

No worries about under or over-ordering, just try out their recommended selection of fried Chinese fritters consisting of Crispy Prawn Cracker, QQ Sausage Handmade fishcake, Pork Ngoh Hiang Roll, Century Egg and Fried Beancurd. 

Ngoh Hiang Platter - $11.50

I ordered the soup version of Prawn noodles with noodles of my choice. One Prawn Co served the noodles and ingredients separately. 

Noodles Soup

While I have ordered the soup version of prawn noodles, I still get to have a bowl of earthen clay pot soup with ingredients. In fact, all prawn noodles ordered will come with an earthen pot of soup no matter if you order soup or dry version. 

The broth was rich and full-bodied. They brew for hours in order to achieve the taste. Not only that, every bowl of soup is painstakingly made daily, making sure that the prawn head were well blended and squeezed to adjust the distinctive flavours. This unique way of extracting flavours stands out from most Prawn Noodle Stalls.

Lala & Small Prawns - $8

The Lala were fresh and the amount given was quite a handful. It enhanced the seafood taste of the soup and also its chewy meat with the naturally sweet flavours was something I'm looking forward to.

La La

We had the Dry Prawn Noodles with Braised Pork Ribs & Small Prawns too. The pork ribs were cooked to fall off the bone kind with the slightest bitting effort. The soup in the claypot was rich and robust, with a taste slightly different from the Lala & Small Prawns version.

Prawns were easily de-shelled and with this, we quickly toss them into the dry noodle and mixed them together with lard, sauce, Kang kong and beansprouts.

Braised Pork Ribs & Small Prawns - $8

After all, I will say that this is not a usual bowl of "Hae Mee" (Prawn Noodle). Besides using a claypot to hold the warmth of the soup, the soup holds a unique taste and best, no MSG was used.

Rating: 3.5 / 5

One Prawn & Co

Location: 458 MacPherson Rd, Singapore 368176

Website

Quan Lai 泉来

It was an impromptu suggestion and recommendation that we had our lunch at Quan Lai. My last review of the article was in 2015 which is 6 years ago. The stall had left me a deep impression as they are the only stall I ever had with pineapple as one of the ingredients in their Kway Chap set.

Kway Chap Meal for 2 - $18 (without fried intestine)

I was quite surprised with the taste. The Big Intestines were deeply fried and were very crispy, especially when its being dipped into the tangy chili. Totally addictive. Besides having the celery stalks as garnishing, there are also pineapple slices that decked up the pieces of crispy fried intestines.

Fried Big Intestine - $12 (Small)

We had the mixed ingredients that include braised pork innards, belly, braised duck, egg, fishcakes and Tau Pok. 

Mixed Ingredients for Kway Chap

Quan Lai may probably serve the most expensive Kway Chap in Singapore but in terms of quality and taste, I find it worthwhile to have it once in a while. 

Rating: 3.25 / 5 

Quan Lai 泉来

Location: Sin Fong Coffeeshop, 560 MacPherson Road Singapore 368233

Ho Jia Bo? Fishball Minced Meat Noodle

Chancing by Ho Jia Bo Stall when our initial plan to Hakka Yong Tau Foo stall failed as it was already sold out. Apparently, most of the stalls were either done with their business day around 10am or had closed for the Sunday. Ho Jia Bo? Fishball Minced Meat Noodle was only one of the few that remains opened at that time.

Stall Front

Ho Jia Bo when translated from Hokkien simply means a question asking if it is delicious. What an interesting stall name they have.

The fish ball noodle was topped with minced meat and in a separate bowl containing the soup, ingredients include slices of fish cake, fishballs and fried stuff.

Fishball Noodle - $3

Look at the soup, it's different. Ingredients includes pieces of lean meat, liver and meat balls. The soup is not the usual typical taste and rather tasty. I also like about the part where my bowl of Bee Tai Bak was topped with generous serving of braised mushrooms and minced meat.

Mushroom Minced Meat Noodle - $3.50

Take a look at the recommended sign in front of the stall. It says "No Matter What. Must Eat!" In fact, they are one of the recommended stalls for you to patronize in circuit road.

Recommendation

Rating: 3.25 / 5

Ho Jia Bo? Fishball Minced Meat Noodle
Location: Circuit Road Food Centre, Blk 79 Circuit Road #01-59 Singapore 370079

Mei Shi Zhu Yi - Fried Porridge

Don't need to read the title all again.Yes! Its fried porridge that we are talking about here. Having porridge throughout my living, I have not even hear of frying porridge. I guess like me it would have stir your interest and wonder how does it taste like. Fried porridge is originated from Malaysia its good that we can find them in Singapore in Macpherson Road.

Mei Shi Zhu Yi is housed in Delicious Coffeeshop and offer 6 kinds of porridge including its signature fried porridge in claypot. They also sell other items like fish cakes and salted fried chicken.

Mei Shi Zhu Yi

Since we were there for their Fried Porridge we ordered a medium portion at $10. The porridge was served in a claypot and topped with garnishings like fried shallots, chopped spring onions, crab meat. The crab meat used was not from those processed crab stick and I get to bite some of the unremoved shells.

Signature Fried Porridge - $10 (Medium)

The way of serving definitely reminds me of claypot rice especially when the porridge was in claypot and was mostly brown in color.

Fried Porridge - $6 /10 /20

I can't never imagine the idea of incorporating frying to porridge especially when they are water based. To my surprise, all my idea of plain porridge had been replaced by the beautiful sight of the scoop of smoky, unami flavours of fried porridge.

Texture was more like gruel, with pork lard accentuated the plain porridge taste, strands of cuttlefish adding on to its taste and even little chop bits of yam could be found inside. The dried shrimps on the other hand had also added sweetness to the porridge broth taste.

A ladle of goodness!

I went there without much expectation as I had no idea how exactly Fried Porridge would taste like and it turn out better than what I had thought. In my opinion, I felt that they could have a stronger taste to make it perfect!

Rating: 3.5 / 5

Mei Shi Zhu Yi - Fried Porridge
Location: Delicious Coffee Shop, 456 Macpherson Road Singapore 368174