M. Hasan Railway Station Canteen @ KTM Tanjong Pagar Railway Station

If you are on the Singapore MRT, you will always hear, "Your attention please, eating and drinking are not allowed in the stations and trains".

But on the Keretapi Tanah Melayu Berhad (KTMB)'s Singapore (Tanjong Pagar / Keppel Road) Station of the Railway network, you can eat on the station! More precisely, you can eat on the train platform itself!



This was taken about 1 week ago. Momo and I brought our parents to have a last visit and last meal at the railway station before the place closes down on 30 June 2011.

Wondering what to eat here?
Here's what we had.  We had 3 different kinds of 'goreng' (fried in Malay) food.

Kuey Teow Goreng

Our first goreng dish: Kuey Teow Goreng.

Malay style fried kuey teow. It was a tad oily, but it sure was delicious.
I like how they always have a splat of tomato sauce and a slice of cucumber over it.

Tauhu Goreng

The second goreng dish: Tauhu Goreng. (Fried Tofu).

This is the more Malay style, where pieces of tofu is deep fried and topped with scalded bean sprouts and julienne cucumber.  It's topped with a generous amount of peanuty sauce. The sauce here is not bad. Not the best around, but it's good.




The third goreng dish: Pisang Goreng (Banana fritters)

The pisang goreng here is very popular! Every now and then, a tray of freshly fried pisang will be brought out and you can see, people grabbing some onto their plates in the most polite way.

You know what I mean right - the meaning of polite? Smiling at each other, even without speaking, using hand signals conveying the message, 'you go first', the next person reciprocate by another, 'no lah, you go first'. Until someone finally relents and starts to grab some. You then see the person stacking like 15 pieces of pisang and you in your heart screaming, leave some for me!



The pisang pieces were huge! It's looked like pieces of fried chicken right?
Perfectly riped pisang deep fried and the outer layer of batter that stays crispy and crunchy. I tell you, you got to try this!

Only 60 cents per piece and it's huge.

Halal Yong Tau Foo

If you think all the 'goreng' stuff's too unhealthy, then go for the healthier, soupy stuff.
Momo got us some yong tau foo. She said it's not too bad.

Chapati

Another very popular stall is the Chapati Stall.
These two ladies or 'kakak' (elder sister) / 'makcik' (auntie), depending on how old you are, address them correctly and they will serve you with a huge smile.

They were making the chapati non stop, every piece was hand rolled and pressed on the heated pan to cook. Hard work! Certainly not the thawed frozen crap that you get in some food court.

I called them 'kakak' (to score some brownie points first) and asked if I could take a photo of them in Malay. She said sure, but wait, Kakak said she needed to adjust her apron and tudong first, then went to to flip the chapati. I wanted to laugh, but kept quiet.

In my not so good Malay, I asked where will they move after June 30? They said, they are taking a rest, they will go back to Kelantan to visit family and then decide later.




The usual order that most people ask for. Either 2, 3 or 4 pieces of chapati and the bowl of standard 'dip'.




I ordered 4 pieces of it, (each piece is 60 cents) because we ordered so many other things to eat.
These chapatis were really nice especially when it's hot right off the pan!

Something so simple made from wheatflour, water, salt and oil can taste so good!
I think I like it because there's no yeast in it!



The usual or default 'dip' / 'gravy' / 'sauce' that comes with it. It's made from minced meat with chunks of potato and curry powder. It's very tasty and I think they go very well with rice too!




I saw some sotong and ordered it as well. The father in law seemed to like this a lot.
He was especially delighted with the sotong roe that's stuffed inside the sotong. Something similar or familiar to his peranakan food.

Air Bandung

After the 'goreng goreng' food, the rest settled with hot 'teh' (tea) or 'kopi' (coffee) to help purge out the oil in the system, but I opted for the cool way. I had the air bandung. OK, it's way too sweet for my liking, but the colour's nice for photography?


Hurry down to the Tanjong Pagar Railway Station if you want to try out the food there.
The station will be handed back to Singapore from the Malaysian authorities. The last train in and out of Singapore will be on 30 June.


M Hasan Railway Station Canteen
KTMB Tanjong Pagar Railway Station
30 Keppel Road
Singapore 089059

100 Satays and 20 chicken wings @ Lau Pa Sat

Last Thursday night, a group of friends who have not met for a month had supper at Lao Pa Sat. We just wanted to 'snack' and 'catch up'.

So, we went to Lao Pa Sat, because it was the nearer place after our fellowship at a church nearby. I can't remember how many of us were there, but we ordered 100 satays and 20 chicken wings. Initially we thought that it might be too much, but turn out no.... we wanted more!

Everytime we come here, it seems that we end up sitting in front of Stall 8. They are kind enough to arrange the tables for us to fit all of us.



The orders came in a few plates like these ones...





We thought 20 wings were too much, but don't they just look yummylicious!





It's always a good time to catch up over food. Oh yes, it was also someone's birthday!
Happy birthday Estella.

Amoy Street Food Centre : Ayam Power Cuisine

Today colleague and I had a chance to eat at the Amoy Street again, this time we tried the quite talk about Ayam Penyet available here.


This is the stall, also on the second floor.



This is the chicken, served on a wooden plate. Interesting eh!
The sauce is very good!



Then the rice with a piece of fried batter and a bowl of soup.
Hmmm I wonder why the ayam penyet is not penyet (ie flattened). Maybe it is not Ayam Penyet that we ordered. haha...



But it was delicious!

Geek Terminal : Coffee from the Heart

Are you a coffee lover, or are you a caffeine addict? Think about it.

Introducing Danny, one of the rare certified barista in Singapore. He makes coffee from the heart. Though I am not a coffee drinker, but I learned quite a bit from him just by his explanation while making a cup of espresso. He's one of the partners of Geek Terminal.



If you want to know more, go over for a cuppa. Just like the crowd of people that was there last nite, you might just taste your best coffee!

OK. Back to photo blogging.

This is "Coda di topo" or "mouse tail" in Italian. The flow out is determine by the coarseness of the grind and also the flow of water. Barista can take a look and know if other barista has done all the basics correct.



The espresso, which is approx 20 ml. (If I heard correctly.)
Correction: 30ml. (thank Danny for the correction)



Next it is to froth the milk for top up the espresso. In some places, you see a thermometer in it, but for an expert barista like him, he knows exactly when the desired shine and thickness of the frothy foam is achieved. (see his hands acting as a thermometer, and his eyes on the milk)

Doing it correctly, it should start with cold fresh milk and milk should not be heated beyond 70 C. When milk is heated or steamed, the lactose or 'milk sugar' becomes more soluble and the perceived sweetness also increases. It's one reason why if the froth is done properly, you do not need to add sugar to your espresso.



The frothed milk is mixed with the espresso.



The next few picture shows you the 'coffee art', where you get the designs on top of the coffee.






If you realise, the way he pours the milk into the cup, the design appears!
* See the chope chope section below for more pictures of it.. *



Our barista is drawing ping.sg for the group of us that was there.











Turn the cup facing us, there you go. ping.sg espresso.




ok. the chope chope section.
before i go... let me show you another set of coffee art.

Look at this expert do it! The patterns appears by the way he pours the froth milk!







Cool ya, the last swipe of the pour creates the palm like design.

Hope you enjoyed today's post.

Lao Pa Sat : Satay ( Stall 7 - Best Satay)

Just came back from Lao Pa Sat after having supper there with some friends.

There are so maany satay stalls there, and we sat at the one call "Best Satay". There are others like Power Satay etc...

Here's a picture of it.. Yum.... Sorry lah, only got street lamps, so photos are a bit dark. We ordered 60 sticks of satay.



And the sauce came in like 10 little containers..



I am now so satisfied :-)
Anyone wanna guess, what else we ate?