Thursday, August 9, 2012

Teck Neo, Singapore

27/7/12

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We usually judge a particular food against the first such food that we ate, don't we? Mee Siam ('Thai noodles') is not a dish that you find in KK and my first mee Siam was that made by my friend Linda. I love Linda's mee Siam and it was such a treat when she invited us for dinner and mee Siam was on the table. When Linda moved to Australia 4 years ago (time flies!), she finally gave me her mee Siam recipe but I've not yet muster the courage to cook the dish because it seems like a lot of work. Maybe soon. Maybe.

I'm used to Linda's dry mee Siam with dried shrimps and Singapore's version with an intensely sweet and sour gravy--and no dried shrimps--takes a bit of getting used to. Anyway, I'm so glad that AH and B brought us to Teck Neo, a family-run Peranakan restaurant located below a block of HDB flats. The restaurant is old-fashioned Peranakan quaint and there's a pretty al fresco area in front of the entrance that is very comfortable even in the hot humid tropical weather. If you are ever in the neighborhood, you must eat a meal at Teck Neo because the home-made Peranakan food is delicious and authentic, made by a Peranakan lady whose husband and son help run the restaurant. We tried as many kuihs as we could eat, and as many breakfast items as they had (lunch and dinner menus are more extensive) and all of them were delicious. However, I found the mee Siam too sweet but I put that down to my preference for dry-fried Malaysian mee Siam, and my limited tasting of the dish.

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IMO, this was Teck Neo's best kuih and it was so good I bought some to go and ate another two for lunch. The grated coconut and dried shrimps filling was superb and the coconut milk scented glutinous rice, dyed blue by blue pea clitoria flowers, was cooked perfect, not too soft or too hard.

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Sticky flour kuihs with mung bean filling. The 'skin' was soft and slightly chewy and the mung bean filling not too sweet. Tasted very home made so I ate it without any reservations. I usually dislike kuihs because of the amount of coloring and poor quality ingredients used.

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Zhongzi.

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Butter cake.

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The taro cake was rather bland, lacking in taro flavor and toasted dried shrimps but again, it tasted home made and better than most commercial taro cakes.

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Teck Neo's mee Siam is AH's favorite and while it was thick with gravy and a generous topping of boiled egg, fried bean curd boks and a prawn, I found the gravy too sweet.

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This was tons better than Ponggol Nasi Lemak.

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This fried tofu with peanut sauce was delicious; don't miss it.

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I had a bit of B's mee rebus and wished I had ordered it instead. Yummy.

Teck Neo
 Blk 35, Teloh Blangah Rise, #01-303

We had lunch at Gleneagles Hospital because we visited a relative. The food court in the hospital would put all the hospital canteens in KK to shame.

I was able to finally get an hour to myself for shopping and guess who walked into the store where I was trying on a skirt? My friend Su, who was also in Singapore. She had walked in from Hyatt next door so we ended up having dinner at the Hyatt Club where Su was a member. The food was great but I was too stuffed from the snacks we had while walking on Orchard Rd.

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After dinner, Su asked me to stay with her and I took the offer because I had a baking class to attend in the city the next day. Plus it was Club Hyatt's suite, so why not.

7 comments:

Jasmine said...

Hi Terri,
What a coincidence! I was just reading about a very dry Singaporean Mee Siam recipe at Kitchen Tigress' blog.

http://kitchentigress.blogspot.com/2011/06/mrs-wee-kim-wees-very-famous-mee-siam.html

About popovers that deflate when they cool: The links below give some tips to prevent that happening i.e. reducing the oven temperature halfway thru baking, and perhaps more importantly, piercing a slit in the popover once you unmold from the pan, so that the steam escapes. I'm not sure how well either tip works, but happy trying!

http://www.thekitchn.com/how-to-make-popovers-171064

http://www.thekitchn.com/recipe-easy-ethereal-popovers-43019

Jasmine

RUNNING BROOK said...

Hi Terri

I read a comment from your previous post, asking u to check out Ipoh.
Ipoh is my hometown!!! :P
But a lot of the old hawkers have retired or their stalls are now manned by workers. So, in truth the food standards have dropped. Still, if you have read Motormouth from Ipoh, he still uncovers a gem or two from time to time.

Michelle Chin said...

wah, good hospital food? this is the first time i have read something like this.

have you come across this blog on bad hospital food before? hehehe

i also cannot tahan kuihs with lots of colouring.

terri@adailyobsession said...

Jasmine: wow a true tigress. I am totally intimidated! About popovers, i've tried all the tips u mentioned but them puffballs still deflate like souffles:( thnx though for caring about my popovers:)

Runningbrook: u know, tt's exactly what's happening in kk. In recent years, the cooks hv either died or gone away n the ppl cooking now are mostly immigrants frm other countries who hv no clue about chinese cuisine. Hard to bring visitors to a decent restaurant in kk now:(

Mich: ah, i didnt say gleneagles' food is good (i only had a spoonful of hub's soup) altho my relatives did say the bun meen is very good. What i mean is there's such a lot of choice, there's actually a food court n some of the food stalls look pretty good. I dont think they even hv food courts in hospitals in kl.

flight promotions in Singapore said...

Oh my! the pictures are mouth-watering aah. Mee siam is one of my favorite dishes.

tours to asia said...

Teck Neo is basically one of the best places to bring a foreigner to when he/she is craving for delicious sg dishes.

Thank you for sharing this!

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