Shi Li Fang 食立方 - A steamboat affair with free soft toys after every meal!

• Operating Days: Daily
• Operating Time: 10 AM to 10 PM
• Facebook Page
• Address: Multiple Locations
• Orchard central, 181 Orchard Road #07-10/11, S 238896
• Icon village, 12 Gopeng Street #01-41, S 078877
• Thomson plaza, 301 Upper Thomson Road #01-106, S 574408
• Chinatown point,133 New Bridge Road #B1-30, S 059413
• City square, 180 Kitchener Rd #02-53/54, S 208539
• J-cube, 2 Jurong East Central 1,#02- 08A, S 609731
• West Coast Plaza, 154 West Coast Road #02-24, S 127371
• Bedok Point, 799 New Upper Changi Road #03-38/39, S 467351
• Hougang 1, 1 Hougang Street 91 #01-23, S 538692

I’m pretty sure many Singaporeans are fans of steamboat, with many new pop up steamboat theme restaurants growing rapidly almost at every part of Singapore. It was 8:30pm when we visited Shi Li Fang at Chinatown point, and the number of people queuing to go in brought out our curiosity to give this place a try.

When we walked past the restaurant during weekday lunch time, the whole restaurant would be packed with people. We were surprised to see there were still quite a number of people that had just started eating despite we have past the usual timing for dinner.

We ordered a set for 2 pax with tomato soup and chicken soup. The portion came was huge! 

We think the set is easily enough for 3 pax. The set came with pork belly, pork collar, marinated pork and chicken slices. The vegetable platter consist with generous amount of china cabbage, xiao bai chye, crabstick, enoki mushroom, tang hoon and egg. Similar to Hai Di Lao, they have handmade ramen here as well, which is a popular choice for many. You might encounter difficulty in getting the waiter’s attention to prepare the noodle on the spot in front of you as they are always very busy running around. 

Prawn glue (which came in a tube) is something that we frequent order whenever we are here. The gluelike texture paste will become springy and delicious after cooked. The prawn they used for their prawn glue is very fresh too.

The best thing about dining at Shi Li Fang is they do not charge extra for their sauce! Though they do not have a huge variety of sauce like Hai Di Lao, the variety of sauce provided here is still acceptable. Most of the common sauce for steamboat can be found here.

Cooked shabu shabu pork belly in tomato soup! The pork was fresh and thin, which is perfect for steamboat. The tomato soup base is similar to Hai Di Lao’s as well, but of course it is not as flavourful, which we didn’t mind as it is still tangy and just right for our liking.

The marinated pork was a little salty to our liking, but the flavour is still on point and it goes well with rice or noodle.

Shi Li Fang may not be unfamiliar with many working adults and is a popular choice for lunch with colleagues as they serve nice and affordable steamboat set. Though you may not get the top service like what you receive at Hai Di Lao, it is still recommended for you to give Shi Li Fang a try. Other than dining, Shi Li Fang is generous in giving out soft toys as well. Every $15 spent will earn you a chop, and with just two chops, (which is easily obtainable after a meal) you can choose to bring home a small soft toy. Fear not if you fancy a particular soft toy without enough stamps. Chances are you will still be able to get it as long as you request from the staffs nicely. There is no reason for you to spend money catching soft toy at the claw machines when you can fill your stomach and get free toys at Shi Li Fang. 

Chai Chee Pork Porridge 菜市豬肉粥 Best Porridge in Fengshan Market and Food Centre

• Operating Hours: 5 PM - 2 AM
• Operating Days: Daily
• Address: Fengshan Centre, 85 Bedok North Street 4, #01-210, S 460085

There are so many stalls at 85 Fengshan Food Centre that you would likely to ponder over what to order. This was what happened to us when we traveled to Bedok for Dinner. We have heard that the Chai Chee Pork Porridge 菜市猪肉粥 was quite famous. In fact, they are so popular that they have 2 stalls – one open in the day, and the other at night till late. We were wondering if we should waste our stomach space on porridge for supper. 

When we were there, there was no physical queue, but when ordering, we were told we had to wait for around 30 minutes before our order was served to our table which you could see lots of people waiting for their takeaway order of porridge.

They serve a variety of porridge, from pork, century egg, fish to chicken porridge cost $3.50 each. We ordered pork porridge.

A warning first, do not immediately take a biteful of the porridge once presented, it was hot, really hot! Take a spoonful of it if you dare and you would understand what I mean.

Each porridge is cooked pot by pot. The porridge is the kind where the grains have been disintegrated, it was thick and smooth, at same time not too wet and grainy till almost a gluey texture, it take many hours of cooking to get this thick consistency. The porridge is well seasoned without additional soy sauce. It was incredibly flavourful. You could even eat it by it's own without any ingredient! 

The Pork balls are all handmade. It came with generous amounts of pork slices and minced pork and none of them were frozen, included spring onions and pieces of fried dough sticks 油条. The meat was cooked perfectly, it was tender and in thick slices. Very flavorful! 

Among the porridge I been, this has to be one of the best among the hawker centers that sell during dinner and supper. Bedok 85 hawker centre has a lot of other yummy food as well, so order them together with porridge. You will have a great meal!