Seng Kee 119 成记 119 - Steamed Fish head enough for 2 pax @ $13!

• Operating Days: Closed on Tuesdays
• Operating Time: 11.30 AM to 10.30 PM
• Address: Chinatown Complex, 335, Smith Street, #02-190, S 050335

Chinatown Complex is one of the places in Singapore that provides cheap and authentic local food. The one Michelin star hawker, Hawker Chan Soy sauce chicken is also here at Chinatown Complex.
Famous for Steam Fish Head, there are at least 5 other steam fish head stalls in this hawker centre. The price of the Steam Fish Head is therefore very competitive. Almost all the steam fish head stalls are selling S$13 for a half fish head, which is more than enough for two people.

Please do be very careful when consuming the fish, they are full of small, hardly visible sharp bones.

Established since 1983, this stall has been serving countless Steamed Fish Head in Hot and Spicy Sauce to their patrons.

Seng Kee occupied two stalls side by side in the market, selling the steam fish head and other zi char dishes.

Seng Kee emphasis a lot on the importance of steaming their fish head instead of boiling them. All the fragrance from the fish head will be retained within, as compared to boiling the fish head, where all the fresh fish taste will be retained in the water instead.

They do not have many Zi Char items on their menu as compared to other Zi Char Stall. 

After waiting for about 10 minutes, the steamed fish head was served. 

The Song Fish Head portion was BIG! The sauce, paired together with the steam fish head is a combination of preserved plum sauce, adding the slight kick of the “salty-sourness” to the fermented soybeans used, which provided the overall savouriness in the sauce. The bits of chilli peppers added gave the sauce an extra spicy note as well. It was then topped up with a generous amount of pork lard before serving. For the price of $13, our stomach and tastebud were truly satisfied.

The white meat of Song fish was fresh and soft with a slight earthy taste but was masked with the taste of the thick, tangy, sweet and spicy sauce. 

We ordered some side dishes to go along with our steam fish head as well. The sambal Kang kong here has nothing to be raved in our opinion,  to be honest.

We decided to order the prawn paste chicken after seeing the others eating them. Mid wing was used here for their prawn paste chicken. It was crispy and piping hot when served. A decent plate of fried mid wings with a mild prawn paste taste in every single one.

All in all, it was an affordable dinner with a plate of fish head drenched in sweet and spicy sauce. The sauce went very well with rice and with just the fish head, it is enough for two and there isn’t a need to order other side dishes. If you are a fan of steamed fish head, Chinatown Complex is definitely the place to visit. Do share with us your experience after you visit them!

Tian Wai Tian 天外天 - Fish Head Steamboat + Zi Char

Operating Days: Daily

Operating Time: 5 PM to 11 PM

Address: 1383 Serangoon Road, S 328254

Tian Wai Tian has been around for decades and most Singaporeans will not find this name unfamiliar. Famous for Fishhead Steamboat, this place is constantly filled up by patrons during their operation hours despite its ulu location.

Situated at the corner beside rows of shop houses, you will definitely not miss this place as it is one of the very few eateries along that stretch.

No other stalls are open during dinner time, and all customers you see sitting down are solely the patrons of Tian Wai Tan.

Rows of tables were spreaded out along the five-foot way to cater to the number of patrons during dinner time.  Most of the tables were still occupied when we left the place.

We ordered a large pomfret steamboat ($45) and it was served to us 20 Minutes after. The large pot served was filled with Chinese cabbage, Chinese Spinach, and fried yam. The portion of the fish slices given was appropriate as well.

There were abundant of great taste from all the ingredients in this big pot! This teochew style fish head steamboat served in each pot was cooked and kept warm using the traditional charcoal method. The cloudy soup will definitely make you want more each time you taste it. 

We ordered a medium Furong Egg ($10) as well. It was crispy at the side and this egg dish is of course something that can’t go wrong. 

Next dish came was the Tofu Prawn. A highly raved “must try” dish, this dish is as unique as it sounds (in a good way). We never thought chili crab sauce could go so well with egg tofu and prawn!  The chili crab sauce goes very well with white rice as well.

The garlic Kai Lan here was really good! Every strend of Kai Lan on this plate were filled with garlic taste, and not forgetting the “wok hei” taste! If you are a fan of garlic, you will definitely like this.

Hei Zhor (Prawn Roll) is another dish you commonly see on almost every table at Tian Wai Tian. The skin was crispy with generous amount of ingredients wrapped inside. Many have also raved about the generous amount of chestnut bits in each piece of prawn roll, however, we have eaten better prawn roll at other places. It was pretty normal to us.

This is the medium size Hae Chor, with about 16 pieces, just enough for the 8 of us.

Tian Wai Tian offers one of the better teochew style fish head steamboat in Singapore. They have also several outlets around the island, which makes it easier for people to visit. For the Serangoon outlet, you may not receive too much attention from the waiter as it is pretty much a self service eating house. Soup here is refillable, but you will need to go to their kitchen to get it yourself. Ready for order? You have to queue up at the cashier area to order and the only payment they accept here is cash.

It is pretty much a decent and a no frill place suitable for small group dining. If you want to dine in with a big group (more than 4), we would suggest you go there earlier as the number of big tables they provide are limited.

Yi Jia Seafood 億家海鮮 - Restaurant at a quiet corner for good Seafood!

• Operating Days: Daily
• Operating Time: According to their locations
• Address: Multiple Locations
• Facebook Page

In Singapore, there is a zi char stall named Yi Jia Village Seafood Restaurant, and just across the custom in Johor Bahru, they have a similar restaurant called the Yi Jia Seafood restaurant 億家海鮮. Currently, they are 4 restaurants outlets in Johor Bahru. Each of them has their own unique decoration. We went to this new restaurant at Permas Jaya.

The restaurant is just a 20 mins drive from the custom, located in a quiet neighbourhood block. Plenty of parking lots available (which are shared among other restaurants along the stretch) and most importantly, did I forget to mention that parking is free?

The exterior of the restaurant looks new and good. When we were there at dinner time, there was quite a bit of crowd and we were a little worried that we have to wait for some time for our food to be served. We were lucky that the waitress saw us and quickly allocate a table to us in less than a minute. 

People who came after we had to wait for a bit before they were seated.

Their "aquarium" displaying different types of live seafood.

The menu was presented to us almost immediately after we were seated.

This company has won many prestigious awards as indicated on the menu.

The Yi Jia Crispy Chicken 扁扁鸡 seemed to be a famous choice around other tables and so we decided to order a small portion to try it.

A must order dish if you are eating at a seafood is, of course, the crabs! They have 3 types of cooking using crab - Golden Egg Yolk, Honey Sauce or Otak. We went for Golden Egg Yolk as recommended by the waitress.

They have different operating hours at each outlet, be sure to check the timing if you are heading down.

First came was their signature dish, the crisp flattened chicken, 扁扁鸡. It is quite a unique dish as we did not see any similar dishes before in other restaurants.

The taste of the chicken was not bad in our opinion, however, the portion is considered small even for just 2 people. It cost 9 RM for this 8 small pieces of chicken.

Next is pork ribs 排骨王 (15 RM), this is one dish that does not appeal to me as the skin of the pork ribs presented were too soft. The meat was also too hard to my liking. It would be better if the chef can pre-fry the pork ribs to brown at the side, before mixing them together with the usual sweet and sour sauce. The overall taste was normal.

Next was potato leaves with sambal sauce (10 RM). I like how their sambal sauce, not as oily as others with mild sambal taste did not overpower the original taste of the potato leaves, preserving the crunchiness on the stem. One of the recommended dishes here.

Next came was the Fuyong fried egg 芙蓉蛋 (8 RM). Difficult not to love, it is one of the most popular dishes commonly found in a typical Chinese restaurant in both Malaysia and Singapore. The egg here was mixed with ingredients such as char siew, shrimps and plenty of spring onions, and pan-fried to golden brown, on the whole, ending with a crispy side around. Definitely, one of the best dishes to go with rice.

The finale, golden egg yolk crab came after a short wait. Priced at 1kg for 120 RM, the price was reasonable and worth the money. Most importantly, the meat was sweet, tender and very fresh!

Unlike the usual dry salted egg crab dishes, we were quite surprised to see the generous portion of salted egg yolk sauce given! We even scooped the sauce onto our plain rice! We like the sauce so much that we decided to order mantou 馒头 (fried buns) just to soak up all the sauces of the dish and ate it. Really a must order when you are here!

The price isn't the cheapest you could get in JB, but at least it's a decent eating environment with quality food. And they accept credit card payment as well if you have not enough cash on hand.

If you are a lover of seafood, you should try out Yi Jia seafood as the seafood they serve there is of a higher quality as compared to the usual zi char stalls in JB. Though they are not the cheapest you can find, it is still worth visiting if you are around the Permas Jaya area. 

Sanuk Kitchen 大福小厨 - A hidden stall situated at outskirt of CBD area

• Operating Hours: 11 AM - 8 PM
• Operating Days: Daily (Closed on Alternate Mondays)
• Address: 5 Jalan Minyak, #01-328, S 161005
• Facebook Page
• Foodpanda Page
• Advanced Order / Reservation No. : 98331678

The word “Sanuk” is a Thai word which means to "have fun and enjoy" and that is what Chef Erik of Sanuk Kitchen hopes to achieve from all his customer. Sanuk Kitchen is just a few month old stall which is located in a coffee shop at a quiet corner of Jalan Minyak. Having interest in cooking and inventing new recipes, Chef Erik started his humble culinary journey from Kuala Lumpur to Vietnam, before coming back to Singapore to start his current food business.

They have special dishes displayed at their stall, which we heard are quite popular amongst their pool of regulars. 

To ensure the freshest ingredients used in every dish, you will need to call the owner for advance order prior going down. 

From the menu, you can see what they served at Sanuk kitchen are mainly Chinese and Thai cuisine. They are open to take in any special requests if the items you would like to have is not on their menu. We have seen some chef who doesn’t take in slight amendment to their dishes (as little as requesting for less salt & less oil), so it is good to know that they allows alteration to their dishes to suit customer’s taste.

The first dish came was spring onion beef hor fun. We were surprised by the generous amount of beef slices given to our plate of hor fun. The beef slices were fresh and not hard at all. 

Other than the mild charred taste, we also realized that the hor fun they used here is pale in colour. Unlike the usual hor fun where the chef will prior stir fry with dark sauce, the hor fun here does retain its original taste, which is something not common. It goes well with the thick and very flavourful sauce, however it was more on the salty side for me. Perhaps the plate of beef hor fun was cooked using KL style, where their dishes are more on a stronger and flavorful side. If you are someone who doesn’t take salty food, you can request for less salt option during your order. At Sanuk, each plate of hor fun is cooked from scratch upon order, and that makes it different from most of the zi char stalls whereby the hor fun will be pre-fried and placed aside.

Another unique dish at Sanuk Kitchen is their Seafood Mui Fun. Instead of the usual white rice covered with gluey gravy, they use fried rice instead. It is something different as compared to the usual Mui Fan we see at other zi char stalls.

All their seafood in this dish (fish, sotong, prawn) were all fresh. Sotong is cut using Criss cut strokes which made them very springy after cooked!

The fried rice has a little peppery taste, but it does not make the rice too overwhelmed with pepper taste. The hardness of the rice was also just right.

Next came was the seafood Hong Kong noodle. The noodle was more on the hard side and yet springy, which was just right for us (I prefer hard noodles). It does look a little dry but overall it was very flavorful, just the right amount of taste we expected from a bowl of Hong Kong noodle.

One of the signature dish here - Deep fried sea bass with special sugar and vinegar 糖醋 sauce.

Other than using the sugar and vinegar (糖醋) as a base, they also mixed other condiments in it which they didn’t reveal much. 

We were told that the usual price for this dish is $25 for smaller sized fish and $35 for bigger ones, but if you use the “Waitrr”app to order, you can get it at $18 and $25 respectively. The Deep fried sea bass goes well with the sauce, and it is best to go with white rice! This is a dish you can try if you are a fan of fried fish.

They emphasize quite a lot on homemade sauce, and the sauce used on this plate of salted egg was a creation by them as well. Other than pairing the salted egg sauce with prawns, many of their regulars love to order salted egg chicken chop as well.

Fan of Malaysian food will definitely be familiar with the term “Kam Heong”. Dishes cooked with the “Kam Heong” style is usually on a dry side with the strong fragrance usually lingers in your tastebud even if you have only taken a bite. Dark soy sauce, oyster sauce and good amount of garlic is commonly used to create the Kam Heong sauce. Personally, we felt that anything cooked using Kam Heong method will make me eat another bowl of rice without hesitation.

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Sanuk kitchen is a place you can visit if you are around Chinatown / Clarke Quay area and want to find a quiet corner to have your meal. Unlike a typical zi char stall with many chefs and their assistants, the ingredients are all prepared by the chef himself daily. It is a place not to miss if you like to have your lunch at a quiet area with minimum disturbance.