Chun Kee Seafood White Bee Hoon at Cheong Chin Nam Road

Happened to pass-by Chun Kee at Cheong Chin Nam Road, which is directly opposite the famed Beauty World shopping center.

It was already after lunch hour, there were not many customers there.  It happened that the owner, the gentleman in a shirt in the photo above, was there to entertain his family and/or friends.  Someone once said that the best assurance a restaurant owner can give to the patrons is to eat the food from his own restaurant, thus I felt very assured that day. 

The place is divided into two sections.  The inner section has air conditioning, while the outer section doesn't .   Choose what you prefer.

Seafood White Bee Hoon, $5.80

I ordered the seafood white bee hoon, their signature dish, for $5.80.  No GST, no service charge.  The ingredients are quite simple.  Two pieces of prawns, a few pieces of squid, egg, vegetables and of course, the mee hoon (vermicelli).  The bee hoon came piping hot, as it was cooked upon order.  A word of caution: It is really hot, especially the broth.  I almost burnt my tongue.  So you have been warned, be patient!

The broth is strong-flavored.  It was said that the broth was cooked with chicken stock and lala clams, no wonder it was sweet, and had this pleasant smell of the sea.  The egg was first fried till a bit burnish, then cooked together with the rest of the ingredients.  The fried egg and the broth mixed together and created the strong flavor in the dish.  A nitpick is it is a bit on the more salty side.  If they can use slightly less salt, it would have been perfect.

The vermicelli retained its shape well, not a big patch of unidentified objects.  The best part is the vermicelli managed to absorbed the broth nicely without being over-cooked.

Overall, I think the food was good.  It is a more memorable version of the seafood white bee hoon found in Singapore.

Fatty Fried Hokkien Prawn Noodle and Carrot Cake

There are a number of interesting stalls at the Ci Yuan Community Club, Fatty Fried Carrot Cake is one of them.  Well, first thing first, the carrot cake is very much a misnomer.  The ingredient used is actually radish, not carrot.  And the guy who fries the carrot cake is not actually fat. 

Fried Carrot Cake, $3.50

The very traditional, or say common carrot cake usually is fried with tons of oil, and seasoned with generous portions of salt.  At this stall, somehow they manage to control the quantities of these two elements well.  You won't feel salty at all, but still retains the fragrance of the radish and egg, as well as the flavor of the dish. 

The traditional way of preparing for this dish is very time-consuming.  First, you start with shredding the radish into slices.  Then you mix it with flour at the right proportion to make it into a kind of paste.  After that, put that paste into a steamer to steam for x amount of time until it solidifies and becomes a piece of big cake.  Next you cut the cake into small pieces of 1-cm cubes.  I think most of the hawkers don't do this anymore.  They just buy from the whole-salers the ready-made carrot cake cubes. 

When a customer orders the dish, they will fry the carrot cake together with eggs till the outer crust becomes crispy, while the inside still maintains some softness.  On this, I think this stall at Ci Yuan did a pretty good job.  You can experience the bounciness of the carrot cake at every bite. 

It is a good place to satisfy your carrot craving if you are nearby. 

Seafood White Meehoon at Ci Yuan Community Club

Chanced upon this stall at Ci Yuan Community Club's hawker center.  There are quite a number of options for the customers to choose.  I chose the lala and prawn white meehoon, but requested not to have lala.  Anything with a shell is not quite my cup of tea. 

White Meehoon with Prawn, $5.00

What is 'meehoon'? You may ask.  Meehoon is something like vermicelli, thin, long noodle-like food.  Very popular in southern China and South-East Asia.  My plate of white meehoon came with the meehoon immersed in the broth, topped with a few sea prawns and pieces of deep fried lard.   

I kind of liked the deep fried lard.  It was crispy, and it had a special texture and smell, very appetizing.  However, it may not be very healthy. 

The crown jewel of this dish was actually the broth.  Somehow it was very tasty.  Sweet, fragrant, and had a lot of depth. 

What is not so good is the portion.  The portion was quite small.  A few chopstick-ful later, the meehoon was all gone, but I was still like half hungry.