Yes, back to LauPaSat again with my colleagues. Connie is still home sick...
Before I forget, the Pig Organ Soup stall at the 24-hour Kopitiam food court on Bencoolen Street (corner of Bras Basah) was a big hit last night for dinner. Connie chose for us a portion of Pig's Trotters (comes in a vinegar sauce that is spiced with star anis and possibly the complete 5-spice powder) with some Pig Organ Broth on the side. The broth had this funky sourness extremely reminiscent of pork intestines - delicious with some white rice. Come to think of it, the same intestiny funk also permeates a 1-2 meter radius around the stall. I don't know how the folks at the Viet Kitchen booth next door can handle it all day long. The trotters were fatty and succulent, and Connie used the vinegar sauce to douse whatever rice was left, which soaked up all the leftover goodness. Lizzy enjoyed both the fatty and more meaty parts. Need to explore more offal at this counter next time. Well, on to today's lunch...
The line at Jia Xin Kitchen (Stall #76) was short today with just one person in front of me, but I remembered it as a potential stop wondering around looking for queues yesterday. I may have not noticed that the only customers were light-skinned foreigners attracted by the word "burger" on the simple menu. The Chinese Burger on offer seemed like a steamed pork belly bun (man tao) in the pictorial menu, but not seeing any obvious pork belly in the pictures I opted to pass. The impatient lady taking orders in this stall was constantly urging me to make a choice ("yes sir? excuse me sir? ready sir?") as I was perusing the menu. When I was good and ready I signaled my decision by raising four fingers on my right hand to avoid shouting it over the head of the lone customer in front of me who was busy sorting out his utensils and condiments. Set #4 (what we in the States know as a meal or a combo is generally referred to as a set here) is an order of Wood Tub Rice with Minced Meat/Tofu (SGD$3), basically MaPau Tofu over rice.
The "wood tub" in this case was a metal bowl encased in a faux-wood bucket giving the romantic appearance of a rural, home-made dish and also an illusion of enormous portions - the metal bowl is actually only half the size of the tub. The minced/meat tofu was in a thick XO-style sauce with a poor quality of black beans adding insult to an already over-salted affair. Good thing there was a big rice-to-sauce ratio. The tub also came with a bowl of clear corn broth with a thin slice of corn on the cob approximately 2-kernels wide, which tasted like a saltier version of the water you throw away after boiling some corn on the cob in a pot. This time I knew to prepare my utensils and condiments (pickled radish and tiny salted peanuts, as well as some spicy chili oil with even smaller peanuts), which unfortunately were the highlight of the meal. I might come back for the "burger" but not for the "tub".
BTW, my colleague got a veg dish from the Indian stall, so I was wrong about the constancy of the biriyani...
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