Friday, July 4, 2008

teochew porridge @ joo seng



had teochew porridge for dinner at joo seng, 7th mile upper bukit timah road. ida still remembers the time when we had porridge under the banyan tree. that was a long time ago at owen road. owen road used to be the hub of teochew porridge. the stalls were at first located along the back lanes. then they moved to the front, with tables still spilling to the back. it was the place to go for teochew porridge in the 70s and 80s.

each time we eat teochew porridge, there has to be certain standard items that we will order. these are: chye buay (pickled vegetable), hae bee hiam, steamed fish and salted egg. the fish and other meat dishes are usually the 'expensive' items at a teochew porridge stall. last night, if we had not included the fish with pickled vegetable, the bill would have been around $4 per person; with the fish, it doubled.

teochew porridge is different from cantonese or hong kong 'choke'. to enjoy teochew porridge, you must have the porridge piping hot. so, i do not quite understand why some people eat rice with all those dishes. the salty accompaniments are meant to be taken with the grainy teochew porridge.

there were a few places we would go to have teochew porridge in the past. in fact, we were ardent followers of the stall from owen road. we tracked it down to dunlop street and when it moved again, to sam leong road. it was a pity when they finally decided to call it a day. today, the shop sells bat kut teh.

another of our favourite teochew porridge stall was at lakeview, quite close to the macritchie reservoir. this stall has also disappeared when the area was slated for re-development. up to now, nothing has developed on it. yet another place where we would head for cheap and good teochew porridge was at jalan legundi in sembawang.

4 comments:

Lam Chun See said...

Do you know about the old Dutch houses at Dorset Rd. I wanted to blog about it but couldn't find any info on internet about them.

I once at Teochew porridge buffet lunch at a hotel at Kitchener Road near the Mustaffa Centre. Not bad.

yg said...

i have not heard about the old dutch houses at dorset road. i know that before the hdb flats were built, there were 3-storey flats in that area. dorset primary school was a low building, very much like the former winstedt primary school.

i was registered for primary one at dorset but because there were more applicants than vacancies, i was transferred to owen primary. in those days, there was no balloting.

Anonymous said...

do you know what a true-blue teochew's muay consists of? plain porridge with 'nam' which is black kana, 'buar-kee' which is small hairy crab seasoned in black sauce, and 'kau-nee-koi' which is small squids marinated in vinegar and kept in a glass bottle.

yg said...

hello chuan wee, yours is the home-cooked teochew muay; i am talking about the commercially produced type. when we lived in the kampong, my teochew neighbour, the perng kuay ah mmh, used to eat the stuff you mentioned.