Mini Family Outing - Eve of Vesak Day

It has been quite sometime since I last went back to Indonesia. Really miss home-cooked food by mum (Ma) & grandma (A-ma). Today grandpa (A-gong) came to S'pore to visit us, accompanied by auntie (Gu-gu), after having medical checkup. We went to have A-gong's all-time favourite, the Heng Hwa Cuisine (兴化料理), which is part of the food culture of his hometown, Putian (莆田). Heng Hwa is a sub-dialect of Hokkien & it sounds a bit weird to me. Erm, need a rather twistable tongue to speak it well. In the family, only A-gong can speak 兴化話 (phonetically translated to New Language^2... No wonder it's difficult to speak it properly). But luckily A-gong can also speak Teochew, Hokkien & Mandarin, so communications... no problem!

Ok, some introduction on Putian. It is a prefecture-level city in eastern Fujian province, southern China. It borders Fuzhou City to the north, Quanzhou City to the south, and the Taiwan Strait to the east. Located closely offshore of Putian, the Meizhou Island (湄洲島) is most famous for being the legendary birthplace of goddess Matsu (媽祖), the Taoist Goddess of the Sea, who protects fishermen & sailors. Haha, now comes the most exciting part, the food!

The dinner was in Ming Chung Restaurant (民众菜馆), located at 67 Maude Road (near Jalan Besar Road & Townshend Road). The noodles here was once featured in Channel 8's Food Glorious Food (大小通吃) programme.

Hmm, we ordered 5 dishes. Now briefly introducing them one by one, haha...

Heng Hwa Lor Mee

The 1st dish is Heng Hwa Lor Mee, viz. already a meal by itself. Basically, it is Heng Hwa noodle (hmm, dun really know if it's hand-made or machine-made) cooked in white gravy, filled with clams, slices of pork, veggies & squid. It was thick & chewy. It tastes good with a little black vinegar.

La La

The 2nd dish is called La La, basically a type of clam cooked in spicy sauce, which is also clam-based (by the way, it not very spicy lar). Hmm, dunno why it's called La La. Maybe it's the Heng Hwa word for this type of clam or maybe the 1st person who found this thingy was happily singing La La La & accidentally stepped on the clam?? Haha, ok coming back to the topic... I think La La would be a delicious companion to plain porridge. (Caution: La La is highly addictive & has a very short residence time on the plate! Once u start sampling it, the number of samples needed will increase steadily until nothing left on the plate). A lot of people ordered La La, so it's quite a popular dish there...

Fried Prawn Balls

The 3rd dish is Fried Prawn Balls (Oops, they dun look spherical at all). There were 3 dipping sauces to choose from. It's fresh & cooked just right, although I felt it gave a bit of powdery 口感. But, it tastes good! (Note: Similarly, this too are addictive!)

Chye Sim & Tao Ki

The 4th dish is Chye Sim & Tao Ki. As the name suggests, basically it consists of fresh & leafy chye sim cooked with tao ki, which is quite soggy. Hmm, although cooked in plain & bland style, it was a nice & healthy companion to the fried delicacies.

The 5th dish is Fried Bee Hoon (Oops, I dun have the photo here). Normal Fried Bee Hoon, with veggies, mushroom, pork slices, prawn, etc... The bee hoon was quite fine, I mean in term of thickness. Hmm, I think the 口感 is better than normal-size bee hoon.

Haha, there are many other delicacies there, e.g. Hot & Spicy Tofu Soup, Dark Fried Batang Fish, Prawn Paste Chicken, Eng Chai Jiu Hu (spicy squid with veggie), Pork Ribs with Bittergourd in hot gravy, Fried Mee Sua with Assorted Thingys (including seaweed & peanuts) & many more... Overall, I found the food there quite nice (but people's tastes differ). I recommend u to try it out once, if u have time. The price is quite reasonable, only that the place has no aircon & sometimes may need to wait for a while before u can get a seat, coz normally there is quite a crowd during dinner time. Lunch time should be ok. You must be wondering why I have time to take pictures during the meal... Hmm, actually I was quite 幸运 to accidentally discover the pics from a local blog on cuisines around the world.

Okie, after the heavy meal, the trio (me, bro & A-gong) went back to hotel for a rest, watching TV & chit chat, while Gu-gu & sis went to Bugis Street for shopping. Looking forward to going back home in about 3 weeks time. Yeah, of course with more eat-from-small-until-grown-up delicacies to come, haha! One of my dreams is to travel around the world, to try out all kinds of delicacies & cuisines, with breathtaking, picturesque natural sceneries in the background. Hmm, this sounds really far far away from now...