The rule of thumb, when selecting a good stall (for meals) at a hawker centre in Singapore, is to look at the length of the queue in front of it; however, don't be too quick to join the queue as i did in this case at Xi Xiang Feng Yong Tau Foo!
Signs informing patrons to choose their food before queuing up were plastered all over the stall yet i was blind enough not to notice them! Thankfully, i was notified by the kind gentleman right in front of me and hence, didn't waste time joining the queue for nothing.
Now, this is a popular stall in Ang Mo Kio Central 724 Hawker Centre and the wait can be agonizing; i waited for about 25 minutes before i got my food and this was bad news for a person who had a relatively light lunch that day.
As with all yong tau foo stalls, you would be given a selection of ingredients and please be ready to answer the following questions when you hand over the bowl; noodles or chee cheong fun, dry or soup, chilli or no chilli, okay to add in bean sprouts and vegetables?
Friends who know me well would be aware my heart usually goes for deep fried stuff and as you can see from the above, there's absolutely no sign of greens! Okay, i felt a tad guilty before i finalised my selection and threw in a piece of brinjal with fish paste!
Let's start with the cloudy soup first.
Boiled with a ton of yellow beans, it was rich with an intense savouriness that's likely to have come from the ikan bilis and mother hens; latter was said to have "been simmered for more than six hours"!
I opted for chee cheong fun instead of having the usual yong tau foo plain and totally didn't regret it; the chee cheong fun was soft without leaving remnants in between my teeth and complemented well with the rest of the "liao" (translated from ingredients in Hokkien).
Almost everything tasted good under the drizzle of sweet sauce that's further peppered with the fragrance of sesame seeds. Exceptions were the tau kwa with fish paste which tasted burnt and a fried ball that didn't impress.
With a table full of food for just three persons, it's a surprise we managed to nearly clean up the entire bowl of Yong Tau Foo with Chee Cheong Fun!
The amount of food we had; by the way, the white bee hoon in the picture is the AMK branch of the blessing seafood white bee hoon i tried before in Chong Pang hawker centre!
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Location
Block 724, Ang Mo Kio Ave 6,
#01-23, AMK 724 Market,
Singapore 560724
Map
As above
Pricing
Depends on ingredients, with a minimal costing of S$3. My bowl, with maybe between eight to ten ingredients (exclusive of chee cheong fun which was separately charged), cost S$6.10.
Other Stalls in the Same Hawker Centre
(click the stall name to read more)
Rude And Unscrupulous Hawkers From Xi Xiang Feng Yong Tau Foo stall In Ang Mo Kio
ReplyDeleteI ordered from this Xi Xiang Feng Yong Tau Foo stall in Ang Mo Kio two weeks ago, getting myself a 6-items bowl, consisting of seaweed chicken, tau pok, bean curd, cutter fish and kang kong and bee hoon, and I was charged $3.70.
Last week, I bought the same 6-items bowl and was charged $3.80. I politely questioned the male hawker about the price increase, to which he resorted, "There is no increase leh." And I kept quiet.
Today (31st March 2018), I purposely selected the same 6 items and to my nasty surprise, I was charged $4. I requested him to calculate again, informing him that I had been wrongly charged because in the past the prices were $3.70 and $3,80 respectively for the same items. Upon hearing that, the two male hawkers manning the stall turned nasty and hysterious, scolding me for making an enquiry and rudely told me not to patronise their stall again.
I ended up paying $4 for the bowl of Yong Tau Foo, wondering if there is an organisation which controls price discrepancies especially for food items that do not come with price tags.
Hi Tom,
DeleteSorry to hear about your experience but such hawker nazis are actually common and there were quite a few notable ones. Like you, i dislike bad customer service and unless the food is unbearably good, i would actually stop visiting a stall with rude staff. Sadly, i don't think there's a government organisation that controls price discrepancies.
Best Wishes,
Cavin