Thunder Tea Rice (Lei Cha Fan)

This has got to be one of the more interesting dish. Thunder Tea Rice is a traditional Hakka dish. Today, this dish is being marketed as a healthy and tasty food and seems to be targeted at the health conscious consumers.

Personally, I have not heard of Thunder Tea Rice. But I have heard of Thunder Tea (Lei Cha) before and drank it when I was in Taiwan.

Presenting Thunder Tea Rice…

The stall

Menu

Look at the pictures above and you will know why I mention that it is marketed towards the health conscious. Notice the words ‘no pork no lard’, ‘healthy and tasty food’ and ‘100% healthy’. Benefits of Thunder Tea Rice includes removing body toxic and fluid wastes, lower cholesterol, strengthen immune system, combat flu and headache, expel body winds and gas, maintain youth and enhance beauty. Wow! What a lot of benefits! Well, of course I will take all these benefits with a pinch of salt as how true are these really depends on the type of food, amount of salt and oil used, method of cooking and the list goes on..

Thunder Tea Rice Set

Thunder Tea Rice Set (white rice) $5.00

I ordered the Thunder Tea Rice Set (white rice). You can be ‘healthier’ and order the brown rice version for $0.50 more. The Thunder Tea Rice Set comes along with 1 tofu and egg omelette.

Looks so healthy. Quite alot of ingredients given. The rice is hidden beneath all these ingredients! Mix the ingredients up with the rice and start eating. With each mouthful, you get a burst of flavours and at the same time crunchy due to the peanuts. Quite a delicious and yummilicious dish which is surely very healthy too.

Thunder Tea

The Thunder Tea ‘soup’. You are supposed to pour this over the mixed rice. But before you do this, do try it and see if you like it. I have no idea how to describe this. It has a strong hint of mint and basil leaves. And as the name suggest it should have tea leaves as its ingredients. A very potent dish that might not suit everyone’s taste bud. Well, no matter how I try, I could not appreciate this.

Tofu and Egg Omelette

The Tofu and Egg Omelette was below average. A dish which you can forgo especially if your purpose of eating here is to be health conscious.

Thunder Tea Rice is going to be a dish which either you really like it or you do not like it. I guess I belong to the latter group. But the rice with assorted ingredients in it is real delicious, do try it!

Thunder Tea Rice (Lei Cha Fan)
QS 269 foodhouse
Blk 269 Queen St
#01-236
Tel: 63388684
Opening hours: 8am to 8pm
Website: http://thundertearice.com.sg/ (for their other branches)

Japan Boat Takoyaki (Iluma)

What do you do when you are waiting for your KOI bubble tea at iluma? Well pop ‘next door’ order takoyaki!

Japan Boat Takoyaki has over 60 years of history in Osaka, Japan. Over the years, they have expanded to China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Taiwan, Singapore, Canada and even United States of America.

Japan Boat Takoyaki

Look at the crowd

Look at the crowd! Several people had the same idea, they ordered their KOI and then came over to order takoyaki.

Opening promotion

There was an opening promotion, 1 box for $1.60. Sounds like a real bargain considering original price is $2.40. By now, I think the promotion should have ended.

They sell only 2 versions, spicy or non-spicy. We decided to order 1box of non-spicy version to try. I was surprised to find out that there were 20 queue numbers in front of us! While waiting, you can entertain your self watching the  cooks at work.

Look at the picture above, same style. Left hand behind, right hand in front, heads titled down concentrating. Looks professional and disciplined. But I must say, I was shocked to see the amount of oil they use to fill the pans.

After a long long wait of close to 35minutes (longer than KOI), we got our food. Can see that a lot of people were quite irritated by the long wait.

Kudos for the cool and unique design, now I know why its called Japan Boat Takoyaki.

1 box of non-spicy Takoyaki $1.60

The outer layer of the takoyaki is very crispy while the inside is soft, filled with octopus and I have no idea what. I have never eaten any takoyaki that is this crispy. With the shaved dried bonito and their special soy sauce, it was quite delicious.

Japan Boat Takoyaki
201 Victoria Street
#01-26 Iluma
Tel: 98291148
Opening Hours: Daily 11.30am – 11.15pm
Website: http://www.japanboat.com.sg/en/

Piao Ji Fish Porridge

Since I was nearby, decided to pop by Amoy Street Food Centre for lunch on a weekday. At the second floor there  are 2 stalls selling fish soup that are quite popular. One of whom is Piao Ji, the other is Han Kee. At both stalls, there were long queue. I counted for Han Kee, there was about 25 people queuing! At Piao Ji, there was about 15 people. My brain told me to queue at Piao Ji while my heart told me to queue at Han Kee. After much thought I decided to queue at Piao Ji.

Long queue

Part of the queue.

Fish Roe!

Look at the fish roe in the above picture! Its humongous! It has been a long long time since I saw such a big, long fish roe. In fact, also been a long time since I ate fish roe. Its delicious! I was so tempted to order it, but eventually decided not to just in case it was expensive. (anyone ate the fish roe from Piao Ji before and know how much it cost?)

I ordered the normal fish soup with rice, the total cost was $5.50. If you were to order the pomfret and prawn it would be $10. As I was waiting, I can’t help but notice this uncle who seems a regular customer, ordering 5 bowls of fish head soup. I took notice of where this uncle was sat at. After I finished eating my fish soup, I detoured over to their table to take a look, their fish head soup looks delicious!

At last, I got my food. Noticed that each order was cooked individually despite the crowd. It was about 30minutes of wait since I queue.

Fish Soup $5.00 with Rice $0.50

Look at the amount of fish you get

Looks delicious. The amount of fish given was very generous, in fact it was alot! Moreover, Each piece of fish was thick, not sliced thinly. Each piece was soft,tender and tasty. You can literally taste the sweetness retained in the meat and it was certainty very fresh, with no fishy smell/taste. Just looking at the amount of fish given, its certainty value for money.

The soup was clear. However, it was salty. If there was any sweetness because of the fish, then well, it was overwhelmed by the saltiness. I can’t help but wonder if MSG was added? or was too much salt added?

The soup was disappointing, if not for the soup, this would have been a perfect meal for me.

Piao Ji Fish Porridge
7 Maxwell Road #02-100
Amoy Street Food Centre
Opening Hours: 10.30am to 3pm
Closed on Thurs