chinese cabbage with taupok

a good friend had a S$10 boon tong kee voucher to use & invited us for a 3pax lunch at the balestier branch. this a restaurant with 31 years history. 🙂 the stall at chinatown was started by a thian boon hua in 1979. and the very first btk restaurant opened at balestier road in 1983. 🙂

my friend wanted to book btk at 1pm (as we were all watching world cup soccer opener brazil vs croatia) but it was fully booked. we decided to go early instead at 11.45am, also there were limited kampong chicken so better to be early. 🙂

there is a huge carpark just behind balestier food centre which is adjacent to btk.

we got ourselves a table. the place was aircon-ed. it was full & a queue soon formed outside. about 3 tables were reserved for tourist busload!

chicken liver & gizzard

white-cut kampong chicken

HK steamed cod with wood fungus

chinese cabbage with taupok

S$30 HK steamed cod with wood fungus

my friend ordered 4 dishes.

#1 kampong chicken was very good, though my friend the connoisseur felt it was not as good as usual.  for me it was very good, smooth, sweet & not so fatty. 🙂 & the rice was very good, flavourful & not too oily. the thinly chopped ginger oil dip was excellent! 🙂

#2 the chicken liver & gizzard were ok. i am partial though to chicken  intestine which was not offered at this btk branch.

#3 the bean curd with nai bai (奶白) chinese cabbage was very good too, especially the beam curd!

#4 the hk steamed cod fish with wood fungus (木耳) was excellent, the best. 🙂

the meal came to S$84 for 3pax including 3 barley drink (S$2.20 each) before using the S$10 voucher. it was not cheap but it was really a very good meal for me.

btk is more like a zi char than just a chicken rice stall. i don’t take so much chicken rice these days but this was really good relative to many good neighbourhood chicken rice stalls like the ones i had at tanglin halt & 6th avenue. i will certainly come back both for the chicken rice & also the zi char dishes.

c.h.e.f andy