Tapao (Takeaway) Dinner @ Holland Village XO Fish Head Bee Hun Restaurant on 11Feb2015

fish belly soup 鱼肌汤

fish belly soup 鱼肌汤

went to watch “Still Alice” at orchard cineleisure with friends on 11.2.2015. 🙂

it’s a movie about early onset of alzeimer. it’s quite slow. but it was a meaningful movie. good actress julianne moore. & kristen stewart was pretty good too.

some of my friends felt the movie was not intense enough, too watered down. they made the same comment about “The Theory of Everything” on stephen hawkings.

for me though, both were ok. the director & scriptwriter had to pick the scenes that best communicated with the audience. perhaps some real live stresses, more intense discord among the characters, tempers flaring might carry the message better. maybe that will offer more tension among the characters & more acting challenges. but i also understand that some methods of portrayal use subtle conversations to convey deep emotions, distress, tension and being conflicted. (i must say that i did not feel any strong connection to alec baldwin feeling conflicted with wanting to go to washington instead of spending the final months with his alzeimer wife though he did stay with her, so in my view that was mediocre acting).

for me the few scenes like telling the husband “why are you not listening to me” when her facial expression seamlessly morphed from anxious sharing to indignation & frustration with the husband not listening to anguish, sorrow & despair needing comfort marked her out as a very good actress. so was the speech at the alzeimer interest group.

& the several scenes of tension with lydia (kristen stewart) showed very good (if subtle – i quite like this subtle approach rather than flaring of emotions though it really depends on the acting, scripting & portrayals) tension between a mother losing her mind & a daughter wanting to be independent & not emotionally blackmailed but loving & caring for the mother. she got across the emotions of tension & conflicted. 🙂

ok, so much for the movie.

the food at cineleisure B1 sucks. so we decided to tapao dinner before movie. a friend picked up the food from Holland Village XO Fish Head Bee Hun Restaurant 荷兰村XO鱼头米粉酒楼.

san loh hor fun生捞河粉

san loh hor fun三捞河粉

the san loh hor fun三捞河粉 was good, but i thought i had tapao better wok hae ones from there. still it was tasty, good fish slices & i love the chilli padi & pickled green chilli.

some tofu dish with prawns & shimeji

some tofu dish with prawns & shimeji

the tofu dish with prawns & shimeji was competent, a good dish.

chicken breast with liver & gizzard

chicken breast with liver & gizzard

the 白斩鸡 chicken rice chicken? pretty good. my friend got the healthy chicken breast. actually chicken breast is the real test of good cooking, so this was pretty good – tender, moist, sweet. didn’t think it was better than my own poached chicken 白斩鸡 nor my son’s lemon roast chicken though.

& confession – i still like drumstick better..haha!^^

fish belly soup 鱼肌汤

fish belly soup 鱼肌汤

i liked the fish belly soup 鱼肌汤 especially. it was xo preparation with good amount of xo (i guess). enjoyed the soup very much.

it was very substantial dinner at S$40 for 4pax (though we had someone who hardly ate), very decent considering food court prices these days. 🙂

c.h.e.f andy

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Affordable Family Dinner @ Hong Kong Street (Sin Rong) Blk 325 Clementi Ave 5 on 5Sep2014

minced pork, salted fish on deep-fried bean curd

minced pork, salted fish on deep-fried bean curd

my brother wanted a family dinner for mid-autumn festival 中秋节. this time arrangements were a bit last minute and many were busy so we could not do on the actual 八月十五, and had to do it earlier on 5.9.2014.

even then there were only 7 of us. still it was good to get together whenever we could. my eldest daughter who could not attend called my s-i-l afterwards to chat briefly. 🙂

my brother was busy that day, so we decided to just go downstairs to makan.

we walked over to hong kong street (sin rong) at blk 325 clementi ave 5 located in kopitiam coffeeshop alongside botak jones.

we ordere 8 dishes. for me the best dish for the evening was the minced pork, salted fish on deep-fried bean curd. this a common dish among zi char stall & 1 of the best minced pork bean curd i had was at kok sen, followed by the one at muliangzai liang kee. couldn’t really say this was better but it was different as it had the salted fish making it quite distinctive. 🙂

assam fish head

assam fish head

the assam fish head curry was good, but for S$20, the tiny, almost disappearing or disappeared fish head (ikan tengirri??) was really pathetic. compare this with the fish head (angkoli) at forture restaurant which is more than twice the size! this more the size of the S$6 fish head at guan kim coffeeshop at tanglin halt. I would never order this dish again however good the curry. 😦

pork ribs with bitter gourd

pork ribs with bitter gourd

the bitter gourd pork ribs was good, competent, no difference with kok sen or the hong kong street chun kee at commonwealth crescent.

claypot sea cucumber

claypot sea cucumber

the claypot sea cucumber was ok, average, to me a neither here nor there dish – some gluey sauce, cheap sea cucumber, threw in some veg.

har jeong kai (prawn paste chicken)

har jeong kai (prawn paste chicken)

har jeong kai (prawn paste chicken) never my favourite. these ones ok competent. i like my homecooked chicken wings better though they did not have the prawn paste flavour.

san loh hor fun (生捞河粉)

san loh hor fun (生捞河粉)

san loh hor fun (生捞河粉) was nice, flavourful, but of course many stalls now do it at this standard or better. 🙂

sambal kan kong (马来风光)

sambal kan kong (马来风光)

garlic kailan

garlic kailan

i liked both the vegetables – the sambal kan kong (马来风光) & the garlic kailan.

the dinner came to S$94 all-in included some drinks. quite ok & a very pleasant evening together with family.

c.h.e.f quak