Chin Mee Chin Confectionery

Probably the last of its kind left in Singapore, Chin Mee Chin Confectionery or CMC as it is popularly called in Katong is a old style Hainanese coffee shop serving beverages and bread served the traditional way.

 

Inside the 2 old style glass cabinets are trays of freshly baked buns

Authentic custard tarts.

And custard buns. These are good. Soft and the custard literally oozes out.

And they sell kaya too. Sickeningly sweet kaya. Damn shiok but don't eat too much though. Its really really sweet.

Its most famous item has to be the butter kaya bun where instead of the usual 2 slice of white or brown bread, the kaya and butter is spread onto a sweet bun.

And we not talking of a small thin slice of butter either. It is a thick thick slice right on top of the kaya which is spread on both sides of the bun. Yummy.

Another hot favourite of theirs is the lucheon meat bun but it was not available on this occasion.

Go try it if you in the area. Before the old owner retires and the shop makes way for another new style coffee joint.

Food in Kota Kinabalu

Was in Kota Kinabalu a few weeks back and had a great time eating the local street food. We stayed in the Gaya area and there was absolutely the best food around. We went with the flow and ate mostly at the crowded shops although we did dine at some of the not so crowded and we immediately knew why they were not crowded!

Our first stop was dinner at this Bak Kut Teh place. The place was absolutely swamped with people from the minute it opened in the afternoon till it close at night.

This is the typical Malaysia style bak kut teh and comes with all sort of side dishes like pork ball, intestines, livers, stomach etc

Next up was breakfast at this place just across the road from the Bak Ku Teh store. There were 2 stalls inside the coffee shop, one selling Sarawak kolo mee and the other Sarawak style laksa. The kolo mee was the more popular stall. But I thought the laksa was not too bad too.

Kolo mee

Laksa

On the way back from race pack collection, we had lunch at this place that one of the guys recommended. The place was crowded and hot. There were many people ordering the noodles from one of the stall within but we went for the fried noodle stall and sadly the food were so so. Dinner was zhi char food at a shop next to our hotel but it was just passable and so all these shall not get a mention here. 

Breakfast on Sunday was at a dim sum shop. We had dim sum and noodle but these were normal and nothing to rave about. 

The only reason the dim sum shop get a mention and a picture here is that they used those 3-in-1 packet for the teh tarik that we ordered! Either they must be darned proud of their Sabah produced 3-in-1 tea or that is the way tea and coffee are made in the country but I don't really fancy those commercially produce tea.

For lunch we went to what must be the most famous Western food outlet in town, Little Italy! See we are kinda  weird, we do our carbo loading after the race and not before! Our party had pizza, pasta, salad the usual Italian stuff. Was the food really that good? I guess if there is a scarcity of such food in the country, it will be considered good and of course we wolfed down the food but frankly I think there are better pizza and pasta back home.

Pullman Bakery

Cream Curry Bread (photo from Pullman Bakery's FB)

Another 'Japanese' bakery has hit our shore. Sick of Barcook, Provence or Oishii? Try the original Japanese bakery all the way from Hokkaido, Japan.

The famous Pullman bakery has opened an outlet at Millenia Walk though I wonder why there of all places. But then again because it is there, there wasn't such a long queue as compared to say Barcook with its perpetual queue.

Mini Croissant (photo from Pullman Bakery's FB)

So what is nice? Like all Japanese bakery, it has the cream cheese bun but it specialty is the Curry Bread. So I bought that and the red bean bun which looks good too. How did they taste? Not too bad. But what I like best was the mini croissant. At $0.40 a pop, it wasn't really cheap but damn, it went in damn well.

Mooshi Bakes

Went by this bakery at East Coast, thought the place looks interesting and went back after lunch for a look see look see. Turned out it belongs to the people from Awfully Chocolate and was actually a 3 in one outlet comprising the Awfully Chocolate which had relocated from Katong Mall; JooJoo (what an unimaginative name!) which sells yakitori and finally the bakery which attracted my attention, Mooshi Bakes.

Was awed into silence when I saw their cream puff was priced at $3.90! Now what type of cream puff is worth that price? Of course, curiosity sufficiently piqued, went back after work and bought 1 cream puff plus an assortment of other breads to try.

The cream puff was fairly big and filled with lots and lots of errr very creamy cream. Ha ha I know it sounds kind of crappy but that was really the only way to describe it. In fact, I asked for it to be taken away and eaten there and then but the staff insisted on putting it inside a beautiful white box claiming the cream will squirt all over. In the end not daring to having cream on my shirt, I took it home to share it with the family. Their unanimous verdict? Yummy! So how come half of it is still in the fridge? While it is nice, I think it is a tad too big and creamy and would have been nicer if it was half its size.

The other pastry that impressed my colleagues the previous day was the Mooshi Mooshi - a bun like version of the raisin cream cheese bun made famous by Barcook Bakery. Yes this one was good. Not too creamy and with just a wee bit of raisin.

The other one that I liked was the Gooey, a cheesed topped cinnamon bun. It looks a bit yucky but I am a big sucker for cinnamon so yummy. Trouble is, it cost $1.90 each which sounds like a hell lot to pay for a bun.

This picture from http://life-bite.blogspot.com/

With so many so called 'Japanese' specialty bakery sprouting all over, I seriously wonder how long this outlet with its much higher price buns will survive. But I really hope I will be proven wrong though.

Real Bread!

The Princess finally had her first success! After numerous attempts to make a proper looking and more importantly, decent tasting bread, she finally succeeded. Don’t it look good? 

Topped with cornflakes on top, we polished it off for breakfast this morning.

Tiong Bahru Market

Yah we on Singapore Tourist Board's Uniquely Singapore website.

http://www.visitsingapore.com/publish/stbportal/en/home/about_singapore/fun_stuff/multimedia1.html

Just look for Tiong Bahru Market Breakfast and click on it.

Cheap thrill!

Old Town

The first time I went to an Old Town's outlet was in Penang last year and I enjoyed the sticky rice with kaya and coffee so was happy when it finally opened an outlet here. After 2 failed attempts (first time not yet opened, 2nd time too crowded) so today after run, walked in and lucky enough to spot an empty table.

But it was a bitter sweet experience. The place was too crowded and close to mayhem! They had what I thought was a simple ordering system – queue up to order – somebody will key in the order, wait for the food to be delivered and finally pay at the cashier. Seem pretty straight forward but unfortunately somebody forget to computerise the kitchen and serving staff and the food delivery was totally screwed up!

M's coffee came after 10 minutes, my coffee came another 10 minutes later and our toasts came a further 10 minutes later! At least we were lucky our food came – some people didn't get their order or it was mixed up! The tables were not cleared! and there were black faces everywhere. During our time there, we counted countless complains, spotted a few people who left in a huff and at least 1 walked out without waiting for the food to come. Also, the cashier was often missing from the cashier counter cos she was busy helping with the serving so not surprise if many pissed off customers walked off within paying. It could have been much easier if they had just go with a simple order system like Ya Kun or Killiney.

And the food? At 10.30 am, they were sold out of soft boiled eggs on toast, polo bun, sticky rice (which was what I came for)! The coffee despite being 'kosong' was still too sweet and the french toast too oily! The 4 to 5 young kids in the kitchen seem totally unable to cope with the crowd. Me think they were too ambitious and had too many items on their menu. From the usual beverages, toasts to noodles, they had everything! It might have been better if they had breakfast items, lunch items etc but than again what do I know? I am just a customer!

A Little Bit of Nostalgia

Went with the ladies after the race to Red Star Restaurant at Chin Swee Road for dimsum. Can't really remember whether I had been there before, maybe neons ago when policeman wore shorts?

The place looks typically like a what else - chinese restaurant of course. But one of the few places left here that still serve dim sum from a trolley cart. Quite quaint. The dim sum was not too bad - the long queue at the door can't be that wrong and it was pretty reasonably priced - we had 17 dishes including 1 pipa duck and it costed only about $78.00 which works out to only $15 per pax.

After that, went over to Keong Siak Road in Chinatown. Keong Saik Road as most people know was and still is one of Singapore's most famous red light areas.According to Ah Roo, it is also now one of the happening hangout place for gays. But broad daylight nothing to see except some extra-large door signs. Maybe should come back one of the evening to catch the excitement?

We had coffee and kaya toast at a dingy coffee shop which had a newspaper article proudly proclaiming 'One of the top 10 places for kopi'. I beg to differ though. Give me my CMC coffee and kaya bun anytime!