Ah Ko Curry Rice

The Hainanese, despite being the latest to come settle in Singapore among the Chinese dialect groups and also the smallest community are big in food. I shall dedicate an article to the Hainanese one day and in it you will also find the reason why I need to to that.

In the meantime, to share what a friend told  me: "Women cook for the living. Men cook for a living". Do you agree? Well, it makes too much sense. 

 On an early casual Sunday afternoon, we were at Kovan and I realised that the noodle stall next to the two with long queues has quit and a new one is in place. There was quite a queue and I wanted to find out why. Oh, a Hainanese curry rice stall aptly named "Ah Ko".

This is not your typical Hainanese curry rice with the gooey curry. This one is like home-cooked style. A good sambal sotong (squid) is not something you can get everywhere so I have to give it a shot. Wow! It is good!

This standard vegetable is cabbage and you can see that this one tasted as good as it looked.　

I must certainly say that the "bak par" or pork chop is fabulous. Very fragrant and crispy.

I like that the curry is not those typically gooey type and there are potatoes in it. Now potatoes are very important in a good curry.

I hope they do well and I shall be back again some days. We need good food and we need variety and Ah Ko (s) are brudders.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Uncle Choo

Image
Preface It has really been awhile since I have last written and published an article on my blog with the last being in October last year. Before that I have been writing and publishing non-stop for 15 years since 2008.  I was not suffering from writer's block. They say running water never grows stale. So I have to move on to other things since the pandemic has ravaged and torn all asunder. No matter how passionate you are about anything, you will find that after an absence for sometime, the engine gets cold and you find it harder to start.  Just too darned busy and being too busy with one thing means one becomes lazy with the others. The law of compensation. A hiatus if you must.  Covid made it worse as there was no more travelling since borders were closed and eating locally and overseas were curtailed. So I could not write about these things. In fact, I laid out my travel luggage, sat down and spoke to them - "We are not gonna travel for a few years". They have since be
Read more

The Kallang Roar! (Part Three)

Image
Back in the good old days, we have four other national teams. Besides the National Team (The Lions), we also have a B team (The Cubs). Then we also competed in the Sultan's Gold Cup fielding a team called Singapore Malays. We have the Singapore Indians playing in the Bardhan Cup and the other being the Singapore Chinese team also competing aga inst Malaysian state teams in the same format and also the Ho Ho Cup triangular among Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong. In 1976, Englishman Trevor Hartley became responsible for the Singapore team at age 28. I can't remember which year Singapore beat Malacca 6-2 and Lee Bee Seng was sent off for punching an opponent who must have trampled on him. Here is Bee Seng with Brian Rozario. In the same match Quah Kim Song was sent off too for fighting. And I said wow! Malaysia Cup is like that? I like! (Pix - Lee Bee Seng with Brian Rozario). And can you believe this? Before all these we have Mike Walker who played Kim Song a
Read more

The Hainanese

The Hainanese are people from Hainan who originated from Hainan Island - the smallest province of China at the Southern most tip. They were originally fishermen from Fujian and Guandong and later settled over there. The Hainanese, part of the Chinese dispora migrated to different South East Asian countries including late comers to Singapore worked in ships as sailors, opened their own coffee shops or restaurants, bakeries or bars and worked as cooks and chefs and others at local hotels.  Hainanese in Singapore made up 7% of the Chinese population. The Hainanese came to Singapore much later than the Hokkiens and Teochews who are already well entrenched in trade and commerce. Originally they also have problems communicating with other dialect groups as their language seems unintelligible to the others but they began to carve out a name for themselves working for wealthy Europeans including as canteen operators for military bases.  Hainanese are especially with food and beverage.
Read more