Joo Hing Restaurant
When you were young, you were always too busy or never around for mum's home cooked food. Perhaps you were out with friends and perhaps you ate something together with them before you came home. Anyway, maybe you were bored with mum's home cooked food. The hawker food outside seemed more attractive.
You may still do that in your youth or when you became an adult but as you stayed out even more often as you have to work, you will increasingly find that you got tired of hawker food no matter how nice they could be. That is when you begin to miss your grandma's or mum's home-cooked food. Worse, in a fast paced society where time is scarce, fast food or 3-in-1 beverages became the champions. Few people bother to cook these days. They can't even cook to save their lives. With smaller family unit, it also became difficult to cook for 4 people. Worse, if your children aren't eating.
A friend suggested we should proceed to a place where he said the food is just like home cooked. So we got down to good old Joo Chiat. This is the Joo Hing Restaurant. Well, we are all big boys now but we do miss mum's cooking. Partly, we were all once attached to mum's umbilical cord so no matter how good your dad is, mum's the word. You will always missed the childhood days no matter what that is why they call it the "good old days". Those were the days, my friends.
Xi Yang Cai is Watercress. Chinese believe that watercress helps cleanse and rejuvenate our body. It is a very good soup.
This place is different from other zi char because they do dishes that others don't. I remembered that mum used to cook for me pig's liver and kidney when I was young during the time I had chicken pox. Olden day Chinese believe that whatever you eat from an animal will replace or repair the same organs in you body. So if you want to be intelligent you eat pig brains (???), kidney for kidney and liver for liver. Er, please do not start eating private parts of animals.
Liver must be very fresh and eaten immediately while it is still tender while kidneys must be thoroughly cleansed so that there isn't any smell. I must say they did this very well.
The prawn and tofu is good. Tofu is very soft and tender and the gravy is almost like hor fun style. The prawn looks very crunchy. I said "looks" crunchy because when I turned my attention to it, they were all gone so I have not tasted it. I write objectively and never lied in all my articles. That is integrity.
This is similar to what I have eaten before but with a twist. It has a piece of salted fish on top of the minced pork. What I have normally eaten are without salted fish and we always did it with watery gravy from darker soya sauce.
Squids are great but these are not large, they are "sotong kia". It comes in a gravy that is a little sweet.
This was my absolute favourite. It was so long ago that I have tasted this fish head. This one came steamed with a bean paste gravy that is a little spicy. The only fresh water fish that do not have a muddy taste is the "Soon Hock" which in fact taste sweet. The Patin fish when well steamed and eaten while it is hot is also good but this is the "Song He", also known as the "big head carp" because its head is big and not in proportion to its body. Watch big head carp fishing.
It was the best sports fish during my younger days of fishing. When it takes your bait, it swims zig-zag and all the lines will either have to be retrieved or they would all end up tangled. If you have ever caught one before, you would notice that their body is slimy. A magnificent fish if you ask me. It is pretty meaty. Very well done here.
There were several other dishes ordered but they were more common types. I feel this place deserves more revisits. I would consider the price reasonable but I was told that dinner time and weekends (especially during dinner), the place would be a full house. I am sure that not only you but all our parents would love the food here.
Semi-finally the toilet. Some people swear by clean toilets before they would go to a place to eat. It is clean here. They even put an onion which was sliced open. Is this to absorb smell, to give the air a different kind of pungent smell or to kill germs?
Finally, once again, who says that there is no free lunch in this world? I would like to thank this generous friend for the treat. At the next opportunity and with his permission I may post his photo here. When you use other people's things or photo you must ask permission. When you get a free lunch, say thank you.
Comments