Makan marathon: Maxwell Road Food Centre - ICB - MH's Meat Dumpling

MH was preparing the annual meat dumpling by marinating the 3-layer fatty pork with the spices till wee hours last night. This morning, I woke up to find 2 bags of the marinated pork in the fridge, and other preparation materials laying around. I guess I'll see a bundle of meat dumplings when I'm home in the evening.

A very important ingredient; garlic mixed with salt & oil gives the fragrance.

Preparation of rice for kee zhang; the small plain yellow dumpling with no fillings.

Lunch

For lunch this afternoon, I decided to walk to Maxwell Food Centre and buy some of my favourite desserts home for MH. And also to help colleagues stock up their biscuits.

I always frequent the vegetarian noodles stall whenever I'm there to have take away lunch.

Choose 3 side dishes with bee hoon/ kway teow at $2.50. It used to be $2 only.

In the same row, there are 2 famous chicken rice stalls.

They have equal long line of patrons.

Tian Tian Chicken Rice

One male colleague prefers this stall, as the chicken tastes smoother and more fragrant than the other.

Jin Hua

The ladies prefer to have Sliced Fish (or fried fish) Soup with bee hoon or rice.

Also see a long line of customers, the waiting time can be quite long and usually it's normal to wait up to 20 mins.

Zhen Zhen Porridge(Opposite of the Sliced Fish Soup)

I guess people always come for the raw fish slices that goes along with the porridge.

Xing Xing Tapioca Cake

This stall sells a few kuehs, namely onde onde, tapioca and 2 others which I can't recall their names. The fillings used are mainly coconut and peanut.

I find the tapioca too soft and flimsy, and the onde onde are sometimes juicy. The latter is always sold out, and you can wait up to at least 30mins for the next batch to be ready. I prefer the onde onde here than SG Kueh

PANCAKE (2 stalls away from Xing Xing)

Peanut, coconut and red bean fillings pancakes are sold here. You can have the original flat type or the roll-up new version. This is my colleague's favourite stall for tea break.

Hum Chim Peng

Another stall selling at 40 cents. The famous 10 cents Hum Chim Peng stall is just 2 stalls away. But the nicer version can be found at Hong Lim instead.

And beside the Hum Chim Peng above is our last stop; snacks and biscuits from M'sia.

Look at how many tins of biscuits this stall owner has?!

Back at office

My lunch - Vegetarian Bee Hoon

This is the favourite kueh among the ladies here.

I believed the stall owner uses gula melaka in it too.

Onde Onde

Some of them have the juices seeped out already. I must say they are not the best, and I'll continus to look for the best.

After work drink...

OB sms me out for a drink after work. I happened to have an errand at Tanglin Mall and suggested Ice Cold Beer.

By the time we reached, it was 7+pm, and the upper deck was already near full house. Luckily, a waiter whom I sorta knew suggested a 'table' at the pool area and got us drinks to warm us up. Not forgetting our favourite chicken wings of course.

We like the atmosphere and the music played at the background of ICB.

That's why we can feel so comfortable and let loose here.

I guess we can never tire of this place unless it fails us 1st.

Miller Lite - a great start for more to come.

When there isn't much on the tv, you can watch the drinkers striking their rods on the pool table.

We ordered the large portion of 12 chicken pieces since OB doesn't want Mini Burgers.

Back alley of ICB for a break.

One last bottle before crawling back home. I tried a new apple cider by Pipsqueak since Lambrini was out of stock.

Back home...

As I walked up the stairs up to the door, the aroma of meat dumplings was filling up the air.

MH: "I won't sell for even $5! But I'll give you for free." She likes offering super good deals at FOC??!

Usually, the 1st batch of dumplings are just the trial test. They are likely to be blend and need to improve the taste in the next batch.