We only know what we’re missing when we no longer have it. Our freedom to take a bus and find good food was never missed until this very moment. This distance is amplified for those living away from their favourite hawkers. Knowing that good food is just a bus ride away in these times of mandated monastic living can be a torture. For me, the glaring difference in freedom is made even more obvious when I got acquainted with a hawker stall barely 3 days before partial lockdown.
I got a recommendation to visit Tang Kay Kee, a hawker stall at Hong Lim Food Complex that decided to evolve itself during my time in Boston. Modern Lunch-bowl style Zi Char in a Hawker Center known for its heritage? Could be heresy, or history in the making.
It turns out that no amount of heresy could keep me away from eating piece after piece (My fellow diner has finally experienced how much I love fried chicken!) of that Har Cheong Gai: Boneless fried chicken that gracefully lets the prawn paste lift its flavours to a new peak. It’s easy to eat, and were it not lunch time, I’d have gotten some ice cold beer to wash it all down.
But in the big picture of a meal, protein is but protein, and carbs need their time on the stage. Thank goodness then, for the classic Yang Zhou Fried Rice, made anew with a soft egg topping. This iteration is tricky. It can’t get weighed down by the heavy flavour of its ingredients, especially when an extra egg is in the mix. They pull it off with aplomb, largely because the soft egg lends a yolky counterbalance to the salty umami-ness that fried rice enthusiasts are already familiar with. It’s copious portions don’t hurt the dish at all.
The silver lining amongst all this bad news about staying home is that Tang Kay Kee is delivering islandwide. Besides the dishes I mentioned, their Beef Hor Fun has been raved about, and I would expect nothing less of them.
If you don’t want to call ahead, they have a google form here for you to make an order. I hope you give it a go, and please let me know what you think. As for me, I’ll return to them once this circuit breaker is over for more scrumptious food!
