Teck Neo, Singapore

We usually judge a particular food against the first such food that we ate, don't we? Mee Siam ('Thai noodles') is not a dish that you find in KK and my first mee Siam was that made by my friend Linda. I love Linda's mee Siam and it was such a treat when she invited us for dinner and mee Siam was on the table. When Linda moved to Australia 4 years ago (time flies!), she finally gave me her mee Siam recipe but I've not yet muster the courage to cook the dish because it seems like a lot of work. Maybe soon. Maybe.

I'm used to Linda's dry mee Siam with dried shrimps and Singapore's version with an intensely sweet and sour gravy--and no dried shrimps--takes a bit of getting used to. Anyway, I'm so glad that AH and B brought us to Teck Neo, a family-run Peranakan restaurant located below a block of HDB flats. The restaurant is old-fashioned Peranakan quaint and there's a pretty al fresco area in front of the entrance that is very comfortable even in the hot humid tropical weather. If you are ever in the neighborhood, you must eat a meal at Teck Neo because the home-made Peranakan food is delicious and authentic, made by a Peranakan lady whose husband and son help run the restaurant. We tried as many kuihs as we could eat, and as many breakfast items as they had (lunch and dinner menus are more extensive) and all of them were delicious. However, I found the mee Siam too sweet but I put that down to my preference for dry-fried Malaysian mee Siam, and my limited tasting of the dish.


IMO, this was Teck! Neo's b est kuih and it was so good I bought some to go and ate another two for lunch. The grated coconut and dried shrimps filling was superb and the coconut milk scented glutinous rice, dyed blue by blue pea clitoria flowers, was cooked perfect, not too soft or too hard.


Sticky flour kuihs with mung bean filling. The 'skin' was soft and slightly chewy and the mung bean filling not too sweet. Tasted very home made so I ate it without any reservations. I usually dislike kuihs because of the amount of coloring and poor quality ingredients used.


Zhongzi.


Butter cake.


The taro cake was rather bland, lacking in taro flavor and toasted dried shrimps but again, it tasted home made and better than most commercial taro cakes.






Teck Neo's mee Siam is AH's favorite and while it was thick with gravy and a generous topping of boiled egg, fried bean curd boks and a prawn, I found the gravy too sweet.


This was tons better than Ponggol Nasi Lemak.


This fried tofu with peanut sauce was delicious; don't miss it.


I had a bit of B's mee rebus and wished I had ordered it instead. Yummy.

Teck Neo
Blk 35, Teloh Blangah Rise, #01-303

We had lunch at Gleneagles Hospital because we visited a relative. The food court in the hospital would put all the hospital canteens in KK to shame.

I was able to finally get an hour to myself for shopping and guess who walked into the store where I was trying on a skirt? My friend Su, who was also in Singapore. She had walked in from Hyatt next door so we ended up having dinner at the Hyatt Club where Su was a member. The food was g! reat but I was too stuffed from the snacks we had while walking on Orchard Rd.

After dinner, Su asked me to stay with her and I took the offer because I had a baking class to attend in the city the next day. Plus it was Club Hyatt's suite, so why not.