Heritage & Taste: 10y+ hawker sells Hokkien Mee in a mall
Ever sat at a hawker centre in the sweltering heat thinking, I wish there was air-con?
Hidden in the basement of GR.iD at Dhoby Ghaut is Heritage & Taste, where you can savour various local delights in the comfort of furnished seats, cool air-conditioning and old-school mandopop hits.
Although this place has only been open for slightly over a month, the owner has been making Hokkien mee for over 10 years now. He used to run He Ji Hokkien Fried Prawn Noodles down by Crawford Lane but decided that he wanted to open in a mall instead as hawker centres were simply too hot.
The restaurant only has a communal table and high table, and can only seat about 9 diners. However, customers can also enjoy their meal at the open seating area just outside, in the central area of the level.
Of course, the main dish on my agenda was their Heritage Fried Hokkien which caught my eye on social media. I got it in its Regular (S$6.80) size but it is also available in Large (S$8.80). You can even add on S$1 for a Set with Drink.
On first impression, the portion was pretty standard but their plates and utensils were what caught my eye. They looked just like the purple melamine ones you see in hawker centres!
The Hokkien mee came with the standard fare—a mix of thin bee hoon and yellow noodles, together with a good amount of fried egg.
I'm not sure if this is their usual, but the ratio of thin bee hoon to yellow noodles seemed to be higher than the usual Hokkien mee. The thin bee hoon in particular absorbed quite a bit of the stock, but not to the point of sogginess. In fact, it just made the noodles more slippery which made them oddly satisfying to eat.
Flavour-wise, there wasn't much of the wok hei taste that many Hokkien mee lovers look out for. There was, however, a light umami taste that was easy on the palate.
The star of the show for me has to be the chilli– fragrant, savoury and with a hint of tartness that cut through the noodles. It had quite a bit of fire that tied the whole dish together very well.
The Hokkien mee also came with 2 prawns and a few pieces of sotong. Both were pretty fresh but taste-wise, didn't stand out much. There was also a bunch of pork lard which I wish had been just a tad bit crispier to contrast the soft noodles.
The Four-Eyes Zai Fried Hokkien Mee: Hyped-up old-school wet HKM that's only open for 4 hours
When I saw one of my favourite hawker dishes on the menu, I instantly knew I had to get it. Heritage & Taste's Char Kway Teow combines the usual kway teow and yellow noodles, wok-fried in a sweet dark sauce that has a slight smokiness to it.
As with the Hokkien Mee, it comes in Regular (S$6.80) and Large (S$8.80) sizes, with an additional S$1 top-up for a drink.
The char kway teow came with thinly sliced lap cheong (Chinese sausage) that added a nice sweetness and tau geh (mung bean sprouts) with a nice crunch that complimented the noodles.
They were generous with the pork lard and hum (cockles) in this one, which I'm sure many will be excited about. However, I did think that the hum wasn't the freshest, as there was a strong briny aftertaste that had me picking them out by the third bite.
That being said, the kway teow itself was addictive and I almost neglected my Hokkien mee to wolf down these sweet and savoury smooth noodles. It also had a slight spice from the chilli that was fried into the dish, making for a full-bodied, indulgent meal.
As a bread enthusiast, I had to try their Heritage Toast (S$3.80), which came with 2 pieces of bread and 2 soft-boiled eggs.
I'm unsure if this is the bread they usually serve, but I got what seemed to be slices of a baguette, which were extremely crisp yet somehow disintegrated the moment I put them in my mouth.
The thinly spread layer of kaya was on the sweeter side and didn't have the pandan-y taste I'm used to. However, paired with the thick slabs of butter in the middle, it didn't make too much of a difference. It was especially shiok when dipped into the runny and creamy soft-boiled eggs!
Noodles and bread are 2 of my favourite foods in the world, so I must say this meal at Heritage & Taste left me deeply satisfied despite certain gripes I had about it. The Hokkien Mee and Char Kway Teow are addictive and make for a simple and quick meal, especially if you are working or studying around the Dhoby Ghaut/Bencoolen area.
Although the pricing is slightly steeper than what you would usually find in a hawker centre, I think it's reasonable for the location and environment you get to enjoy it in.
Expected damage: S$7 – S$10 per pax
Quan Ji Cooked Food: Wok hei-laden plates of char kway teow & Hokkien mee with crispy pork lard
The post Heritage & Taste: 10y+ hawker sells Hokkien Mee in a mall appeared first on SETHLUI.com.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
New York Times
2 days ago
- New York Times
Four Generations of Quilts Come Out of the Family ‘Treasure Chest'
Still living cheerfully in her own home in Fairfield, Texas, at age 98, Laverne Brackens likes to entertain a steady stream of visitors. She has a fast-talking health-care aide who comes by three times a week. She has two younger sisters, one younger brother, five children and more than 100 grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren, most of whom also live in and around her hometown, and find their way to her front porch. Then there are the quilt collectors who have been making the pilgrimage to her home along a county highway since at least 2011, when a National Heritage fellowship raised Brackens's profile. They come to see her energetically colored, highly improvisational, feel-good quilts. They can spot her house from a distance, thanks to bright vinyl signs hanging on the metal fence in front commemorating the mayor's proclamation of Oct. 13, 2022, as 'Laverne Brackens Day.' But none of these visitors, not even her closest relatives, are allowed to open an old wood trunk with brass buckles that sits on the floor in a corner next to her sewing table. 'It's her treasure chest,' says Sherry Byrd, 74, Brackens's daughter, who is the next-best-known living quilter in Fairfield. 'And, no,' Byrd said of the trunk, 'I'm not allowed to touch it without permission.' Brackens calls this her 'four-generations trunk,' and it contains her own quilts, rolled into bundles, alongside quilts made by her mother, Gladys Henry; her daughter Sherry; and several grandchildren. On top of one stack is a medallion quilt by Sherry that resembles a stained-glass window, its flashes of fiery colors barely contained by black frames. Next to it sits a puffy quilt that her mother made by cutting up and stitching together the velvety purple bags that Crown Royal whisky bottles come in — a gift from one of her son's hard-drinking friends years ago. 'He bet me $50 I couldn't make nothing out of these bags,' Brackens said. 'So I won the bet, and I've been making them ever since.' Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Time Business News
3 days ago
- Time Business News
Harry Kappen: The Sonic Alchemist of Emotion, Memory, and Truth
Harry Kappen doesn't walk into a room and raise the decibel level. He walks in and tunes it. That's who he is—a musician, therapist, husband, father, observer of humanity. And when he creates music, it's not just to fill silence. It's to make sense of it. His latest album, Four , isn't your typical genre-hopping sonic experiment. It's a soul map—each track a pin dropped in an emotional landscape charted not for attention, but connection. 'Writing my music is like writing a book or painting a picture,' he tells me, his voice like a well-worn paperback, calm and textured. 'It's a reflection of how I feel at that moment.' And that's the key with Kappen—he doesn't create to impress. He creates to express. If someone out there hears themselves in his melody, it's not planned. It's fate. 'I'm not about someone else's heart,' he shrugs. 'Only the person who feels addressed is about that.' Harry's no stranger to the power of music beyond entertainment. As a music therapist, he's spent decades helping others unravel their own inner knots through sound. That experience, he says, taught him to confront his own vulnerabilities—not by burying them in lyrics, but by shaping them into them. 'Music has taught me to translate my feelings better than I can do verbally,' he confides. 'I'm fairly introverted. But music gives me a safe, universal way to express myself. That's the power of it.' Take 'Courage,' a track on Four that sounds like it was carved straight out of the marrow of devotion. It's not some overblown ballad about conquering dragons in the name of love. It's something braver: honest acceptance. 'Many people told me it was brave to move to another continent for love,' Harry recalls. 'But I don't see it as bravery. It's just being open. What could be more beautiful than accepting love as it comes to you?' That kind of wisdom can't be faked. And neither can his musical palette. Kappen's work spans rock, jazz, Latin grooves, even cinematic orchestration. It's not eclecticism for the sake of cool points. It's how his mind works. 'I grew up with rock and blues,' he says, 'but I don't want to limit myself to one style. Every song asks for its own approach.' He likens it to Bowie—not in a comparison of ego, but in fluidity of creative comfort. 'I don't feel at home in a genre,' he tells me, 'I feel at home in the act of building a song. Letting myself be carried by the mood.' And yet for all the sonic wanderlust, there's one instrument that remains the anchor—his guitar. It's been there since his youth, from the clean, reverent strums to the screaming solos. It's his voice when words fall short. And often, they do. When I ask how he finds time to write amidst being a father, husband, therapist, and human navigating the noise of the world, he just smiles. 'Car rides,' he says. 'My phone is full of ideas I sing while driving. I'm not in a hurry. I don't watch TV. Apparently, I'm good at time management.' And just like that, you remember: real artists don't chase time. They invite it to sit beside them while they create. Of course, the noise of the world is something Kappen doesn't ignore. 'Break These Chains' is his lyrical scalpel, cutting through the skin of fake news and division. But even here, he doesn't scream into the void. He whispers truth. 'I don't feel like a lone voice,' he insists. 'Many are worried—just in different ways. Making music helps me distance myself from the chaos. It positions me as an observer.' There's a boy inside Harry Kappen, still dreaming from the countryside of Groningen, watching Bonanza reruns and believing in endless summers. He hasn't gone away. He's just learned how to play chords. 'I hope to never lose that feeling,' he says. 'It's the basis of my musical pleasure.' And when all the sound fades, when the lights go down and the silence returns, who is Harry Kappen? 'A quiet, introverted guy,' he says without hesitation. 'Someone who laughs a lot, cooks for others, thinks a lot. And someone who picks up the guitar when it's quiet for too long.' Some people chase noise. Harry Kappen? He listens to the silence—and writes what it whispers. TIME BUSINESS NEWS
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Yahoo
New Nanyang KTV eatery opens at Eunos selling zichar & dim sum
The East has just welcomed another eatery into its food scene. Enter Dragon V Nanyang Cafe, a new restaurant that popped up in the Eunos area in late May. This new arrival looks rather large and has both outdoor and indoor dining areas. A soft opening was scheduled on 28 May, but a small celebration was held from 24 to 26 May. Since Dragon V Nanyang Cafe is still quite new, there haven't been any reviews as yet. However, several attendees shared photos, videos and comments about the opening on their social media accounts, giving a sneak peek into the restaurant's menu and facilities. Posts on and have named the following brands as part of the restaurant's lineup: 1. Chong Pang Nasi Lemak 2. Long Hai Wang Dim Sum 3. Ah Hui Big Prawn Noodle 4. Ah Kim Hokkien Mee 5. Chai Chee Big Fish Ball Noodle 6. Ming Xuan Roasted Delights 7. Dragon V Zhi Char As such, you can expect the eatery to serve crowd-favourite fare like Hokkien prawn , , roast meat, and more! The zichar includes selections like Mango Sauce Prawn Balls (S$17.80/S$34.80), Beef Brisket with Tendon (S$22.80/S$44.80) and Thailand Crispy Pork Belly (S$35.80). Dragon V Nanyang Cafe also claims it serves over 70 types of for S$3.50 per serving and has deals such as S$1 Snowy Ice desserts for students and a S$1 Grab Driver coffee promo. That's not all. Videos of the soft opening attendees partying to English and Chinese songs in what appears to be a private dining room installed with a karaoke system have been posted on social media. Perhaps this is another perk that one can experience here, especially for group gatherings. If you'd like to check the menu at Dragon V Nanyang Cafe before you go, visit their Google Maps profile here! $3 value sets, $1.20 desserts at Chinatown food court The post New Nanyang KTV eatery opens at Eunos selling zichar & dim sum appeared first on
