Platypus Food Bar - NUS Science

I was back in NUS for 2 weeks for a course, and discovered Platypus Food Bar. It now occupies the same spot that Megabytes used to be. They have a small concise menu, and most people come here for their salads.

Platypus Food Bar specialises in salads for the non vegetarian salad eater. It's a simple concept - where you choose your bowl size - $5.50 for a small bowl, $7.50 for a medium bowl (with 2 premium meats and 1 regular meat) or a large bowl for $9.50. I ate the medium bowl every time I went there cos it was just the right size (for me at least).

The salad base is a mixture of salad leaves (not just your plain old butterhead/romaine/iceberg, but a proper mix of different leaves), and then you choose your dressing - I like the honey miso so I stuck with it throughout being the unadventurous person I am, but apparently the tokyo sesame was pretty good too. The other choices are sweet lemon and seville orange, both of which I do not eat.

]They also have toppings for the salad - usually its' marinated tomato and pasta (of which, you can request for more at no additional charge). I like their tomatoes a lot cos they're marinated and aren't sour at all.

You then have a choice of premium meats - some choices would be poached salmon, chorizo, meatballs (either chicken or beef), new potatoes etc. The choices change daily so it's always interesting.

The regular meats are usually chorizo sausage, chicken breast, turkey with beans etc.
I usually go for the salmon x2 servings and for the chicken or sausage if it's available.

They should totally open a branch at my workplace, it's in dire need of better food!

Platypus Food Bar
NUS Science Canteen

Rolling Wok - NUS Heng Mui Keng Terrace

Rolling Wok is fully airconditioned a Tze Char Restaurant located in NUS. I've never had a good impression of NUS food due to many unspectacular experiences with their cheap and yucky food (especiall Frontier in Science - I don't know how anyone can give the claypot store such high ratings). It's concealed inside the very hard to navigate hard to find Heng Mui Keng Terrace (can't they make the roads easier even the delivery men who go to NUS have problem.. and carparks are such a chore too!). Actually, I didn't know it existed till my friend (who has lecturer parents) told me that such a place existed inside NUS.Mushroom Bean Curd. It's one of the most impressive dish of the day - I will definitely go back for more! It's only $6 for a delightfully crispy and wobbly egg tofu. The tofu itself is very delicious, with a crispy layer of golden brown skin enclosing a smooth silky interior.Other restaurants are selling a lesser than average tasting one for double the price. It's about palm sized (for normal sized palms), but I'm pretty sure I could finish one by myself since it's so yummy!
This is the San Bei Ji (Three Cups Chicken, 三杯鸡) which was $6.90. It's actually a dish from China, which is popularized in Taiwan. Though I don't like Chinese food (cos of all the sauces which masks the real taste of the meat or vegetable), the sauce went very well with the tender chicken. There's a hint of hua tiao jiu (chinese cooking wine) and it's not overly salty. Do try this dish if you go to Rolling Wok, it's only $6.90 for a good sized portion.

Curry Chicken $4.90
Nothing very fantastic - 3 pieces of chicken and potatoes in normalish curry sauce. Pretty generic tasting. I think the Prima Chicken Curry Paste tastes better.

Special Sauce Salmon($6.90)
I didn't really like this dish cos I found the salmon too dry, and there was too much sauce covering the fish. I think this must be one of the Kee's Sauce (the sauce that Rolling Wok uses, I think it's available at supermarkets too). Wanton Mee ($5.90)
The very uninteresting uninspiring people ate. It's always a 'safe' and cannot-go-wrong choice (though some people might have ulterior motives of eating these single meal dishes...). The noodles was the good quality kind - slightly translucent and tangy. Best of all, Rolling Wok is Halal, and the char siew is chicken char siew, which is healthier too. Chicken Broth with Bamboo ($5.90)
It's not very spectacular either. I don't think I'll have this again. It has crab meat, a bit of bamboo and some white fungus (or was it black?) inside.Rice costs $0.80 and there is no service charge (but there's 7% GST). I suppose it's name is Rolling Wok cos their waiter wears roller blades... Ice water is free of charge and self service.

Its 3.5 stars cos it's really CHEAP, and I think that the tofu and three cup chicken warrents another visit, but it's not the kind of place that you'll go out of your way to try. I suppose that even though Singapore has alot of good food, there isn't really a specific restaurant that I can recommend to people for fantastic food.

If only they could make more restaurants/cafes nearer Science - we're eating really horrible food over here.

Rolling Wok Pte Ltd
29 Heng Mui Keng Terrace
#06-21 (it's on the ground floor so i dunno why it's 06...)
Singapore 119620

Tel 68748748

'Normal' Ice Jelly

Why is Fish disgruntled?Well, it's cos of this:

This is not cheng-teng.

It's actually 'Normal' Ice Jelly.

Here's the story : We went to the NUH staff canteen to eat, and since it was so hot we ate desset. Fish wanted to eat Ice Jelly Cocktail, and "the stall had so many kinds of Ice Jelly, with guava, strawberry, blueberry, soursop, aloevera bla bla bla" so when the woman asked her what kind of ice jelly she wanted, fish said "normal ice jelly" and then she got really Ice + Jelly instead of the usual Ice Jelly Cocktail.

and when she said she wanted normal ice jelly cocktail and not just jelly and ice, the woman said must add 50 cents for the cocktail -_-"

So here's a warning - Normal Ice Jelly is not Normal Ice Jelly Cocktail and Ice Jelly Cocktail is not Normal Ice Jelly.

Mango Milk Ice

Mango Milk Ice - it's ice with evaporated milk, mango puree and mango chunks, topped with condensed milk. The standard varies, probably following mango season - most of the time it's ok but sometimes the mango is very hard and pale and sour - or when the mango is over-ripe and bit soggy and a bit ethanol-smelling then it sucks. So must check before you buy it - can go and peer through the glass and look at the mango first.

When the ice melts and the mango puree mixes with the milk, it's like eating mango milk shake with chunks of mango, nice and yummy especially on a hot hot hot day and after the sauna wards.

I think it's about $2 from Kopitiam NUH, SGH also has but then the woman there refused to put mango puree i think, so it tasted terrible. They also have it in Strawberry, but I think the mango is better.

Annalisa's Mango Milk Ice Song (to the tune of Jingle Bell Rock)

Mango milk ice is very nice,
It's sweet and it's milky, and it fills up your tummy,
When you need glucose, it's what you will eat,
It's even better than Haribo Sweets.

ok she's gg to slap me now (if she were here, but she isn't)

Kopitiam - Chee Cheong Fun

Went to Kopitiam for a 1030am snack cos fish and I were very hungry (fish was greedy). So we went to eat breakfast before our respi lecture - and we met the 'slack half' of our CG in the Kopitiam too.

I got Chee Cheong Fun from the snacks stall and then I realised that ppl actually didn't know that the chee cheong fun existed. And it's a blog-worthy dish too! So I'm now blogging to make known that Kopitiam has Hand-Made Chee Cheog Fun - and it's freshly made when you order it.The skin is smooth and though not as thin as those dim sum restaurants, it's much softer and thinner than the pre-made kind. They have this rectangle steamer thing, and they'll place a wet muselin towel over it and pour the flour mix inside, then put in either chicken, mushroom, prawn or charsiew (can choose 2).
I like mine with chicken and mushroom. Mushroom and charsiew tastes off. So does mushroom and prawn. Next time i shall try the charsiew.
Plain chee cheong fun costs $2 and the ones with filling cost $2.50.
It takes some time to steam so don't order this if you're rushing. Instead, try the currypuff (according to fish) it 'tastes like Old Chang Kee minus the egg' but I've never tried it before, though it looks quite solid.

NUH Kopitiam Snacks Stall

Fruit Tree just came out with a new drink (maybe not so recently but I just saw it) it's Cranberry Pomegranate and Apple Juice. It has no sugar added (good cos I think the normal juices are too sweet and taste like syrup). It's not sour, and tastes like a queer mix of juices (I've never tasted pomegranate before). It's $1.10 from 7-11 but i'm sure that other places also sell it.

School Food

KopitiamI don't know how people can eat at the same place for months. I'll get so bored out of my mind. I'm so bored that I can't even post anything good.

The med student interview here should be something like this:
Interviewer: Do you like to eat at Kopitiam?
Prospective Student: er... not really?
Interviewer: Fail! Cos for your student life and nearly the rest of your life you will be eating at KOPITIAM! SGH Kopitiam, NUH Kopitiam, TTSH Kopitiam (X2)...
Once we went out to eat lunch to get away from NUH Kopitiam, and then fish suggested eating at GhimMoh. But then it was under renovation. So nevermind, we decided to eat at the nearby coffeeshop, but to our horror, when we got there and peered under the shade that was hiding the signboard, it was another Kopitiam! I just finished 6 wks of Kopitiam in SGH, then now I have another 16 weeks of NUH Kopitiam.

Kopitiam isn't that bad - the food standard is average (my mum loves eating at Kopitiam), variety is good, clean and hygenic, but if you have to eat it day in day out - urgh! In fact, they're so considerate to staff and students that our trusty kopitiam card gives us not 5% but a whooping 20% off. I don't think other places bother about welfare. And they're so strategically placed (nearest eating place cos we're lazy to walk) and most of all, brightly lit (unlike dimly lit places like the SGH staff canteen) and aircon-ed (the aircon is strong enough so it isn't stuffy) so we inevitably end up there.

The NUH Kopitiam has relly good chee cheong fun, it's hand made on the spot and about the restaurant standard kind - I shall save it for another post.

On Friday, Anna and fish and I decided to eat the most unhealthy dish in the entire Kopitiam - Indian Rojak. Mexicans have refried beans. This is deep fried and re-deep fried. We were so happy selecting our rojak and it looked really little on the tray (before chopping up) that we didn't realise that we were taking too much. What had previously managed to fit comfortably( with space to spare) on one tray could now fit into 2 piles.Yup, it's shared amongst 3 people. Overkill. I'm sure if I took my blood after that and let it settle there'll be a layer of oil on top (according to Benny Tan's pharmacology lecture on cholesterol and lipids). I think it'll be quite interesting to see :D

Btw, it costs about $13 but please don't eat so much Indian Rojak especially if it's Monday and there's lectures after that cos you'll feel so full and nua and cannot stay awake.

I wonder if the upcoming Khoo Teck Puat Hospital will have Kopitiam?

Coffee Grounds
This is one of the rarest days ever - fish and I were so bored that we actually went to eat at Coffee Grounds, which we have been avoiding since like M1. I think I've eaten here a grand total of 4 times since M1.

Maybe it's just the name - you shouldn't name something "Coffee Grounds" especially with med ppl around. (Coffee Grounds refers to a type of vomit when the patient has bleeding in the gastrointestinal tract).