Cheng Ji (成记)
Stall 24, Adam Road Food Centre
2 Adam Road, S289876
Bukit Timah, Singapore
19 August 2012
Merlion Wayfarer likes to stop by
Adam Road Food Centre on her way to the Singapore Botanic Gardens. Of course,
the traditional favourites are the nasi lemak and the tarik stalls. But being
the Hari Raya weekend, of course most of these are not open. Mai hiam! Merlion
Wayfarer is flexible where food is concerned!
There is a festive mood about the
place with the national day mini-flags looped around the al fresco seats and
bouquets of flowers on lampposts. Ok ok ok, no need remind me, she will remember
to send her Hari Raya greetings to her Muslim friends and watch PM Lee at the
National Day Rally next week!
She scans around the mostly-closed
place with her eagle eyes. In her computer mind, she checks off the stalls one
by one - this stall closed, this stall sells the same type of food she eats at
work everyday, this stallholder too fierce, no mood for food at this stall - kaching, kaching, kaching...
Cheng Ji sells all the “fried”
(actually it’s more like “stir fry”) dishes that are so unhealthy yet taste so
good - Fried Kway Teow, Fried Hokkien Mee, Fried Carrot Cake, Fried-this, and
Fried-that. The unique difference about their stall is that they sell dongfen -
which will be our story for another day since Merlion Wayfarer ordered
something different.
While queueing, the stall owner ran
out of carrot cake. Merlion Wayfarer saw the helper, a cute round boy that
looks just like his mother with a chubby face and small slit-like eyes, take
out a huge white “bolster” wrapped in plastic. He tried to undo the white stuff
inside, and found it too hard. So his mother helped. She snipped open one end
and unwrapped it, then passed him a grate and demo-d to him how to do it.
Apparently, carrot cake comes from a
huge jelly bolster squeezed through a metal grate to get long square columns
which will be cut further when frying! Ahhhh... interesting revelation hor? (Or
maybe she too suah-koo lah...)
Despite having a long queue, the boy
topped each dish off with some spring onion. (He has a very patient mother who
multi-tasks well. Halfway through cooking, she took some time to pass him a
scissor and showed him the correct size to cut.)
The carrot cake was cooked according
to my specs - dark with no chilli. (You have no idea how many hawkers can’t
follow these 2 simple instructions.) It could have been perfect if it had been
crispier instead of so soft. Well, worth trying!
The full album is available at:
Merlion Wayfarer's Picasa (Food - Local)
