Singapore Chom Chom Melbourne

G'day from down under! I realise it's been like 4 months since I last blogged, guess its just been me being really really busy + lazy + lousy internet connection that takes forever to load pictures that caused my long absence. Anyway, although I haven't been actively blogging, I have been actively cooking so I guess if I can keep this up I will be blogging quite a bit. I have been living in Tasmania for the past two semesters, and it's almost time for me to head back to Singapore. Can't believe how fast time has flown this past year, its quite amazing when you suddenly think about it and realised you're leaving for good. I kind of have mixed emotions about this place really as there have been good memories as well as some not so pleasant ones. But overall I think this Australian journey was a good experience for me.

Surprisingly this semester I have been rather adventurous in cooking, trying my hand at some local Singapore dishes such as chicken rice, hor fun and roti prata. I will blog more about those in my future posts so stay tuned. This time round I'm going to blog about something I ate last year in December before heading home to Singapore for the christmas holidays. Yes, it's a long time ago but since I have some backlog I reckon I should clear it up first.

This restaurant is called Singapore Chom Chom, and as it's name suggests, it serves Singaporean cuisine. It's pretty popular as it is always quite packed at lunch time. I never went there for dinner before though so I'm not sure about the dinner time crowd. I guess if you miss home and crave for some char kway teow or ba chor mee, this is a place to go to. Don't expect Singapore hawker quality food or prices, but at least some of the dishes are decent. My friend Cow brought me here on my first day in Melbourne and we had chye tao kueh (carrot cake), ba chor mee and claypot rice.

The chye tao kueh was apparently a new addition to the menu or so Cow said. Pretty small portion with not much ingredients except for some egg for about $5-6. Taste wise was ok though. Would have been better if it wasn't so sweet and a bit more spicy.

Next up is the ba chor mee. Again as I mentioned earlier, you can't expect the food to be the same as our hawkers back home. You get to choose the kind of noodles you want, like meepok, mee kia, kway teow, chor bee hoon etc. It was topped off with bean sprouts, minced pork, pork slices, fish cake slices and an egg. What I did like about this dish was the noodles as it had a nice texture and bite to it. It was also a large portion as compared to the chye tao kueh for $8.80 or something like that. Only thing was the chilli which was a bit lacking in its "oomph" factor. I asked for it to be extra spicy but it was quite disappointing as it wasn't spicy at all. The "chup"(sauce) was kind of sweet in fact.

Lastly, Cow ordered the claypot rice which was quite good. Had the burnt bits of rice stuck to the claypot that I know a lot of the older generation like my parents love. It was served with pieces of chicken and some vegetables. I think that there was some lup cheong (chinese wax sausage) as well. Claypot rice was tasty and pretty nolstagic. Careful when eating though, its pretty hot!

Subsequently when my family came to Melbourne we visited this place a few more times and I did get to try some other things like their laksa, char kway teow, fish ball noodles and prawn noodles. I think of the lot the the prawn noodles was probably one of the better dishes served. A rich stock with big prawns and pork ribs and some slices of fish cake. Can't compare to my favourite Wah Kee but still good nonetheless. Enough to satisfy me till I got back to Singapore. Sometimes like in summer you can also get desserts like ice kachang and chendol I think, though I didn't try any of those.

Singapore Chom Chom
188 Bourke Street
Melbourne VIC 3000