Breakthru Cafeteria

Ok my bad I've been quite busy the past few days haven't really had time to update my blog. Been out catching up with friends and relatives, when I get back quite tired and lazy to update the blog. Got quite a bit of backlog to blog about actually. Well lets start with something rather interesting. Went out with my aunt and her friend the other day for lunch to this place called Breakthru Cafeteria. Breakthru Cafeteria is run by Breakthrough Missions, a Christian organisation that helps ex-convicts. The cafeteria is fully run by ex drug addicts. They show videos of the testimonials of the ex-cons in the cafe as well. A pretty interesting place! They serve stuff like dim sum and nasi lemak. Quite an extensive range of food I must say.

Seriously, for just the 3 of us I think we over ordered. There was so much food we had to tao bao some. First up was nasi lemak. The chilli was good man and the rice was fragrant. Too bad it got cold really fast because we were directly under the air-con.

We had many different kinds of dim sum dishes and there were all pretty good too. All the dishes are freshly steamed and served hot. It would be a pain to individually describe all the dishes cause they were all good so I'll just make mentions of certain dishes.

Above is the siew mai

The xiao long bao had soft tender skin and a juicy centre with soup. Great with the vinegar!

Yam Cake steamed with some sauce

Chicken Feet. Not really my kind of thing. Didn't eat it but my aunt said it was good. I trust her taste because she's quite a foodie herself.

Chee Cheong Fan with prawns. They also have it with char siew or scallops.

I liked their char siew baos because the outside is soft and fluffy. What's inside is usually secondary to me, but the char siew also tasted pretty good.

Century egg and pork porridge was a big bowl. Leans more to the grainy kind of porridge so it's doesn't have such a smooth consistency like crystal jade but it still tasted pretty good. You get the creamy taste of the century egg along with bits of minced pork. The spring and fried onions also make it very fragrant.

Har Kow

On their tables are nicely laminated newspaper articles that put something like: "Last time I used to get charged by them in court, now I serve them food in court." Quite a fitting statement for these waiters and cooks at Breakthru Cafeteria, and it's great to see them being accepted back into society. They may look a little scary with their tattoos and gruff exterior, but they are friendly and service is pretty prompt and efficient. Even the famous defence lawyer, can't remember his name.,Supras or something like that was there for lunch. Prices here are also inexpensive. Dim sum items usually cost between $2.50 to $3.80. They also serve good coffee shop kind of tea and coffee.

Breakthru Cafeteria
People's Park Centre #01-02c(opposite subordinate court)
Opening Hours: Mon to Fri 7am to 7pm, Sat 7am to 3pm
Closed on Sunday and public holidays

Chai Chee Pork Porridge

Normally when you mention Bedok 85 to someone, the first thing that will come to their minds is ba chor mee. Well, that's what made this hawker centre famous anyway. Flocks of people go to Bedok North Block 85 for the famous ba chor mee. And it's always highly contested about which stall is better. Well, today we're not gonna talk about the ba chor mee at Bedok 85, instead we're gonna talk about something slightly different. It still has pork in it, but no noodles.

Located inside the famous bedok north block 85 hawker centre, is this porridge gem called Chai Chee Pork Porridge. Run by an elderly couple, they have won numerous awards and been featured on various television programmes. Now what makes this porridge so special? Terence and I had to find out.

We both ordered pork porridge with egg. Took awhile to arrive. They're pretty popular, even at 2am there are still a lot of people ordering their porridge. Upon arrival I scrutinized the porridge, doesn't look much different from normal porridges you eat elsewhere. It was garnished with fried dough fritters(you tiao or you zhar kway) and lots of spring onions. The egg is cracked and poured into the bowl before the hot porridge is poured over it. Gotta give it a good stir to break up the egg and mix it in with the porridge.

Ok! Taste test time! First mouthful.... I was like "WOW". The flavour just fills your mouth! People associate porridge with bland food, but this porridge here is way way tastier than bland. It's got a semi smooth consistency and is full of juicy homemade pork balls and pork slices. The pork balls are basically minced pork clumped together. It's usually seasoned with oil, cornstarch, salt and pepper. My mom personally likes to add chestnuts to it to give it more bite. The meat is so soft, very easy to bite even if you're using false teeth. The spring onions also complement the flavour.As always, I like my food spicy so I added lots of pepper to give it the kick I like.

They have a few types of porridge like pork, fish and century egg. A normal bowl of porridge costs $3 and it's $0.50 to add an egg. You can also add ingredients for another $1 or $2. Bedok 85 is not only about ba chor mee after all, this is definitely worth a try.

Chai Chee Pork Porridge
Bedok North Street 4 Block 85 Market and Food Centre (next to Bedok North Police Station)
Opening hours: 1730 to 0300 (closed fornightly, no fixed day)

Wan Dou Sek 126 Dim sum

Geylang is a treasure trove! Why I say that? Not because of all the hidden "gems" lurking around Lor 6-20+ but because of the great amount of good food you can find in the area! Beef horfun, tau huay, pig organ soup... The list goes on and on...

Friday night went with Terence, Wanjun, Sherry and Adrian to Timbre for drinks and some live band music. And to cap off the night we made our way to Wan Dou Sek (126) at Geylang for dim sum. Apparently everyone is trying to watch their weight. All scared to grow fat! Me included of course. Haha. Wan Dou Sek not like those traditional push cart dim sum we used to find (those are really rare now by the way), or the classy upmarket restaurants like Crystal Jade. It's just a small air conditioned coffee shop that serves pretty darn good dim sum. Sure it's appearance may not look appealing to some but still the shop is packed full with people all waiting to appease their supper cravings. Actually wanted to check out the place a few days earlier but Terence was saying it's kinda bo hua(not value for money? is there a closer translation? can't think of any) if just the 2 of us ate there. Can't sample more food without spending more money, plus we expand our waistlines too due to all the excess eating. Need to share the joy with others!

One of my favourite dishes at dim sum places is century egg porridge. Thought it should be something I should try but sadly was forced to try their duck porridge instead. Well to be fair the duck porridge was pretty good. Should have swiped some of Sherry and Adrian's century egg porridge though.

The duck porridge came served in a mini claypot. It was still bubbling when served, not sure if you can see the bubbles from the picture above. Burnt my tongue while tasting the darn thing! Must remember to let it cool a bit more the next time before eating. Porridge was pretty good. Very tasty with lots of bite sized pieces of duck inside. Got to mix the sauce and porridge well to balance out the flavour. It doesn't have the smooth consistency like the porridge at Crystal Jade, but most places don't make their porridge that way anyway. It's still all good, goes down easily without much biting. =) The portion is kinda small though, not something you'd have for dinner unless you have like 2 bowls or something?

These 3 dishes came together, was lazy to take individual shots cause everyone was hungry anyway. All the hungry people were hovering over the food with chopsticks in hand waiting to strike while I took this photo. A lot of pressure to get it done quickly! Haha. Anyway it's carrot cake, chicken wings and "tennis balls". Interesting name eh "tennis balls"? It's actually deep fried chicken & cheese. Very nice but sinful! Adrian is a chicken wing man, loves the stuff so he had to order it. Another sinful/oily dish. Yet it was really crispy on the outside and juicy on the inside! Nice seasoning gave it good flavour. The carrot cake is also fried if I'm not wrong. Or pan fried? Soft and moist and goes well with the chilli sauce given. I think it also had bits of hei bee(small dried shrimp) inside for extra bite and flavour.

Siew mai is one of Terence's must haves along with carrot cake. He always orders it when we go to dim sum places. These siew mais were great. The skin didn't turn hard even though it was left there for quite awhile. I had the honour of devouring the last one! =D Made with juicy pork and prawns I thought it was absolutely yummy!
Last but not least, one of my favourites! Prawns wrapped in beancurd skin. Wah this was a treat for me. Haven't had such stuff in awhile. It was deep fried to perfection! So cui cui(crispy?) on the outside, and the rush of flavours that go into your mouth when you sink your teeth in.... MAN!! Shiok! The prawns were good man, very firm and crunchy. Argh I'm like salivating now....

In conclusion, if you ever need to have your dim sum cravings satisfied in the wee hours of the morning or any time of the day for that matter, Wan Dou Sek is a good place to come to. Don't expect it to be cheap just cause it's a coffee shop located in seedy geylang though. Average price per plate is about $4. Even when we went at around 2am the place was still very crowded, so you can see their pretty popular. Seems like its always crowded. They're opened 24 hours a day 7 days a week!(don't they need a break? I have no idea man) Oh ya they serve their drinks in those round plastic recyclable containers so the drinks are pretty large. Though it was kinda cute serving drinks that way.

Wan Dou Sek (126) Eating House
126 Sims Ave
Opening Hours: 24 hrs daily