I met with a couple of friends early Saturday morning for breakfast at Old Airport Road Hawker Centre. There weren't many stalls open at 8.30am and I was wandering around trying to find something that piqued my interest.
I chanced upon this stall (located next to the famous Lor Mee stall) and decided to try it out...besides there was a long line at the Lor Mee store and in my Garfield-like sleepy state, I was not in the mood for queueing. *yawn & stretch* Seems like the ladies manning the store are pretty sleepy themselves for they were rather s-l-o-w. I settled on a stool close to the store & tried to wake myself up by snapping various pictures of the stall.
It was well worth the wait (5-10 mins or so and I was the only client) for the fishballs. Despite the odd shape, a sign of a hand-made fishblob...oops, I meant fishball...but if it's not entirely round, does it still qualify as a ball?
Ok, ok, I digress. The fishblobs/fishballs had a nice firm texture and a mildly salty and sweet flavour. The hawkers were generous with the fish paste and apparently didn't add any flour to them. This tastes alot better than the machine-made versions found in supermarkets and alot of other hawker stalls as too much flour was added in the production process to make the fish paste go a longer way. Whilst the machine-made process often results in larger fish balls, the fish ball is rubbery and can taste bland (lacking the natural sweetness of the fish) or excessively salty (as some hawkers add alot of salt to their fishballs to make them last longer). The fishcake slices were delicious too. It was a fabulous breakfast for me since I love fishballs/fishcakes.
The broth was delicately infused with the flavour of the fish balls and minced fish paste (an interesting change from
minced pork noodles), it was not salty neither was it bland. I would say that it was pleasantly subtle, perhaps it was deliberately prepared this way to ensure that the broth would not overpower the natural sweetness of the fish. I loved the smooth and thin strips of hor fun as they tend to absorb the flavours of the broth/gravy that they're served in better.
This is definitely worth a try if you're in the vicinity.
Cityzoom Minced Fish Noodle Blk 51 Old Airport Rd #01-120 Old Airport Rd Hawker Centre Singapore 390051 Tel: 9008-8171
