Going Merrily

Song Fa Bak Kut Teh is easily the most popular stall in the newly opened Seletar Mall. Other Song Fa branches are at New Bridge Road and Changi Business Park. Basically Song Fa started selling Bak Kut Teh 1969 and was graced upon by many celebrities over the years. And this is Song Fa's first mall outlet.

I shall state it upfront that this is the best Bak Kut Teh place to be in Singapore with cheap prices, free flow soup and air-con. Yes the Seletar Mall Song Fa is air-conditioned! Take that Clark Quay Song Fa. So proud to be a North-Easterner recently with all the good food popping up in the neighbourhood :)

My parents and I managed to get a table for an early Saturday lunch after Dad queued for 30 mins while Mum and I shopped at Uniqlo. As expected the queue is insanely long because it's a new mall and it's Song Fa.


We ordered reasonably for 3 people and almost covered all the best dishes in the menu. Let me start off with the sides - Dough Fritter 油条 Youtiao $2.20 (basic for soaking in the Bak Kut Teh soup) & Braised Peanuts $3



Pork Ribs Soup Bak Kut Teh 排骨肉骨茶 Big $9. Soup is the peppery kind, and free soup refill is my favorite part of the meal. I love the pepper kind of Bak Kut Teh soup that warms you up on a rainy day in the air-con restaurant. The pork ribs were cooked until they are fatty and tear easily off the bones, perfect to eat with soy sauce - 10/10


Braised Pig's Trotter 卤猪脚 $7. My second favourite dish at Song Fa. The trotter is cooked until soft and chewy, fully soaking up the braised soup flavors. - 9/10


And it's my favourite because it's full of collagen so I don't feel guilty eating all the fatty parts. Ok, so that fatty parts are still fats and not collagen, whatever, go away.


Braised Chicken Feet with Beancurd Skin 焖凤爪与腐竹 $4. I never liked chicken feet because they are so boney but I actually liked this one! It must be the meatiest chicken feet I've ever eaten and the bones were so tiny, it was manageable. The beancurd skin was really nice too as it soaked up all the flavor and has 0 fats. Ok, maybe a bit of fats. Who cares. - 9/10


Vegetables - Cai Xin 油菜- 菜心 $4. To balance the meal, we ordered some green veggies. Not bad actually, the veggies are cooked till its easy to chew and made us felt like we didn't eat so much meat.
#01-39/40/41
Website: http://www.songfa.com.sg/index.php

Other Branches
11 and 17 New Bridge Road #01-01, Singapore 059383
Business Hours: 7.00am - 9.30pm

Last Order: 9:15pm
(Closed on Monday)
Tel: +65 6438 2858

UE BizHub East (North Tower Office)
6 Changi Business Park Ave 1, #01-38 S486017
Business Hours: 10.30am - 9.30pm
Last Order: 9:15pm
(Open Daily)
Tel: +65 6694 8098

Nakhon Kitchen was one of the most hyped up heartland Thai food restaurant a while back this year. I gave it a pass previously because the queues were insanely long. Now that the queue is reasonable (about 15 mins wait), Kelvin and I headed down to the branch at Hougang to find out if it can live up to our expectation (spoiler alert: it didn't). 

FYI, also located in Hougang neighbourhood just down the street are up and coming cafes where we had our desserts - Hatter Street & Lola's Cafe.

We were first served with traditional Thai Ice Teh $3. Not sure how authentic this is as its my first time drinking milk tea thai style. I would say the taste of tea and sweetness was more intense than normal milk tea and I liked it. Also, it's good to have to cold drink to save you when eating spicy food. - 10/10

The first dish that came was the Kapow Beef Rice $6. Stir fry minced beef with long beans, red chilli and soya sauce, sunny side up egg and cucumber at the side. Overall nothing thai or special about the dish.  - 5/10 (don't order this)

Next up came our Tom Yam Seafood Soup Clear $6. Pretty decent tom yam standard, the clear soup wasn't too spicy and came with a generous amount of soup ingredients like mushrooms, prawn, fish and sotong. - 8/10

And lastly, Phad Thai $5. Phad Thai is basically thai fried noodles with bean sprouts, tofu, leek, peeled prawns and peanut crumps. - 6/10

The Phad Thai was only served 20 minutes after the tom yam soup and it was such a disappointment. How can fried noodles turn wrong? Apparently at it can when it was served after all your other dishes had turned cold and tastes kind of tasteless. In it's defense, the Phad Thai did came with one or two freshly peeled prawns, which in my opinion is the only saving grace of the dish.

Squeezing lime onto the Phad Thai didn't help enhance it's tastelessness. The point of this picture is Kelvin's squeeze lime face :P



Overall, the meal was still pretty worth it. We only spent $20 nett for the whole meal as prices at Nahkon is very reasonable. Probably will return to try our others on their menu as what I had wasn't worth having again.

Also check out the cafes just down the street where we had our desserts - Hatter Street & Lola's Cafe.

Nahkon Kitchen Hougang
Address: Block 212 Hougang St 21, #01-341, Singapore 530212
Phone: 6286 8785
Opening Hours: Mon - Sun, 12:00 pm - 3:00 pm, 5:30 pm - 10:00 pm
Facebook / Website: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Nakhon-Kitchen/

Overall it was a satisfying and filling dinner. We were full but how can we be in a pancake house without having pancakes the way were meant to be eaten - desserts.

The house of pancake's desserts all looked super good. We finally chose the Chocolate, Peanut Butter and Jam Crepe Roll with Ice Cream - $14.


In my first bite, I felt like I went to heaven. The chocolate, peanut butter and jam exploded with every bite because the whole crepe roll was stuffed with those sauces. But after eating half a roll each, we both jelat from the sauce overload. There weren't enough ice cream to go around to dilute the overpowering tastes of jam. Despite having to battle through the second half of our crepe, it was still one of my favourite dessert ever - 9/10



In total, we spent $65 nett for our meal (2 mains, 1 side, 1 dessert). The setting and decorations is very pretty, almost felt like we were in a quaint shop house cafe instead of a shopping mall.