Tan's Taiwanese Beef Noodles

While we're on the subject of beef (cf my last post), particularly stewed beef, I have another little rave in a very different category of restaurant: the Tan's homemade beef noodle stall in the Holland Drive Market place hawker centre.

Mr Tan is a personable chap who uses a 60 year old family recipe from his Taiwanese mother-in-law to stew beef to the point of melting tenderness. No MSG and no pork is used to flavour so the result is a wonderful broth and tender thin slices of shin beef, cooked for what must be hours in a pressure cooker. It's flavoured also with his special blend of chilli and chilli oil, fragrant and unlike the usual sambal type flavours or cut chilli normally favoured by Singaporeans.

The noodles too are a treat being smooth and silky in texture with enough "bite" to their texture to create that "la mien" type experience but less glutinous. They come with an optional side dish of piquant pickles (mainly turnip and speckles of carrot) to offset the depth of the meaty broth.

I down the whole meal with a glass of pineapple juice from my favourite juice seller across from the beef noodle stall whenever I'm there who invariably serves me promptly with a smile. Somehow it seems so far away from the far more commercially charged atmosphere of Holland Village just 10 mins away but a world away in terms of pricing and sophistication. Holland Drive market is still where you got good food for very good prices and real people unhurried by the pace of a more urban lifestyle.

For opening hours please refer to his website www.tansbeefnoodle.com

Quentins

I was recently treated to dinner by my aunt at a lovely little romantic place called Quentins in Katong near the junction of Telok Kurau Road and East Coast Road (note to early bird readers: I've corrected the location as a reader very helpfully pointed out my directions would lead you sadly astray). It's a unique little place because it serves Eurasian cuisine which in Singapore means it's a mix of British cooking with an Eastern flavour using many local ingredients, such as green chilli sambal prawns, and a bunch of rather more local dishes such as Chilli Kang Kong.

The dish I had that night that really stood out was the Beef Smore. The meat had a strong distinct and complex flavour which was delicious. It would be loved by meat lovers in general and those who like stews. The gravy was wonderfully flavoured and went nicely with the white rice.

What also charmed me about the place was that it was done up with nice touches such as old black and white photographs from the 1950s and 1960s of scenes typical of Eurasian life: a Eurasian wedding with the couple in the classic pose of the era; a shot of a bunch of altar boys in church preparing the incense burner; another picture of scenes of Katong of the time. It created a small window into the past that would definitely appeal to all the Eurasians and anyone who'd grown up in Katong in a slightly earlier time.

The rest of the restaurant had attentive little touches: darker wood furniture coupled with candles on the table and good linen and service staff who were helpful and unobstrusive. All in all a good dining experience which I would recommend as a mid-priced restaurant with food that you would only otherwise get if you were asked to dinner in a traditional Eurasian family.