145 Teck Whye Ave - Bee-Hoon Fishball Soup.

Block 145, Teck Whye Ave.

Except cemetery, there is no places in Singapore I won't go as a night shift cabby. But of course, given a choice, I would prefer to ply in the bright city areas at night where customers are plentiful and with surcharges.

As luck would have it, I often had to send late night customers to deserted places like Tuas South, Lim Chu Kang,  Sembawang Park etc. etc. While the destination itself is not a major problem, it could become an issue if I get hungry like a wolf during the wee hours of the night at these isolated places.

If unbearable hunger struck, my mind would instinctively hunt for the few nearest 24 hours coffee shop to have a decent meal expeditiously. Minor hunger could be easily resolved with a quick bite of tip-bits in my cab. But to know where to have a decent meal quickly in the wee hours of the night at deserted places, comes from knowledge through research and experience.

This bring me to share with you a 24 hours food stall that sells tasty food at Teck Whye Avenue. Many night shift taxi drivers frequent this stall for its variety of affordable and delicious Bak Chor Mee, Dumpling Soup, Bee-Hoon Fish Ball Soup and Laksa. Parking along the main road (albeit double gig-zag lines) is convenient, while coffee & tea are sold at 60 cents, specially for taxi drivers.

The stall is cheekily called "Ai Mian Zi"爱 面 子  (Love Face) and it has a few branches in other parts of Singapore.

An attractive and young PRC lady own and manage this stall at night, while her female PRC partner does the day shift. A year back, they bought the franchise for this stall. To cut costs and more importantly, to attract more customers to their inconspicuous stall, they handmade most of the main ingredients themselves, like fish/meat balls, dumplings, fish cakes, laksa soup and chilli sauces.

Out of the many varieties of foods at this stall, I specially love the "Bee-Hoon Fish Ball Soup". The crystal clear soup is made from boiling pork ribs bones, sugar cane, chicken & dried sole, without MSG, overnight. It has a strange sweetness that suit my liking. The toppings come with bouncy fish balls, made entirely from yellowtail without other fillers, a generous portion of crispy heart-killer pork lard, sea-weeds, sliced pork belly meat, half-cook pork liver and the usual vege. It costs $3.

Their homemade crescent shaped meat dumplings is another "must-eat" item and comes only in boiled style. The skin of the dumplings is perfectly sized and is made from flour and water dough. The filling is sweet with meat, shrimp, vegetable and minute water melon. If my earning for the night had been good, I would have an additional bowl of dumplings to go with my bee-hoon soup. In this case, a decent meal at this stall would rob me of about $6 but it's worth every cents because its not easy to find a stall that still sells delicious food in the wee hours of the night at dissolute estates.

I am not an adventurous foodie, so pardon me if I had inadvertently written an rhetorical food posting.

By the way, here is a popular "Chinese dumpling"  水 饺 joke for your amusement.

In Mandarin, "Shui Jiao" 水 饺  (dumpling) sounds like "Shui Jiao" 睡 觉 (go to bed) and "Yi Wan"一 碗 (one bowl) sounds like "Yi Wan" 一 晚 (one night).

PRC lady shouts: " Shui Jiao Yi Wan San Kuai" 水 较 一碗 三 块 (One bowl dumpling $3).
An old cabby responded: "Wo Yao San Wan" 我 要 三 晚 ( I want 3 nights!)