Believe it or not, even though I stay relatively near to one of Singapore's most iconic eateries, yesterday was my second time in my ENTIRE LIFE eating at Chomp Chomp @ Serangoon Gardens! If I remember correctly, the first time I ever ate there was when I was hardly 14 years old. That was years ago!
Well anyway, the reason why I suddenly revisited Chomp Chomp after years and years of just passing by this food haven is because Shaun wanted to have some local delicacies (or so we believed) before he goes over to Australia for our exercise. Not like we're not going but he's just going there earlier. We'll see him in a few weeks time in another continent. :)
So, yesterday was a pretty boring day for me because I stayed pretty much at home doing nothing at all until Shaun FINALLY FINALLY decided to plan an event. Since I was bored out of my skull, I started to think whether I should cycle to Chomp Chomp because firstly, it's been awhile since I've cycled. Secondly, I can burn some of the calories I'm bound to intake when I'm there and thirdly, I can be evil and not let SBS earn my money.
BUT! My bike was in a wreck! Oh yes... Did you know there are 2 ways to spell wreck/wreak and they actually mean different things, sort of. "Wreck" is a noun while "Wreak" is a verb. So if you want to say "Wreak havoc", you use the "A" version. Yeap. Just learnt that yesterday while I was checking my spelling for my Tweets - yes, I check my spelling.
Back to my bike which was a disaster. The seat was falling apart because my cat hates it, the brakes are broken, the bell refuses to sound, the pedals constantly cut into my legs and the wheels are flat. Everything that can go wrong with a bicycle basically happened to mine. So...
Around 1 and a half hour before heading down to Serangoon Gardens, I pushed this pile of metal over to the bicycle store nearby to get everything replaced for $45! My budget was actually 50 dollars because I had no clue how much each part costs but since it's within budget, who cares if I'm getting a good deal? This skillful uncle changed everything on my bike that's broken within 30 minutes and with my "brand new" bike, I cycled to Chomp Chomp!
Turned out that I was way early - should have cycled slower because cycling uphill with so much speed is extremely tiring. I don't dare to cycle uphill slowly because that might mean I could lose momentum and fall~ I'm not an excellent cyclist so I rather not risk falling down. Reached there without much difficulties because I saved the map on my iPod but honestly, I hardly referred to it. Instinct rocks! Since I was early, I sat at the bench outside and played Tiny Tower while waiting for the rest.
Considering that it was dinner time, the entire place was filled to the brim and finding a table was extremely challenging - especially when these aunties in the foreground who have obviously finished their food but refused to leave the table because they were admiring the leftovers on their plates. Irritating much? But anyway, this photo was to show how crowded this place is, not the inconsiderate people we encounter in life.
Aaron and Shaun didn't take long to arrive and after waiting for around 15 minutes, we finally got a table because the aunties finally stood up and left. Well, about time! We sat for awhile and shortly after that, Jun Sheng arrived...
We sat beside this store selling sugarcane juice and to save ourselves the hassle of thinking of what to get, we got these huge glasses of tasty, refreshing juice which costs $2.50 for the bigass glass and $1.50 for the regular (but still pretty enormous) glass. See how happy Aaron is with the sugarcane juice!!
I wasn't kidding when I said the $2.50 one is bigass because it really is! Just look at the scale of that glass! And Aaron is obviously very happy~ I'm such a fantastic photographer, no? :P
Our objective of yesterday's dinner was to order lots so that we can share and at the same time, fill our stomachs with them goodies! We basically split up to get the food and here's the menu of the night. First up - stingray topped with sambal chilli!
And for some fibre and vitamins so that all the rest of the food doesn't seem as sinful, we had kangkong in chilli. Crispy crispy greens that goes extremely well with the white rice that we ordered.
One of the signature dishes, in my opinion, of Chomp Chomp is definitely their cockles. For 8 dollars, you get a medium sized serving that can serve around 4 - 5 people! Extremely fresh and definitely delicious! Looking at this photo makes me crave for more~ But unfortunately, you should not have too much cockles at once because it might potentially mess up your tummy.
Other than seafood, we also had land animals like these BBQ chicken wings which tastes fabulous with lime juice squeezed all over the glossy skin. Another one of those signature things that you should definitely eat when you visit Chomp Chomp because every other table is eating it!
Oyster omelet! The oysters are big and juicy and when you eat it with that chilli sauce, it's fireworks in your mouth! In fact, most of the food that we had yesterday night was either spicy or spicy, my palates went really numb half way through dinner and my nose was running because of the explosions in my mouth. If you don't fancy or can't take spicy, ordering what we ordered would be suicide!
The mess we made on the table was epic. Actually, I have clearer pictures of the mess but I decided not to post them because it might ruin your appetite after looking at these marvelous food. This was only halfway through dinner. One tip when you go to Chomp Chomp - bring lots of tissue paper because if you're like me, one who loves to shoot your food, you need to wipe your hands before touching your camera. Plus, these spicy food will make you perspire, make your nose run, etc, the tissue will definitely come in handy. Oh yes~ And to wipe your mouth.
When you order your cockles, they will ask if you want them semi-cooked or cooked and being slightly health conscious, we went for the cooked ones because the semi-raw ones sounds a bit scary. Furthermore, cooking your cockles will kill most of the bacteria and make it easier for you to open with your bare hands.
However, not all the cockles that we ordered were perfectly cooked so Shaun had to use his "lockpick" method to open the shellfish. Extremely unique way of opening the cockles, no?
Took this photo just to spite y'all! Look at that fresh, fat and juicy cockle! We were given this chilli sauce for our chicken wings but it's goes really well with the cockles as well. I want more cockles!!
Even though I KO-ed at the end of our "main course", we decided to go for our last challenge - satay! If you've read my post on the
10 DOLLAR CLUB, you would have realized that we are actually having some of the food that we already had the other day but who cares? They are nice!! :P
If you were to ask me which one I think is better, I would say the oyster omelette at Chomp Chomp is better because it was warmer and the presentation looks so much more appealing. For the stingray, I guess both are tied but the Chomp Chomp one feels slightly more meaty and that's definitely a good thing, no?
As for the satay, I think Chinatown's one might have a better edge because it looks more appealing but taste wise, I can't really differentiate. But when we had satay at Chinatown, we did not taste the mutton ones and the mutton ones are really awesome at Chomp Chomp!
Tip if you don't want to be photographed eating when you're dining with me is not to sit opposite me because you'll be making yourself an open target, like Aaron and Shaun - that's why you see their photos more often than you see Jun Sheng's because he was sitting beside me. 忘れないね～ :D
After stuffing our faces for over an hour, we attempted to walk around the area but Serangoon Garden is so boring! The only places that are interesting are probably like Watsons, Pets Lover, McDonalds? I don't know! There's nothing to look at~ So, we headed over to the bus stop and sat down to chat a little before we went our separate ways...
Well, that's the end of this entry which I have been struggling to get done because MTV is constantly distracting me with Lady Gaga and some other fantastic artistes (minus the Korean girl bands who are like Sentinels coming out from the Master Mold - all look the same). Can't wait for the next weekend where I will head down to Great World City to catch ayumi hamasaki's 3D version of Rock 'n' Roll Circus!!
Wait for me, weekends!
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