NUS Techno Edge Food Hunt

As an engineering student for 4 years, it is no doubt that Techno Edge is my frequent place to eat. Here is a blog post dedicated to Techno Edge. NUS's techno edge is open to all, yes ALL, so don't leave this page yet if you are not from NUS!

So let’s begin the food hunt!

Voted the best in techno edge, is the Indonesian Delights, featuring its all-time favorite “Grilled Chicken”. A big piece of grilled chicken thigh topped with lightly crisp lettuce and cherry tomatoes, drizzled with their own gravy. I'm sorry about the quality of the image but was probably too hungry to take a proper picture of it.

Although it is not bad, I personally prefer “no. 1” which is their grilled meat skewer. No hassles to remove the bones or what, you can just popped the chunk of succulent meat into your mouth.

If you are not full or see no variety in just meat and some veges, you can add on curry cabbage (+$0.50) or egg  (+$0.50).

Next, to the stall I frequent the most “Western Delights”! My love for no. 18 is so deep that I have never really ordered the other dishes since I tried no. 18. Ok, I am exaggerating but it is really my favourite food in techno.

Look at that two piece of meat patties! 

Try it! It's good and cheap ($3)!

If you don't like the tomato sauce based pasta, you might want to try the creamy based kind and I would recommend the creamy ham and mushroom!

 It's also one of my favourite too! Quite a generous portion of ham and mushrooms! The creamy base is a bit different from the outside restaurant kind, but I actually quite like this kind too!

Next, to something more local! Yong Tau Foo stall! This was a stall i frequent the most when I was in Year 1 because it was very cheap, but since then they increased the price. I remember having a bowl of 6 pieces of ytf + rice was only $1.80. Actually, you can get it at about $2.30-$2.40 now, which is still of course cheaper than outside!

They used the soybeans for the soup base which made it even more healthy and tasty. You can also try the laksa base (+$0.50) and I like it a lot too! The only thing that I would complain is that the variety of ytf is limited and that the pieces are actually quite small.

And, the must have in almost all kopitiams and canteens, the Mixed Vege Rice Stall! I'm sorry I don't have a picture for it, but I would say that the price is quite affordable, the food is not bad too! The queue is usually long but it is usually very fast!

And the vegetarian version of the mixed vege rice stall, the Vegetarian Mixed Rice Stall!

Highly recommend the spring roll! Oh and a tip for you, although it is not in their menu, but you can order the vegetarian claypot rice ($2.50)!

Next up, the fishball noodles stall!
Honestly speaking, I have no recollection of me ordering the fishball noodles at this stall because I always order the meatball noodles. Because the meatballs are nice and it a bowl of noodles with 5 relatively big meatballs for only $2.50!! This is really good and cheap.

However, I find the meepok/ meekia slightly dry for my liking and so we have somehow figured out this special combi/order - Meatball black horfun:

Meatball black horfun

Next up the soup stall！

This stall has the shortest queue which i guessed it's probably the weather is too hot and Techno is always crowded and so a little not so comfy to eat a bowl of hot soup? Other than soups (fish soup, bak kut teh), they have Chicken in Red Glutinous Rice Wine (红槽鸡）and 麻油鸡. 

The Chicken in red glutinous rice wine was not bad but I've tried better ones outside. 

Usually, I would order the fish porridge when I feel healthy and needed soupy stuff cos the fish is nice (but it seems like I'm the only one among my clique that actually likes the fish porridge).

Fish porridge (Soup stall) @$2.50

Ok and the last stall I am going to recommend is the Jap stall! This might be the most expensive food in Techno but it has the best Tama ever.

Chicken Tama for $4. Deep-fried chicken in the very awesome Tama drizzled with the (special) soya sauce and topped with seaweed, chili powder and sesame seeds. This chicken Tama is one of my favourite too and a lot of my friend's top most favourite. Definitely a must try if you are at Techno!

Other than chicken tama, they have salmon, ebi tama too!

Along side with the mains are the Japanese rice, miso soup and seaweed salad. Where can you find such good food at $4?

Chicken Tama ($4)

Jap Curry Chicken Rice ($3.50)

 There are 3 drink stalls in techno, coffee/tea/milo/etc., fruit juices/ fruits and soy milk. It's cheap and good. Where can you find 50cents green tea nowadays, and where can you find $1.40 fresh mixed fruit juice? I won't say much about the taste of the drinks or anything since I can't really tell the difference but I would say it's definitely cheaper than outside!

Techno edge is still a great place for the students there, with prices of food cheaper than outside!

Singapore Island Hopping

This is a great short getaway from the bustling city life, the in-thing and insta worthy trip: Island hopping (St John Island, Lazarus Island and Kusu Island).

Prior to this trip, we made sandwiches to bring there as there are no places selling food and water in the 3 islands. But no worries if you do not want to prepare or it's an impromptu trip. There are small shops at the ferry centre selling snacks, drinks, breads and sandwiches too.

Take the MRT to Marina South Pier (North-East line) and exit from either exits, the harbour is quite prominent.

Purchase the ferry ticket from this counter. $18 for round trip + admission fee to all the islands.

Its time to board our ferry! (Seasick alert... Seasick alert!) advisable to bring some 无花果 or 酸梅!

Welcome to St John Island! 

Clear your bladder at this island first before you hop ( I mean walk) to the next island, Lazarus Island! Because there is no toilets at Lazarus island.

Is a walkable distance from St John to Lazarus! From St. John to Lazarus, you will see a lot of cats! There's this toilet and is filled with cats, cats and cats!

You get to see some trees with buttress roots (remember? Our geography lessons) and pencil-like roots for mangrove trees! Secondary school's Geography recap session...

The path separating St John Island and Lazarus

The Lazarus Island's beach is pretty!

Panorama view of Lazarus Island Beach

We spent practically most of our time here at the Lazarus Island's beach, so we choose a strategic location there (under a tree) and spent a lazy afternoon there, enjoying the sea breeze and spent a quiet  afternoon there. The island is quite empty except for the few of us who board the ferry just now. 

NomNomBomBom :D

Our home-made sandwiches for picnic at the lazarus island!

Picnic time!

The cheese melted under the hot weather!

And by 230pm we need to get back to the harbour, if you missed it, that's it, you will have to spend the night there and wait for the next ferry the next day. No kidding here (for weekdays)!

After around 15mins of the journey, we arrived at Kusu island!

It's another island which looks more developed and a few temples. There's some temples that are located at the top, which means you will have to climb some stairs to get there. In lieu of our limited time there (we need to take the ferry back at 4pm), we just took a walk around the whole island and chill. There are some cute monkeys there too!

And time really passes quite fast and soon it's 4pm and we took the ferry back to Marina South pier! Journey is about 30mins! There were this custom check before we can step back into Singapore but no, there's no passport checking haha!

Okie that's for our one day island hoping in Singapore!

McDonald's Customized Burger

If you didn't see this blog's title, you may think that this is probably some cafe's burger. But is not.

Presenting to you, McDonald's customized burger set! 

The branch we went to was Jurong East's. There were a few machines where you can customize your meal and set. You can choose the type of bread, the veges you want, what type of cheese and sauce. Sadly, there is only beef patties available, I was looking forward to seeing other meat patties. Anyway, the beef patty was angus beef.

You can choose to get just the burger or with the set.

Set includes fries and a drink(you can choose your drinks from the machine).

After which a receipt will be printed out, you can either choose to pay via nets or you proceed to the counter to pay.

We were given the round disc and then they said that they will serve us our meal shortly. Oh and you can order the extra value meals set at the machines too. 

Our EVM and the customized burger was sent to us! 

Verdict: more expensive than the EVM of fast food restaurants, but cafe look burger with a cheaper price tag! 

SMRT EMA Programme Interview

Season of job finding for undergraduate is up!

Just want to share my experience with my recent interview at SMRT. Attended a talk in late September 2015 at my institution hosted by the HR personnel and executive level engineers of SMRT. Mainly the talk was about the path of an engineer in SMRT undergoing the EMA (Engineer and Management Associate Programme).

Just short after the talk with the week i sent my resume and details to graduates@smrt.com.sg  with the subject header SMRT EMA programme. At around early October they got back to me asking me to fill in more details. Till mid October they sent me a reply: 

Dear Applicant,

Thank you for your interest in the 2014 SMRT Engineering and Management Associates (EMA) Programme!

We are pleased to inform you that you have progressed to the next round of the selection process.

There are 4 stages of selection process for this programme, please refer to the diagram below.

Shortly after the link for the first test was sent to me. It was a cognitive test for the position of Engineering & Management Associate with SMRT. It consisted of 4 different test: numerical reasoning (some simple maths with difficult phrasing LOL), verbal reasoning (back to primary school comprehension but more difficult), logic test (alot of patterns and asking you to continue on with more patterns) and finally decision making. The test was not difficult but tedious so a small tip is rest in between the test or you will get burn out easily.

After doing the test i waited for around 1 week and the next email was sent to me saying that i was shortlisted for stage 3 of the application process and the first stage interview will be in one week time with the location at Kim Chuan Depot near Tai Seng. My slot was at 830am  which means i must wake up super early><.

Stage 3: Assessment centre

After arriving at Kim Chuan depot and exchanging pass with the security, I went in down to basement 1 and saw many others waiting to enter the interview site. People were friendly and shaking hand here and there the vibe was good and didnt give me much pressure either.

After submitting our additional information in hardcopy form, we were ushered to a room which looked like a class room. I was given a sticker which had C5 (this indicated what group i am in) on it. By the way the sticker is super not sticky zzz keep dropping..... 

Soon after everyone arrived for our timeslot which was about 20 people the HR started to give out papers and question papers, On the question paper there are 2 section: 

SECTION A: 4 different technical questions mainly: CHOOSE ONE ONLY

1. 3 diffferent of brakes (airplane, trains and cars) explain how they work

2. Explain how a circuit breaker work.

3. Explain something on railway engineering ( My fren attempted this cause he said he watched on documentry b4 -.- surprisingly he passed LOL)  

4. Explain quality engineering and importance of QC ( I Attempted this cos i had no other knowledge of others)

SECTION B: 2 different situational questions: CHOOSE ONE ONLY

1. When a train break down in the tunnel explain the most important feature which can help passengers escape ( I chose this haha hint: observe carefully what is at the side of the tunnel)

2. Totally forgot what this question is cos time is running out

After time is up the paper is collect phew finally over den he gave out more paper WTHHHHH. A case study of around 4 pages was given out describing the problems SMRT is facing and the after effects of the problems that occured. We had to write an essay of one page to fully describe how we will tackle the issue as one of the management. (TIPSSSS: Pls do this seriously cause this will lead to the next part group discussion). After finishing we were split into groups of 6 (TAKE NOTE: Remember i said that i had a C5 stuck onto my chest? Take note of those with the same alphabet as you they are your "enemies" hahahaha )

In the group of 6 we were being led into the BATTLEFIELD (a smaller room). There is a table in the middle of the room and 2 person were sitting at the end of the rooms taking notes when we entered. We were told to ignore the presence of the 2 person sitting at the end and carry on with our task. On the table there are 6 pieces of paper ( SUPRISE: ITS YOUR ESSAY) and we were told to sit down around the table at the allocated seats with the number indicating which number are we so as to let the assessors (the 2 person sitting at the end of the room) know who we are. Together with the essay we wrote we were give a list of solutions with a monetary value underneath it. The main purpose of the discussion was to solve the current SMRT issues with the list of solution given, however with the limited funds we can only choose from a few of those solutions hence explains why there is the monetary value there. ****I SHALL NOT GO INTO DETAILS OF WHAT EXACTLY TO CHOOSE HAHAHAHA ****

Still remember why i said this was a battlefield because everyone has to fight for the opportunity to talk. (TIP1: During the discussion show the assessor you are capable of leading by starting the ball rolling for e,g asking questions or asking for opinions) (TIP2: When you are brainstorming of what solutions to use please be prepared that other people will shoot down your idea to show that they are thinking vice versa think of stuff to shoot others) 

After the intense discussion we had to present the final solutions we had chosen to the the 2 assessor (one was a senior engineer and another was a senior HR) The presentation was fine however the questions they asked were very tricky and makes you think that you are wrong (TIP3: Try to defend your point and not totally agreeing with the assessors) Also you will be surprised that the assessors listened to every detailed that we discussed really is every single detail. After the grueling almost 40 mins presentation our session finally end. We are the lastest group among our timeslot to end i guess the assessors liked us hahahahaha. 

Finally we were led to a room followed by a debrief by the HR and some light SNACKS ( I am so hungry hahaha it was almost 1pm and i definitely cannot resist the hello panda infront of me). END OF STAGE 3!!!!

Stage 4: Panel Interview

After waiting for 1 week + i gotten back an email telling me i have been short listed for the final round panel interview at the same site. YOOOOHOOO!!!!

Upon arriving i saw the room with around 30+ people and after asking around i found out approx 30 ppl made it through to the last round. In my group 4 out of 6 were chosen i knew the assessors liked us hahahahahaa. 

We started of with a tour around the complex looking at how the depot operates. BLAH BLAH BLAH...hahah the tour was fun but i shall not go into details. Next a sharing session with the HR director was done (hehe recieved a SMRT power bank as a souvenir). 

Finally after all these misc stuff we were led to a room to wait for our panel interview. Each panel interview consist of 2 interviewers and 3 interviewees. Upon reaching this final stage with so little people left we were unintentionally hinted by the hr talking to us while we were waiting that around 2/3 of the people here will be accepted. So if you made it into the last round CONGRATS!!!! The interview was straightforward with the interviewers asking question like introduce yourself, what problems you encountered and how you solve it, what is the thing that will make you leave this organisation, why do you wanna join us.... blah blah blah all these typical questions. The interview was quite enjoyable and relaxing however one of my interviewer is a french manager other than having difficulties understanding what he is saying the interview was smooth. 

Finally all the rounds were over!!!!!

Offer Of Employment

After waiting for approximately 3 weeks i received a call! It was from SMRT YAYYYYYY the HR informed me that i was selected to join the organisation. The salary (not bad for current market ) , benefits (quite good la perma free transportation leh, alot of leave compared to other private companies.... blah blah), and the privileges we are entitled to was communicated to me. I was give 1 week to considered and get back.

Decision and impression of SMRT

After going through all these rounds i felt that the vibe in SMRT was very different from other companies that i went to for interview. Everyone felt like a big family and the working environment seems good. The programme is very structured and loads of opportunity to learn.

However i decided to reject the offer as I took up an offer from another company (SORRY NOT TELLING WHERE) but i highly recommend people joining SMRT. Even though our trains frequently break down but they are doing their best to fix it hahaha. 

So end of the day i accepted another company HAHAHAHAHA><

  

Choo Choo Chicken

Chicken!!!! Nowadays Korean chicken are the in thing now. All sorts of chicken chain stores popping up in Singapore.

However recently i tried a less well known store at cinelesiure. Haha this was all by chance during the celebration of army day cathay cinelesiure they gave out 40 dollars worth of store cash voucher with no additional conditions. Just nice one of it was a 10 dollar choo choo chicken cash voucher.

The store was located at a corner of the mall on the 4th or 3rd floor (haha i forgot) anyway it is easy to find. Once you enter the store there is the korean vibe, korean workers, korean style restaurant which makes u feel that you are at korea.

Once we sat down the waiter using is korean style english served us and we were give the menu. We chose the happy set (however take note there is the lunch set which is quite affordable and v suitable for one person dine in as we noe usually korean chicken restaurant thier portons are not single diner friendly).

The happy set contains 8 pieces of chicken (4 wings 4 drumlets). While choosing the flavors (we can choose up to 2 flavors) we first decided upon the soy chicken which was proven to be the store best seller while the other flavor we chose was the garlic (recommended by the waiter). Other than the chicken there is also a rice burger! We were quite excited about it as we are certain this is not the mos burger type of rice burger. Also 2 drinks were part of the set (non-alcohol).

Before the food was served plastic 2-fingers gloves were given to us so that we can eat with our hands or rather fingers ( however utensils are also provided for those who do not want to use their hands ).

Finally the chicken is served first! The chickens served were piping hot and smelled absolutely delicious. We tasted the soy one first UHHHHHMMMMMM the smell was so nice, the taste undeniably is as nice too. The taste of the sauce coating was mildly sweet and not over powering which did not over power the taste of the chicken. Furthermore the mild sweet taste does not make you feel sick of it. The chicken was tender and the skin was very very well done. The crispiness was wad you absolutely crave for when you eat fried chicken and there was not a tinge of oiliness. Next the garlic flavor it was not as good as the soy one as there is some unidentified black substance on it which makes it slightly bitter. However the meat was still tender and soft hence no complaints over it.

Other than the chicken the rice burger! It was like kimbap, totally kimbap (korean sushi) taste. We ordered the beef bulgogi flavor. It felt like i was back in korea buying my daily kimbap breakfast from their convenience stall ( you all must think that huhhhhh convenience stall ar so lousy i dun wan, however for those who went to korea should noe that the food offered in their convenience stall will not lose out to outside restaurant), which brings me back to korea once again.

Overall the store was actually tbh one of the better fried chicken store i had tasted in Singapore, Worth a try!!!!

Choo Choo Chicken Orchard Cineleisure
Orchard Cineleisure, 8 Grange Road #03-06 Singapore 239695 (Somerset MRT)
Tel: +65 6299 0980
Opening Hours: 12pm – 11pm Daily

The Usual Place

Calling all Westies!!! A new cafe in Jurong East (near Chinese Garden MRT) has just opened!

The Usual Place Cafe

We arrived this place at around 2pm and there were surprisingly quite a few people there at this time.
The place was rather cosy (small), would expect it to be quite packed during peak hours!

Here's the menu!

We ordered our food at the counter and after a short wait, our food was served!

Honey Soy Chicken ($8.90nett)
With a generous portion of straight cut fries and greens!
The chicken was nice, it was juicy and the sauce made it really flavourful! Yummy!

This cafe ride on the craze of salted egg dishes and Tada~
Salted egg prawn pasta ($12.90nett)

On the first mouth of this pasta, it tasted salty, the salted egg taste was mild. But after a few mouthful of it, the salted egg taste started to get obvious and it became rather addictive (salted egg dishes fan here :P )!  The prawns (5 of them) were fresh and goes really well with the salted egg sauce too.

On a side note, there is no GST and service charge! And there's free flow iced water provided too!

Panorama view of the cafe

If you stay in the west side, do visit this cafe! The price is quite reasonable, and in fact a little cheaper than most cafe!

Website

Opening Hours:
Lunch: 11am - 3.30pm
Dinner: 5.30 - 10pm 
 

Address: 

346 Jurong East St 31 #01-73, Singapore 600346

Nearest MRT: 

Chinese Garden (Walkable distance)

Bangkok Street Mookata

Mookata literally means pan pot in Thailand, is a kind of steamboat from Bangkok.

As seen from the picture, you grill the ingredients on the center and the soup is at the circumference of the pan. Usually, pork lard is used to grill the ingredients (and prevents the meat from sticking on the pan), and basically all the oil from the meat will flow down to the soup, enhancing the flavor of the soup. But, one more important aspect about Mookata is the Thai spicy sauces!!!

I have been to a few mookata places and today the one I am reviewing about this Mookata in Jurong West!
Bangkok Street Mookata!

Location: 4/5 (walkable distance from lakeside mrt, or else you can take bus 49/335 and alight after Yuhua Sec Sch and walk there, if you drive, there are a lot of HDB carparks around)

Price: 4.5/5

Food: 4/5

Service: 3.5-5 /5 (service was quite slow when it first started, but now, it is really fast. Waiters are efficient too!)

Ambience: It’s in a kopitiam (depends on yourself) and is really crowded with people

Here’s the menu:

 

For the sets, there is a set for 2 and a set for 4. I have tried both before and I would say if you are here for the first time/ first time eating mookata, do try out the set so you will know what you wanna order next time for ala carte. The portion is enough for the number indicated if you are not a big eater. What we usually do was that if 3 of us are eating, we will order a set for 2 then ala carte a few more meat.

If you know what you want to order, do order the ala carte because i feel it's more worth it.

Meh…

Shisamo is a nono for me. I think it’s not a really wise choice to include this in the menu, cos I really don’t fancy this fish, same goes for my family. I think shisamo is still meant for deep frying, more than grilling. If you ordered this set, and want to try it, please add this as the last ingredient. Warning: the eggs of the shisamo will flow into the soup so it will make the soup unpleasant (for me) /nice (if you like it).

Thai fish cake is a nono for bf. I personally did not try it but according to him, it taste weird, so I’ll just give it a miss!

Fishball is a nono for mummy. The fishball is just a lump of fishy taste cake to her, cos it’s not the bouncy fishball but a more nua kind, but I still can take it cos there’s no pungent fishy smell, which means probably it’s fresh!

Egg

You can’t fry the egg, I repeat, YOU can’t fry the egg in the dome shaped pan! The egg will flow down into the soup! And the egg basically stucks to the pan and then if you removed it, the black chaotas that are stuck to the pan will fall in love with the egg.

Result= a clean pan but a chaotas-covered egg. L

The next option is to boil the egg(which probably takes a longer time than usual because the egg won’t be fully covered) or just break the egg and cook it with the soup or make egg flower(?).



Try these!

Chicken

There’s a love-hate relationship for the chicken. I like the chicken but it’s not that easy to cook cos it’s not a thin slice of chicken meat. Given its uneven surface and thickness, it is really hard to make sure every part is cooked.

Prawn

Grill the prawns, I like prawns a lot so I think it’s nice! It’s $3.90 for 4 or 5 prawns. Idk it’s 4 or 5 because when I ordered 2 servings of prawns, they gave me 9 prawns. And they are very considerate and thought of our needs, so they removed the shells, keeping the head and the tail shell intact. So you don’t have to use your hands to remove the shell at all, yes! Anyway the prawns are the bigger ones, and aka the king prawns.

Scallop

1 serving of scallop= 3 scallops. The scallops comes with their shells, but I’m not quite sure how to grill it with the shells so I usually removed it before grilling it (any idea is it to grill with the shell not?).

Hotdog

Ok this is a common ingredient in the steamboat scene but I still want to say it taste nice when grilled!

Pork Liver

They offer pork liver as well, this depends on whether you like pork liver or not. If you like it, you would think it’s nice and if you don’t, forget it then.

Vege

The oyster mushroom is unexceptionally nice, ok I’m biased here because I don’t eat that a lot at home or outside, so I think it’s quite a refreshing experience haha! Other than that, just order whatever vege you want and throw them into the soup. Le family favourite: jinzhengu, wangyabai, corn(my mum says enhances the flavor of soup), oyster mushrooms. Actually that was all we put in the soup. Meat is still the focus!

Must try!!!

Left: Marinated Pork Collar, Right: Pork Belly,  Bottom: Chicken
4 servings each

Marinated Pork Collar

Don’t be scared off by the word pork collar, because it’s just pork meat. This well marinated pork meat is what that keeps me going to this mookata. You don’t’ even have to dip into the thai chilli sauces, because it is just as delectable on its own, but of course, it taste as good if dipped.

Pork Belly

AKA sanzhanba (hokkien) and samgyeopsal(Korean). Who can resist this succulent piece of meat with layers of tender fats? This goes very well with the sauces since it is not marinated!

Recommended to grill this piece of meat first so that it can act as the cubes of pork lard given! Another recommendation is to wrap jinzhengu with this meat. It tastes really good! Disclaimer: this is my own recommendation, not by the boss!

Sauces

There are 2 types of sauces, the sweet one and the spicy one! My personal favourite is the mixture of the sweet and spicy one because I can't really take too spicy. But go for the spicy one if you like spicy stuff cos it's really good!

Pork lard is usually used as the oil to grill the meat. But if you don't like it, they have margarine/butter too. There are still some ingredients I have yet to try and I can’t comment on it so ya do try those in “Try these!” and “Must Try!!!”. ;)

Verdict: Must try if you stay in the west!

1. Address: 498 Jurong West Street 41, 640498
   Phone:9655 5771
2. Opening hours: 5pm-3am