Case Of The Midnight Munchies 🍴

One of the best places to satisfy your k dessert or drink cravings in town with your family and friends, not just because of the taste, but also because Coffeesmith is open 24 hours.

Coffeesmith is a casual joint on the first floor of Orchard Gateway. This outlet has a pretty good and spacious layout. Apart from the drinks (I love their sweet potato latte), one thing we have ordered from the menu multiple times is this Choco Brownie Bingsu. Coffeesmith’s bingsu comes with finely shaved ice that isn’t bland at all. It melts in your mouth, not in the bowl. While the bingsu flavours aren’t super unique, they’re solid offerings. I do enjoy the brownies very much as they’ve got a dense, fudgey and super chocolatey flavour. The cocoa powder (maybe milo) is just sweet enough without being too overwhelming. There’s also a layer of cocoa powder right before you hit the bottom of the shaved ice stack, so it’s like spelunking and finding hidden gold. 🤣

From Soon Li Whitley Food Centre Pork Porridge stall:

This coffee shop is PACKED full of good food. Although we came for the ngoh hiang, we were so tempted to order everything else but settled on a steaming hot bowl of porridge to go with the fried fritters. I only realised after that the shop was named Pork Porridge so I probably should’ve gotten pork porridge instead, but I didn’t see it on the menu (only century egg porridge and sliced fish porridges on the signboard for some reason?). Anyway, the century egg lured me in and I have no regrets ordering this at all. The porridge takes a while to be served, but it comes piping hot! Don’t let the whiteness fool you, this bowl of porridge is full of flavour and doesn’t need any soy sauce to make it salty or flavourful. In fact, I was surprised to find salted egg inside the porridge as well! It was a really nice addition to the century egg. I think there was a whole century egg and half a salted egg in this porridge, very affordable at only $4 a bowl. I enjoyed the thinly sliced chicken meat as well, which was not at all stringy, and very tender and juicy. The taste of this porridge actually grows on you even more as you eat it, and Soon Li at Lao Zhong Zhong is definitely going to be a place I’ll put on my radar for porridge in the future, especially convenient because they cater to the late birdies as well. Perfect for a rainy day, late dinner or supper time!

I used to visit the Five Spice stall at the coffee shop near CCK bus interchange religiously as it’s great supper food for Westies and that has always been my benchmark for ngoh hiang, but Lao Zhong Zhong has knocked it completely out of the ball park with their ngoh hiang. I dare say that they don’t offer as wide a variety of ingredients as other ngoh hiang stalls do, but each piece is golden and worth a try for sure because they’re all fried to golden perfection. Crispy, but not dripping in oil! My favourites are the prawn fritter, ngoh hiang roll and the tofu. The tofu is some ho liao for sure - you can’t pick it yourself, they’ll only ask you if you want the tofu and the lup cheong when you pass them your plate. I’d say they’re both MUST ORDERS! The tofu is soft, sweet and pairs so well with the sauce. As for the lup cheong, I’m usually not a fan of Chinese sausage but the version here comes with more lean meat than fat meat and wasn’t too sweet or tough to chew! Genuinely enjoyed it. The coffee shop was packed even at 10pm, and I can see why because while the ngoh hiang is the star of the place, the other food stalls also serve up such delicious-looking food! I’ll be back for more ngoh hiang and to try the other stalls as well!

Healthy eats are notoriously difficult to find late at night. It’s probably because health-conscious individuals tend to eat earlier at proper meal times instead of having dinner past 9pm, but not everyone is that disciplined. Good news for those in the CBD or Telok Ayer area - My Awesome Cafe serves up nutritious and healthy food and beverages up till 11.30pm. Get your post workout fix here - be it a Salad, wrap, protein packed smoothie, shake or dessert.

The decor is super awesome as well, and they’re located in an old chinese medical hall. All their staff also wear t shirts proclaiming they’re awesome. How could you get more awesome than that? Overall a very chic hipster place to hang out with friends late at night but still have healthy food options available. Does tend to get super crowded on Friday nights and public holiday eves so note that it’s not really ideal for a quiet chat with your friends, and do book in advance to secure a table.

There are four signature flavours eligible for Burpple Beyond Chicken Pot redemption and this is one of them. If you’re not a fan of spicy food, yet want something full of savoury flavour, this would be a good choice.

I’ve tried a handful of chicken pots, and I would say this is the best I’ve had so far. The sauce is thick, fragrant and well balanced. It’s definitely not too salty, even if you eat it without rice. The portions of chicken in the small pot are good enough for 1 person, but you can always add more ingredients if you like. I particularly liked adding beancurd skin inside this pot to cook and soak up the savoury gravy.

Preferred having this pot ‘to go long’ over the ma la flavour, but it was nice to have the Numbing & Fiery chicken after a few bites of the House Special for that sudden punch of spice. Both of them make a good combination to order with Burpple Beyond!

Hadn’t visited this coffee shop for a while and it’s been under quite a drastic revamp. The fried porridge was gone for a while as the chef had left the stall, and the original stall replaced their signature dish with fried bee tai mak. While that was nice, I didn’t love it as much as the fried porridge so we stopped visiting.

Thankfully, the fried porridge is back, with a snazzy new shopfront in the same, but modernised coffee shop.

This was the small fried porridge (which serves 1pax) as we wanted to try the other items on the menu, but after my parents took a bite of the porridge, they decided we could’ve easily demolished a large. The fried porridge is thick, creamy, savoury, and everything you never thought porridge could be. It’s definitely not a ‘sick person’ food, and it’s so sinfully good, especially with the crispy pork lard toppings that add an extra crunch with the chewy porridge grains!

I’ve never had anything like this anywhere else, and the chef who dreamt this up is really a genius. This totally deserves to be their signature dish, and is a MUST ORDER! They open past 12am too so looks like this might be a new supper or late night dinner haunt for me in the future 😉

Red Holic opens till 2am so it makes the perfect supper or late night dinner spot. Even if you’re not dining with a group, there’s the option for the miniature Tteokbokki pots, or mandus. Prices are very reasonable for an eatery within city area, and the place is manned by 3 young Koreans. This is Korean comfort food at its best, and would be infinitely more comforting when savoured on a rainy day!

I haven’t seen giant mandus in Singapore before so this was a delightful surprise and a welcome reminder of my Seoul trip.

There are a few types of mandus on offer - these include the giant kimchi mandu, giant meat mandu, grilled meat mandu, and fried long mandu.

The giant mandus are quite affordable by Singapore standards at $2.50 Per piece. They’re steamed when ordered so you can be sure you’ll receive them piping hot!

Although these mandus couldn’t compare to the ones I had in Seoul, I found that they were not bad for a quick fix since we can’t travel to Korea as and when we have a mandu craving. They were both plump with meaty filling, but I was a little disappointed with the meat mandu as the filling tasted a little bland. Needed to dip it in the mandu dipping sauce provided to add a little more flavour. I preferred the kimchi one in this case as the kimchi added more taste to the meat filling! The mandu skins were soft and easy to bite through, yet still retained their integrity when handled with chopsticks. Overall quite a decent Korean mandu offering here in Singapore. Would return for both the stews and the mandu!