NGUAN Roasted (Pioneer MRT)

This “trendier” looking store front caught my eye when it first opened. With favepay, gimmicky marketing taglines like “daily protein bowl”, it surely stood out from the traditional roasts stalls. Expectedly, there’s no “char” on the charsiew cooked via the old school methods but it terms of taste, it isn’t too far off and in face, pretty good. Here’s a $3.50 pack of charsiew rice, laden with 2 types of gravy - 1 charsiew and 1 ‘brown’ gravy (the typical gravy you get from economical rice stores). While they used to allow you to pick and choose from a selection of veggies - cucumber, broccoli etc, they only offer cucumbers now! It’s a really value lunch in you need some quick and pocket- friendly roast for comfort!

Found this rather hipster roast meat stall in the most unexpected of places at the link bridge of Pioneer MRT Station. The Paradise Bowl comes with a choice of grains (Oil Rice, Brown Rice and White Rice) whilst also coming with four types of meat of the patron’s choice (roasted meat, roasted pork, roasted chicken and Char Siew for our order), along with braised egg, braised tofu and vegetables — essentially the full works in a pretty gigantic portion size. Don’t expect the wheel to be reinvented where it concerns the execution of the meat; it is nothing life-changing, but the meats were considerably tender — the roasted pork stood out from the rest without being too fatty and with a crisp skin and flavourful spice rub. Otherwise, the brown rice was actually well-cooked, and the braised tofu comes all soft and silken. They seemingly serve their meats in Protein Bowl format too, allowing patrons to pair the meats up with salad — a pretty interesting concept that deviates from the usual roast meat stall.