Ru Ji Kitchen (Holland Drive Market)

Hello, I’m posting it on Holland Drive Market (instead of the Maxwell branch) as I know this is the main branch and I am a regular here, and the boss is usually at this branch.

My day started off with a family breakfast at my place. My wife jio-ed me to eat ruji BCM as we miss ruji meatballs since Holland Drive’s branch been closed for 2 months for reno. So we decided to come here, jio-ed our families to the Maxwell branch. Hyping them up to the fabulous ruji BCM.

We took an hour to travel here from across Singapore. Upon reaching here, Maxwell is crowded as always. We still decided to queue for ruji.

At the stall, we ordered 5 bowls in total, splitting 3-2 bowls by 2 different people (wife and me) to queue so as not to confuse the 2 uncles. Wife ordered 3 bowls - 1 (1) and 2 (2)s. Lol. When we saw the (2), we immediately called it out to the uncles that (2) should be all meatballs and not 2 fishball 1 meatball. (See the photo!!! Its meatball for (2)) the uncles told us its standard. Wa the uncle cooking even screamed and scolded my wife saying, “if want all meatball must say!!!” Grr… what even. After scolding and mumbling, they angrily changed the 2 fishballs to 2 meatballs. Ok cool, told wife to go back to our seats first.

Next is my turn, I ordered the 2 bowls now. Explicitly told them what I want in a stern tone so they don’t guailan me, ALL MEATBALLS!!! Uncle didnt had enough meatballs so he opened the fridge on the right to pour some meatballs out. Unfortunately, one fell onto the floor. My heart skipped a beat. 💔 but it shattered into a thousand pieces when the meatball was kicked around, and I saw the counter uncle picked it up and, went to wash it and pass it to the cooking uncle!!! 💔💔💔 i still saw that the cleaning standard sign was A!!! Omg. 😱😱😱

The meatball is probably in my tummy now and I’m psycho-ing myself the germs is boiled with hot water and disappeared. 🫠

Anyway i’m spending 20mins of my family time to write this review with a hope for improvement. I hope uncles be more customer obsessed, and also be more careful when preparing food because I love ruji BCM and cant wait for Holland Village Drive Market to grand opening again tomorrow (or Tues since Ruji is closed tomorrow).

Thank you for reading.

Back at one of my best spots to get handmade fishballs and meatballs. Ru Ji Kitchen has been a family favourite for a long time now - we always get their fresh fishballs and meatballs for steamboats at home! Their default bowl of noodles come with just the fish cakes and fishballs, but I highly recommend to top up a dollar for the meaty meatballs which are so satisfying.

PS. Just saw that they’ve just opened a new outlet at Maxwell Food Center too!

My fav meepok!...good fishballs, fish cakes and the chilli!

One of my all-time favourite handmade fishballs and meatballs are from Ru Ji Kitchen - their fishballs are soft and bouncy, while the meatballs are tender and super substantial. The default bowl doesn’t come with meatballs, but we always top up for them at 2 for $1. These have been my fam’s to-go for our many homemade steamboats for the longest time! Their noodles are not the very best, but we still enjoy it as a whole a lot with its clean tasting soup. Definitely recommend to have the noodles on the spot as they clump up pretty quickly if you do takeaways.

Handmade fishball here is excellent.

The queue is quite long and seems to be 1 of the more popular stalls here at HDMFC.

Noodles also quite good also.

The neighbours are the same stall, except one serves bcm(meatball) and the other fishball. To save time, go for bcm(much shorter queue) and just add on fishballs, they will bring over from the other side

Sambal was homemade and unique, there's this tang. Do ask for more sambal else the noodles can be abit tasteless. Soup was light and sweet, but the highlight were obviously the fishballs. Soft and slight bouncy, it breaks into small curds so there's a bit of the melt in your mouth quality. Fishcake was slightly inferior.

Meatballs were good too, it's closer to fishballs than the meatballs you imagine, it's tender and bouncy as well