Hey Hive!
Recently, the Singapore government announced that there will basically be another lockdown, so unfortunately, we're unable to eat in restaurants and food courts/hawker centers now and can only do takeaways. We've also been limiting our time spent just being out in general, to be safe. So we've been ordering in and doing more takeouts nowadays.
So the other day we were at our neighbourhood shopping complex and after we got done with grocery shopping, we decided to get some dinner from the hawker centre/food court. The lockdown was still in place and dining in was prohibited so everyone could only get takeaways.
And we decided to give Yu Kee a try! They specialise in braised duck rice and kway chap (which is a Teochew noodle soup consisting of flat rice sheets in a soup made with dark soy sauce).
We've actually tried Yu Kee a number of times, but not so much from this branch because there's always a long line, even that day when we went there. But luckily neither of us were super hungry so we could afford to wait. It was less than 10 minutes anyway, before it was our turn to order.
Their menu mostly features their braised duck rice but with varying side dishes. They also have braised duck kway teow, noodles, porridge and of course kway chap. But we felt like having rice so both of us ordered their signature duck rice set with chili. Their chili is actually really good, and matches so well with their rice.
Anyway, after we got our order, we went straight home so we could eat it! Here's the bag and apparently they have quite the history, started since 1961! I did some research and Yu Kee actually started off as a hawker pushcart stall selling braised duck rice. And now they're a huge organisation with multiple brands like XO Minced Meat Noodles, Shi Jia, Penang Kitchen, My Kampung food court and of course, Yu Kee Duck Rice.
I could smell the duck rice even before opening the boxes and I was getting hungry just thinking about it so upon opening the bag, we got our duck rice packs out!
Each of their signature sets comes with sliced braised duck, a boiled egg, tau kwa slices, peanuts and preserved vegetables, all on top of a bed of their special brown sauce rice. We of course chose to add their signature chili as well.
And man, it was delicious! I never eat preserved vegetables if I can help it since I'm not a fan of the sourness, but since there were no other vegetables I ate it anyway. Everything else blended so well together, particularly the chili with the rice and duck. It had some crispy anchovies cut up in the chili so it had a crunch to it and was just the right about of spice and heat, so it gave the tau kwa extra taste too.
Yu Kee is probably one of my favourite duck rice stalls; it's always the first thing I think of when it comes to duck rice and I don't remember any other duck rice that can compare.
For dessert, Sean bought a cup of Do Qoo jelly dessert! I've actually written about them before, but it's a traditional Taiwan dessert consisting of grass jelly, aloe vera pearl jelly, and various taro balls.
It's actually really refreshing and delicious! The taro balls have quite a thick and chewy texture, and is quite the contrast from the soft jelly, but refreshing nonetheless. In a way it's actually kinda hydrating.
A perfect way to end the meal, in my opinion, after that saucy and slightly spicy duck rice. Delicious!
Thanks so much for reading!
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