Usually I avoid plain porridge like the plague - on Monday, however, I had to look for some in the city area because I was feeling a bit under the weather. But if I was going to be forced to eat plain porridge, I wanted to try the good stuff - so based on the HGW review, I decided to give this place a chance.

Do note that I ordered my food to take-out, so this no doubt affected the taste and quality of the food when I eventually got to eat it half an hour later.

First, the plain porridge is smooth and not grainy like some other places. It comes with a few pieces of well-cooked sweet potato that add some taste and texture to it.

The dishes I ordered were:-

(a) Fried fish slices with onion and ginger -The fish slices were a bit too hard and didnt taste that fresh. The sauce was a bit too thick and obscured the taste of the fish, which on hindsight may not have been a bad thing. Maybe I should have gone for steamed fish.

(b) Steamed pork with salted egg yolk -While this was good, I thought it was a bit steep. And those who have tried the same dish with salted fish at Soup Restaurant will no doubt note the difference in quality.

(c) Bean sprouts with salted fish. This was pretty good as well, but I didn;t expect anything spectacular in the first place with bean sprouts.

All in all, the food was okay but not enough to change my views on plain porridge. Maybe I just didn't order the right dishes. On the other hand, this is the first porridge place I didn't hate, and will definitely consider returning to if I need a relatively oil-free healthy meal.

The service was great, though. Usually when I order take-out, most places just leave me sitting (or worse still, standing) awkwardly by the counter while I wait for the food to be prepared, glancing at my watch just so that I have something to do in the meantime. Here, not only was the food packed up really quickly, but the staff made sure I was comfortably seated and even gave me a free bowl of sweet soup (tian tang) while I was waiting. The soup wasn't half bad too. I should add that I didn't order much and the place was busy, so the good service was a bonus in that sense as well.