- The Shop

Fan Play is a food stall located inside Carrefour hypermarket, under the Deli Section near the fruits and vegetable section. Their signature is the smooth cheong fan (also know as rice noodle roll / chee cheong fun where chee cheong means pig intestine, and fun means noodle; this is because the noodle resembles the small intestine of a pig).

Unlike the usual cheong fun with sweet sauce, Fan Play introduces savoury gravies atop silky smooth cheong fun that imported fresh from Ipoh, which the historic town is famous for. Robert the owner took a lot of efforts to source for the best Cheong Fun manufacturers in Ipoh. And the secret behind the good texture of their cheong fun? Just rice flour and water!

- The Food

Organic Soybean Milk @ $1.50

I really enjoy this soya milk A LOT. The flavorsome soybean milk is not diluted, not too sweet and has a nice fragrant of soybean.

Cheong Fan with Savory Brown Sauce & Beer Batter Dory Fillet @ $4.50 Their special light and toothsome brown sauce married cheong fan so perfectly that I do not want the usual sweet sauce anymore! And if we are not wrong, there was some minced meat in the sauce.

They are not stingy on the beer, we were told that they use 1 can of beer for 4 piece of dory fillet! The Beer Batter Dory Fillet does not have the frozen taste and fried to perfection.

Cheong Fan with Chicken Cuttle in Curry Sauce @ $4.50 Strange as it may sound but it taste good! The mild curry sauce goes really well with the crispy juicy chicken cuttle.

Cheong Fan with Teriyaki Chicken in Sichuan Kung Pao Sauce @ $4.50 Their latest creation also the most unique sauce, gives you a taste of sweetness and leave a dash of spiciness lingering thereafter. The spiciness was ok to me, but a little spicy for the rest. The teriyaki chicken was a little tough compare to the chicken cuttle.

Cheong Fan with Lasak Gravy n Side Dish @ $3.90 I know you may be scratching your head, first was the curry sauce and now lasak? Yes, that's what Fan Play is all about, Playing with sauce that go well with the cheong fan to suite our local palate. The delectable lasak gravy has nice flavour of dried shrimp. I thought I was eating the real lasak!

The add on side dish - Five Spice Minced Meat wrapped in Beancurd Skin, Fish & Pork Meat wrapped in Beancurd Skin and Fried Wanton are selling at $0.50 each and can be purchase to add on to any of your cheong fan.

Sar Kok Liew (stuffed yam bean) @ $0.80 each

The turnip gives a sweetish flavour while the beancurd provides a slightly salty taste, its chewy & crunchy bites make you want to have more.

- My Opinion

Honestly I never thought cheong fan can be so filling! I was even planning to have supper with my husband after the tasting as I assume I will only be half full. But I was so wrong. The serving was as good as one bowl of noodles!

The cheong fan is so smooth and soft that it glides down my throat. I truly like the brown sauce, light and so tasty. If you prefer a unique taste, go for the Sichuan Kung Pao Sauce, enjoy the sweetness and be hit by the spiciness.

Please visit www.CelestialDelish.com for full review and photos

For photos, please visit Rubbish Eat Rubbish Grow.

The uniqueness of Fan Play is that it imports its chee cheong fun (CCF)directly from Ipoh as its texture is different from Singapore’s and Hong Kong’s CCF. It is much smoother but with a sticky finish. The flavor would come from the sauce. You can choose from brown sauce (with minced pork) or curry sauce, costing $2.50. The curry sauce is more Ipoh style which is similar to Indian style, heavy on spices, and not so much Singapore which has more coconut.

But wait, CCF can be eaten any time of the day! It’s NOT just breakfast food.

Beer battered fish with CCF in brown sauce ($3.90). The brown sauce is a very, very light soya sauce, not at all salty. The batter on the fish is thin and crispy but overly salty; fish is fresh.

Chicken cutlet with CCF in curry sauce ($3.90). Although it looks quite Japanese, the curry sauce is more skewed towards the Indian curry. This is my favorite meat of the lot: tender and the crust is so crisp!

Marinated chicken with CCF in kung-pow sauce ($3.90). Indubitably, this CCF sauce is our favorite, which may say how boring we are, because it tastes a lot like our sweet sauce in CCF, and not so much dried-chilli spiciness of kung-pow. Marinated in soya sauce, garlic and oyster sauce, the chicken is quite similar to Japanese teriyaki; this meat is Pierre Goh’s favorite.

Laska CCF with fried wanton, fu-zhou (in a shape of a bar) and ngoh hiang ($3.90) is our least favorite. The fried items, by themselves, are already quite jerlat (excessive), and when you add them to the heart-attack-inducing laksa, it is quite over-the-top for us. However, the laksa is very delicious, the real stuff. The tastes of laksa and cheong fun are separate, ie, the cheong fun hasn’t soaked up the laksa. Perhaps more laska sauce would be nice too.

Saving the best for the last. Highly anticipated is the Ipoh specialty, sar kok liew (add $0.50 to the CCF). Directly translated into “stuffed yam bean,” it is in fact turnip and is more complicated. The chef told us that the ingredients must be in a perfect balance before he wraps them up in beancurd skin. If not, the skin will burst open. It must be fried correctly too; if not, the piece will disintegrate. Every process of making this sar kok liew is tedious, intricate and delicate.

The taste? It tastes like hash brown at first, ending with a sticky sweet nian-gao (年糕) aftertaste.

Don’t forget to order the less sweet organic soyabean milk ($1.50), powered by healthier fructose (not cane sugar). It has a quite unique taste too: malty like Horlicks.

This is a kiosk, no seats, few standing tables. The food is not bad, and quite different from Singapore food, and value-for-money. Remember: CCF is not only for BF; you can have Fun at all times.

Edit: The chef has left Fan Play and a new chef has taken over. This review is written when the first chef was around.

For photos, please visit: http://www.sgfoodonfoot.com

When I was invited by Fan Play to try out their Chee Cheong Fan, I was asking myself will I be full? What is so special about it? Is there a post angle for my readers? I guess you probably have the same questions in your head now. Well, I have to say I was totally wrong about it. Glad that I went down to check out the Cheong Fan and I can proudly share this post with you.

Fan Play is actually located inside Carrefour at the Deli section on level 1. The short cut is to cut through the cashier counters, turn right and walk all the way to the end. Patrons can actually take away or dine inside Carrefour. There is a stand up dining area with some tall tables just in front of the stall.

Robert the owner told us that the Cheong Fan is specially imported from Ipoh twice weekly which the historic town is famous for. He tried manufacturing it in Singapore but it was not as good. He said the water used in Ipoh is different and hence the difference in texture. Besides the authentic Ipoh Cheong Fan, Fan Play also introduces savory gravies atop the silky smooth Cheong Fan.

When the Beer Battered Dory with Brown Sauce ($4.50) was served, my first thought was this is Hor Fun not Cheong Fan. Robert explained that it is indeed authentic Ipoh Cheong Fan as it is made from rice flour and water only. I mentioned earlier that I was sceptical whether I will be full since Cheong Fan is usually eaten as a snack. Look at the serving, it is as good as a full meal!. The beer battered dory was crisp on the outside and moist in the inside. The highlight has to be the special brown sauce. The sauce was light for the palate that just married the cheong fan perfectly.

Curry sauce for Chee Cheong Fan. You may think this is crazy but surprisingly it matched very well with the cheong fan. The Chicken Cutlet with Curry Sauce ($4.50) is like have a plate of curry katsu don except substituting the rice with cheong fan. If you love curry, this will be for you.

Fan Play really PLAY with their chee cheong FAN. No wonder they called themselves FAN PLAY. Who on earth will come up with cheong fan with sichuan kong pao sauce? The Terakayi Chicken with Sichuan Kong Pao sauce ($4.50) is sort of a fusion dish to me. I enjoyed how the sauce hits me with sweetness and left my taste buds lingering with the sichuan spiciness.

If you are pure vegetarian that does not take garlic and onion, Fan Play has the Vegetarian Cheong Fan with Mushroom Sauce ($3.00). I was challenged to taste a special ingredients in the sauce and I thought it tasted like ginseng but it turned out to be Dang Gui also known as Chinese Angelica Root.

To suit the local palate, Fan Play has also innovated and introduced the Cheong Fan with Laksa Sauce. The Cheong Fan with Laksa + 3 Add On Ingredients ($3.90) is definitely value for money. Each add on ingredients is $0.50. The add on ingredients from bottom up are Five Spice Minced Meat wrapped in Beancurd Skin, Fish & Pork Meat wrapped in Beancurd Skin and Fried Wanton. They are all very good. If I need to choose one, I would go for the fish & pork meat wrapped in beancurd skin as my favourite.

I shared with the chef that the Laksa gravy was very nice and I can taste the distinct dried shrimp flavours. In simple word, it simply taste like laksa. Unfortunately, I thought that cheong fan felt separated as it didn't absorb the gravy. The chef was very receptive and even suggested serving in a bowl with more laksa gravy and tweaking the texture by having the cheong fan in smaller pieces. I look forward to them refining the dish. If they can get the formulae right, it will be a hit with the local.

This is my first encounter with the famous Ipoh Sar Kok Liew or known as Stuffed Yambean ($0.50/pc). Accordingly to the chef, this is very labour intensive and availability is subjected to his mood. Many layers of textures await you as you bite into it. The crisp from the outer layer, the chewy texture that felt like eating nian gao and the crunchy juicy chopped bites of the stuffed yambean was something very enjoyable that one is never enough.

If you do not like your soya bean drink too sweet, then I think the Organic Soya Bean Drink ($1.50) at Fan Play will probably suit your taste buds. The drink had a stronger soya bean flavour compared to most which I enjoyed and preferred. In my own opinion, it tasted more natural.

[Update] - Please note. I understand the Chef has left and they have a new replacement. Heard from my friend the standard has dropped too. Apologize if you have any bad experience after my recommendation.