It was a rainy afternoon when I went, and that must be why the crowd was sparse. Within 15 mins, our orders were filled and we munched our way through. Though heavy on the oil, the fish was fresh, and the chicken well fried (slightly over-fried).

Notorious for its long history of prostitution, Geylang Road, fronted by low-rise shophouses – protected from urban redevelopment in keeping with its history and heritage – is also famous for the delicious food offerings. And Sik Wai Sin Eating House, once voted Top 50 restaurants in Singapore by the Sunday Times along the likes of Morton’s, Au Jardin, Les Amis, Iggy’s, and Garibaldi, is one of them.

Although located in a dingy tiny coffeeshop, Sik Wai Sin is nothing short of a stalwart in Cantonese-styled Tze Char (literally means “cook and fried” in dialect). In order to bring out the best in each dish, HFB quickly realised that one do not have many choices when it come to dishes to order – almost every table was eating the same fare!

Stir-fried KaiLan with Garlic was well fried, and wasn’t over-cooked – with stump of the vegetables still retaining crunch. The savoury sauce was flavourful, but dish was oily overall.

One of their signatured dishes, the Homemade Tofu Fried with Giant Prawns, in Egg Sauce was a joy to consume. The tofu was well woked with aroma, and the prawns, lip smacking juicy and crunchy – certainly a brilliant pairing with a bowl of rice.

The Steamed Minced Pork with Salted Fish certainly brings back the good old memories from my grandparents’ time. A dish, which HFB would claim to be traditional, he reckons not many youngsters nowadays would take to this dish because of the fishy smell (from the salted fish). Although another nice dish to go with the rice, HFB finds that the dish was slightly overcooked and thus, the meat was slightly tough. A pathetic serving of the salted fish, nevertheless any extra and the dish will be too salty for consumption.

The Steamed Fishhead is probably their trademark dish, and it was inevitable that one would find this on almost each and every table. Comes in only one serving size (big that is – we tried asking for small), the humongous fishhead can easily feed a handful of adults. Covered in Bean Paste and Pork Lard, it’s probably the latter that sets it apart from the many other steamed fishhead out there. Rid of the muddy taste of a typical fresh-water fish, the fish is fleshy and tender – so much so that even a non-fishhead eater has plenty of meat to go for. Go with a spread of the bean paste and a piece of lard and “nirvana” is the only word that came close to mind.

The last among all dishes served, the Sweet and Sour Pork wasn’t really worth the wait. Although the pork is nicely coated with an intensely tangy sauce captured via an incredible high heated wok, HFB found the meat a little too tough to chew – probably from over-frying. Since being served last, the meat also gets to one towards the end.

You can view all the photos here.

I like here the Steamed Fish Head and Steamed Minced Pork with Salted Fish, and then Double Boiled Soup (my favourite is watercress one).
The fish and minced pork are very fresh and tender. I invited my father's friend from Ipoh, he was so happy to suck the whole fish head until bones. You see? The choosy Cantonese man from Malaysia's best gourmet city has approved this place!!

They have other dishes like prawns and sweet&sour pork, my hubby likes them, but not so fantastic for me. I think they are very good at steaming.

Sik Wai Sin is a stalwart of Cantonese "cze-char" (literally "cook and fry", denoting all-rounder cooked food usually served with rice or noodles) and is famous for its small but supposedly impressive repertoire of homestyle cooking. It's one of the few local cuisines that got listed in the Straits Times poll of Singapore's Top 50 Restaurants. Definitely one place I had been wanting to try.

Hubby and I bumped into a friend at Swee Lee's warehouse sale and we all adjourned here for dinner. Wow, this place looked like it got trapped in the sands of time, like it hasn't changed since the 70's. I kinda liked the retro decor although I noticed the dim lighting cast a slight greyish blue pallor on the food (fortunately my camera flash eliminated that). This place is also notorious for long waiting times for seats. But since we came quite late (past 8.30pm), we managed to get a table without waiting.

We ordered three dishes - kailan simply stir-fried with garlic (they are known for the version with beef), tofu prawns and sweet-and-sour pork. As we did not take their signature dish of steamed fish head, the rather curt and feisty woman taking orders told us there were only "large" portions available for our dishes, no small ones. I guess that was to maximise the revenue from our table. Anyway, the vegetable arrived first. It was drenched in some slightly savoury sauce but overall it wasn't impressive.

It was awhile before the next dish arrived. The tofu was very thoroughly deep-fried and had a lot of wok hei (breath of wok) heat but had absorbed none of the flavour of the stock/gravy. Prawns were large and fresh (nicely deveined too!) but they too, didn't really taste that great. Lots of egg in the gravy, which went okay with rice.

We waited an even longer time for the final dish. The thing with this place is - they consolidate orders and cook in large batches, so there tends to be a wait for some dishes. Now, I had heard about the sweet-and-sour pork being one of the best in Singapore. That it was really crispy on the outside and with a more unusual tamarind-laced sauce. Well it certainly must have been fried under tremendously high heat, as the batter and meat surface formed a hardened shell. Hubby found it too tough and chewy. Still, I thought it was the best out of the three dishes. The other problem was - there was just too much of it. You can get a bit tired of it if you eat too much.

These three dishes plus a bottle of beer cost nearly $60. Pricey for a no-frills, non-airconditioned eatery. All in all, this first experience was a bit of a letdown given its reputation. I don't know, maybe we didn't get its better dishes? Pork patty with salted fish, steamed fish head (which looked better than I imagined) and such adorned almost every table there. But I'm not sure I'll be coming back all too soon.

Photos of the food here.

I was first introduced to this restaurant by my Taiwanese customer. He was surprised that i as a Singaporean do not know this restaurant. He told me this is the place he will immediately visit after alighting at the Changi Airport. He urged me to bring my Japanese boss to dine in this place as soon as i returned to Singapore. And so i did.

Me and boss had a hard time finding the restaurant as Geylang is usually crowded with many cars and people who do not follow the traffic rules very well.

As soon as we sit down, we ordered the signature dishes - Steam Fish Head and Black Chicken Herbal Soup.

The Steam Fish Head is served with fried pork lard and salty vege which makes it very tasty.

The Black chicken soup is also very rich in taste. These 2 dishes goes very well white rice.

We ordered a plate of vege for a balanced diet.