新天地 | A Tze-Char Dinner

15th April 2014.
Xin Tian Di, 新天地 or loosely translates as New Heaven and Earth is a name that brings back nostalgia, the good ol’ days as one recall similarly named old school theme parks like Gay World and New World. However, Xintiandi is no hipster nostalgia café like Singpopo, instead it is a tze char place located within Henly Huat Drinks Food Court located at Blk 116 Bukit Merah View.

Located next to Tian Tian Hainanese Curry Rice, Xintiandi focus on tzechar classics like chilli crab, stir-fried French beans, pork ribs etc with a couple of unique dishes like Fried Fish Skin which goes really as a beer snack with some Carlsberg or Tiger beer or if you are non-alcholic like me, an iced Sour Plum Drink.

I was introduced to XinTianDi by Liang Wei whose uncle runs the place and we indulged ourselves with a couple of dishes that are considered must-tries at XinTianDi including a Three-Cup Chicken which was quite fragrant and the best part of was the rich gravy that coats the tender chunks of chicken. Comparing this to Goldleaf’s I thought XinTianDi’s Three-Cup Chicken has a stronger flavour but less hua tiao flavour.

The star of the dinner is a Crab Bee Hoon which has generous amounts of egg and the crab meat itself is very fresh with succulent and springy flesh. The noodles itself was thoroughly soaked with the crab flavours too. My only complaint is that the bee hoon is slightly dry. The aunties were very kind to offer us lemon water and extra serviettes to clean our hands after finishing our crab.

From what I gathered from Liang Wei, his uncle is a very traditional person who does not take short cuts in the cooking, getting the crabs fresh in the morning and getting involved in the preparation and he enjoyed his meals at XinTiandi and recommended me to try.



Overall, I thought my experience at XinTiandi calls for another revisit. I enjoyed the fried fish skins, three-cup chicken and the crab, would love to go back there someday with a larger crowd for the chilli crab and more of their tze-char fare! If you are wondering if this is a treat or invited session….nope, both of us paid about 30+ SGD for the meal for 2, which consists of the three-cup chicken, fried lettuce, fried fish skin and the crab bee hoon.

XinTianDi

新天地

Henly Huat Drinks Food Court

Blk 116 Bukit Merah View