Restaurant-quality zi char

Hungry for restaurant-style food at coffee-shop prices?

Zi char stalls may not offer the ambience or service of restaurants, but the frills are all in the food.

From fish maw soup at $10 to salted egg bittergourd for $8.80, get your fill of expertly cooked food without paying goods and services tax and service charge.

Here is a shortlist of the best value zi char places in town.

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Tat Lee Seafood

WHERE: 01-104, Block 204 Serangoon Central

OPEN: 11.30am to 2.30pm, 4.30 to 11pm daily, closed on some Tuesdays

TEL: 6382-2327/ 8654-4336

This hidden gem in Serangoon Central is located in a coffee shop best known for its braised duck stall.

But Tat Lee Seafood has its own fans. Go early on weekends because regulars take up most of the tables at dinnertime.

A signature favourite is Fried Chicken With Prawn Paste ($8 for small, $10 for medium, $12 for large). You can smell the dish being cooked from 50m away.

It is an ubiquitous zi char dish, but so many stalls get it wrong, often with an over-salty or fishy exterior and bland or undercooked interior.

Tat Lee Seafood's version is well-executed. The wings are cooked through, with no bloodiness inside. Every bite is flavoursome.

Owner Sing Cheo Liang, 57, reveals that the mid-joint wings are marinated overnight in premium prawn paste from Hong Kong. Hua tiao wine goes into the marinade to balance the prawn odour. The batter is a blend of seven ingredients that includes corn flour and rice flour for crispness.

Another star dish is Gong Bao Pork Belly ($10 for small, $12 for medium, $15 for large). Thin slices of pork belly are blanched and stir-fried in a house-blended tangy sauce of black vinegar, sugar and oyster sauce, which keeps the dish from being cloying.

Hotplate Beancurd Prawns ($12 for small, $15 for medium, $20 for large) are served on a sizzling hotplate with a pillowy bed of fried egg. The dish uses seawater prawns that are delivered daily.

If you want to take it away, it is packed in a plastic box and the dish comes drenched in a glassy cornstarch-thickened gravy with swirls of egg white.

The takeaway version looks and tastes home-cooked, a refreshing change if you are tired of eating out.

For an economical one-dish meal, go for the spicy Salt & Pepper Ribs Rice ($5), which is not on the menu. The pork ribs are cooked in a house-blended sauce of ground white pepper and fine salt.

The meat is firm yet yields easily when you sink your teeth into it. The white pepper and chilli padi make for a fiery combination. Ask for a less spicy version if you do not fancy having your mouth on fire. Opt for chicken if you prefer that.

The a la carte version of Salt & Pepper Ribs costs $8 for small, $10 for medium and $12 for large.

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Wang Lee Seafood Restaurant

WHERE: Yi Hao Coffee Shop, 01-30, Block 94 Toa Payoh Lorong 4

OPEN: 11.30am to 10.30pm daily

TEL: 8711-5600

The seats fill up quickly even on weekday evenings at this zi char joint, which attracts a regular following who go early or make reservations.

Chef Liang Hoong Boon, 44, who is from Malaysia, is co-owner and head chef. He started his zi char stall in 2008 in Kim Keat Avenue. It moved to Toa Payoh Lorong 4 in 2018.

The standout dish is Fragrant Chicken (Zhao Pai Jin Xiang Ji, $8 for small, $12 for medium).

Chef Liang uses chicken thigh, drumstick and wing, which he cuts into bite-sized pieces and marinates overnight in hua tiao wine, soya sauce, sugar and egg. The chicken is coated in a batter of corn flour and potato starch before being deep-fried.

He then stir-fries the chicken in a Thai-inspired sauce that contains slivers of torch ginger bulb, chilli padi, crispy curry leaves and lime juice.

The chicken is so skilfully fried that it remains crispy towards the end of your meal.

The Cereal Beancurd ($10 for small, $15 for medium) is deep-fried beancurd prepared in-house daily with fresh soya milk and eggs. The mixture is filtered twice, resulting in an exceptionally smooth texture. The beancurd comes covered in crispy cereal.

Do order the Fish Maw Soup ($10 for small, $20 for medium), made using premium fish maw that chef Liang pressure-cooks to springy tenderness.

For $10, you get a full bowl of soup that is packed with fish maw. The broth, simmered using ikan bilis, soya beans, pork bones and tee poh (dried flat fish), is rich with meat and seafood flavours.

If you are dining alone and want a one-dish meal, go for the Black Bean Sauce Beef With Bitter Gourd Rice ($5.50).

For non-beef eaters, opt for chicken or fish at $5 a plate. The bittergourd is blanched in oil and soaked in chilled water before cooking to rid it of bitterness.

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GLC Restaurant

WHERE: 121 Upper Paya Lebar Road

OPEN: 9am to 8pm, Mondays to Saturdays; closed on Sundays and public holidays

TEL: 6581-9338

This halal-certified establishment, which opened in 2005, serves up zi char dishes cooked by three Chinese chefs from Johor.

Once you order at the cashier, you do not have to wait for long before your food arrives.

The eatery is not air-conditioned. If you sit outdoors, be sure not to leave your seat as mynahs may descend on your food.

The standout dish here is the Salted Eggs Bittergourd ($8.80). Instead of using ready-to-use salted egg powder, the chefs blend their own sauce using whole salted egg yolks.

The bittergourd is cut into thick fries and battered and fried to a crisp. The seasoning is perfectly savoury and accented with crispy curry leaves. Slices of chilli padi lift the dish with spicy heat.

The bittergourd has only a slight trace of bitterness and is tender without being mushy.

The JB Beehoon ($5.50) offers good value, with a generous amount of ingredients such as caixin, prawn, fish cake and egg. A wok aroma permeates the beehoon, which comes slightly charred at the edges.

The Deep Fried Calamari ($13.80) is bland, though crispy and tender on the inside. The Sambal Calamari Ring ($13.80), with the sambal made in-house from scratch, is a better choice. The gravy is tasty and best mopped up with rice.

The Gan Xiang Chicken Dice ($12) tastes more like sambal chicken with an overload of spicy gravy, while the Black Pepper Chicken Dice ($12) I try on my second visit is too salty.

For those driving, traffic in the area can get congested during lunch hour. Go during off-peak hours to snag a parking space.

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Leong Ji Kitchen

WHERE: 01-10, Block 658 Punggol East

OPEN: 11am to 2.30pm, 4.30 to 11pm daily

TEL: 9026-1882

Head chef Wong Kin Yang and his wife Chong Yee Ling, both 43, run the stall, which they started in Bukit Merah View in 2005.

Between 2007 and 2017, they opened five more outlets, including an air-conditioned restaurant in Punggol Settlement and an eatery in Serangoon Central. All have since closed.

This outlet in Punggol East, which opened in August, is the only one remaining.

The standout dish here is Cuttlefish With Kangkong ($12). This dish alone is worth travelling the distance. Forget all other versions of cuttlefish with kangkong. Leong Ji's version is a layered tower of crisp goodness.

Topped with a generous heap of crushed peanuts, the first layer comprises crispy yam strips. The next layer is shredded green mango, followed by succulent pieces of blanched cuttlefish in a spicy chilli sauce.

Next are crunchy jicama strips, then the surprise: a bed of deep-fried kangkong cooked like tempura.

The entire tower is drizzled with a housemade rojak sauce made aromatic with torch ginger bulb and Penang prawn paste.

The sauce - inspired by the rojak in chef Wong's home town in Ipoh - can give rojak hawkers here a run for their money.

The Cai Pu Chicken ($9) is blanched kampung chicken smothered with a topping of crisp, diced preserved radish and a house-blended soya sauce. The chicken is skilfully prepared and has a tender yet firm texture.

But the stellar part of the dish is the accompanying tangy chilli dip made in-house with freshly hand-squeezed lime juice, garlic and shallots.

A popular dish among regulars is Intestine With Dried Shrimp ($15), featuring sang cheong, or pig fallopian tube, which is hard to find these days. While the texture of the sang cheong is crunchy, the gravy drowns the dish. I prefer a drier version.

The flat rice noodles in the Curry Hor Fun ($6) are expertly fried with a smoky wok aroma, but the curry is too watery for my liking.

Surprisingly, the dish works better for takeaway. The noodles absorb the curry gravy and turn more flavoursome.

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Mellvin Seafood Restaurant

WHERE: 01-01, 354 Joo Chiat Road

OPEN: 3pm to 1am daily

TEL: 6366-9985

This is literally roadside dining, as most of the tables are lined up along Marshall Lane, with a few more along Joo Chiat Road. Enjoy the laid-back atmosphere, reminiscent of dining in Malaysia.

The stall is run by head chef Lim Chew Beng, 45, and his wife Mandy Loh, 41. Chef Lim, who is from Seremban, Malaysia, came to Singapore at age 20 and started his stall in Woodlands in 2002. It moved to its current location in 2007.

Prices are modest at the stall, which also scores for presentation, using real flowers to accent dishes like its housemade Crispy Prawn Roll ($12 for small, $18 for medium, $24 for large).

The prawn rolls contain chunky pieces of prawn, pork, sotong paste and water chestnuts, which give a bouncy texture.

The best dish here is the XO Fried Vegetable ($10 for small, $14 for medium, $18 for large).

Pieces of brinjal, lady's finger and long beans are dipped in batter and fried. Mermaid fish lends crispness to the dish, while petai beans add crunch.

The vegetables are tossed in a housemade spicy XO sauce that contains dried scallop.

The dish does not taste oily and could be just the thing to win over those who hate eating greens.

The Curry Fish Head ($24 for small, $30 for medium) offers value for money with its fresh and sweet-tasting ang zhor fish head, instead of the usual angkoli.

The joint also serves a respectable version of KL Hokkien Mee ($6 for small, $10 for medium), known as tai lok meen in Cantonese. Much of the aroma and flavour comes from the use of pork lard that is fried in-house.

Instead of using udon noodles, the stall uses thick noodles with square edges, which are traditionally used in tai lok meen.

Ask for more pork lard as a topping or on the side, as those in the noodles get soggy.