This is a Good Bowl of Mee Soto

I had to try to make it down for mee soto at Hubs on a Thursday night this February. They had done pork or mutton biryani as a Thursday menu special all of 2025. I'm not sure what's happening this year. When Hubs said they would be doing mee soto for February's Thursdays, I was all for it. 

Obviously I don't care for the chicken, but it comes with. Heh. I ordered extra beef cubes and seared fish bites to add protein to the meal. I honestly wasn't expecting this bowl at Hubs to be so good. But it was. It came with a begedil that was actually tasty. You know me and begedil. I judge all restaurants by the standard of their begedil. 

Their sambal belachan has always been great, and it was fun to also get a small bit of chilli kecap manis with it. Wow! That was an excellent dinner! This is as homecooked as it gets. Hubs is a small family-run bar. F&B is a brutal industry in Singapore. I like Hubs. I hope they survive the year fine. 

If you benchmark Hubs's mee soto against say, Warong Pak at Adam Road Food Center or Afandi Hawa at Haig Road, or anywhere else that is accessible to you and delicious, then this iteration at Hubs is equally good. 

Lunch Was Perfect

I'm touched to receive gifts of food this season. The dining table was piled full again. It hasn't quite emptied out since Christmas. When I don't bother hosting, I obviously use the dining table to place all sorts of gifts of food on it. 

However, I am so biased. I appreciate the salty and savory over sweets and sugary tarts or bakes. I don't have a habit of taking a cookie or anything sweet in the afternoons or with coffee. I'd consider a small salty dark chocolate cookie though. Heh. I like pineapple tarts, but it's very very very hard to find the ones I want. Nothing comes close to the tarts I have in mind, or that I have tasted and love. It's about the balance of butter vs a rich thick tart pineapple jam that isn't commercially made in big batches. 

That day, my lunch at home was made up of gifts and people's thoughts. Aunty J had given me her home-pickled belimbing and achar. M gave us two jars of her Mum's chilli. And that day, as I was wrapping up my visit, one of my old folks (on the roster) handed me a box of rice, pork chop and egg tofu. She cooked the batch for herself and the neighbors and saved me a portion by way of a Lunar New Year gift.

I heated up all these for lunch the next day. How lovely. I added all the gifted condiments to this heartfelt bowl of care. The achar is soooo good. It's very hard to taste good achar nowadays. I don't even know how many people get what good achar is. I'm so lucky to get this small precious jar.

The pickled belimbing, as always, is friggin sour. But that went well with M's mum's super hot chilli. I dunno if that's counted as sambal belachan because it tasted like super spicy chicken rice chilli to me. I don't like putting lime with any sort of chilli, but paired with belimbing, that was perfect. This chilli is likely too spicy for many people. But the husband and I are chilli fiends, so it's just right for us. 

Lunch was truly perfect. It made my stomach really happy. 

The Season for Sweet Mandarin Oranges

I’m not keen on eating mandarin oranges or mikan as fruits. Somehow, they always give me an immediate sore throat or a headache. It's cloying, not exactly refreshing even when chilled. But as orange juice or hallabong juice, they're fine. 

The husband has no such issues and loves his mikan and mandarin oranges, especially the hybrid Red Beauty, and the Korean Hallabong the Red Hyang. He has not much interest in the lukan or ponkan, and no-no to Golden Beauty. The husband loves the jelly-like pulp of Red Beauty. Okay lor. I don't quite fancy it. I prefer the tate and texture of mikan or the Korean mandarin oranges. 

Whatever it is, the mandarin orange peel could be soaked in water, and be used to water the three pots of surviving plants placed outdoors. Wheeeee. 

My usual fruit stall got a great batch of Red Beauty from a farm I specifically wanted. The quality is different from say, the ones sold in cheap batches at Fairprice or CS Fresh. I wondered why the price difference, aside from the packaging. So I bought a cheaper box to try and compare. Well, let's just say the higher pricing at my fruit stall was worth it.

While I have gotten the many cartons (as bulk purchase) as gifts for some friends and older folks, I bought a few cartons of mandarin oranges and mikan for the husband, as well as for bai-nian greetings when we do the limited number of visits during the first week. There should be at least two in the car, and two in the bag for us to bring to anywhere, and as a back-up. I don't want to give people shitty oranges, so this year, I use Red Beauty and Sakura Mandarins.