Curry Sting Ray and Carrot Cake at Ghim Moh Market

Today we will discuss another two stalls that we recently tried at the newly re-built and reopened Ghim Moh Market and Food Centre. The first one is Hai Nan Hometown Curry and the second stall is Hock Soon Carrot Cake.  The dishes we tried  – curry sting ray and black carrot cake were as different as you can imagine but they had one thing in common. They look ugly.  No pretty pictures on this blog today, I am afraid.

Here are the pictures of the curry sting ray from Hai Nan Hometown Curry.  This stall specialises in Hainan curry dishes – mutton, pork, chicken and sting ray. We decided on sting ray as it was something that is less common.  Here is a picture of the sting ray curry and rice in their original containers. The total cost was $6.50, probably $6 for the curry and 50 cents for the rice and/ or containers.

A disgusting thought came to mind as I was writing this post.  Doesn’t it look like a big mudskipper?  I am glad that the imagery only came up way after the fish had been consumed.  The sting ray that was served to us must have come from the section with the edge of its fin which is the thin curly part.

The dish looks and tastes better when served on a plate, but the mudskipper image keeps coming back when I look at the pictures.  The sting ray was quite meaty even though we were served the tip.  It was easy to eat as there was only one big cartilaginous bone that was easily separated from the meat. There were some pieces of vegetables – eggplant, ladies fingers and tomato. The eggplant bits were very good – creamy and fully infused with the curry taste.  The curry was quite mild and had a creamy texture, but very rich and oily. This is a tasty dish but not for those counting calories.

Next we proceed to stall number 01-29, Hock Soon Carrot Cake at Ghim Moh market.

We decided on Hock Soon Carrot Cake as it did not have a long queue. We settled on a  $3 chye tau kueh black version.  This is what it looked like in its packaging.

The wrapper tightly compacted the carrot cake such that it retained its shape even after the wrapper was removed.   It looks like a typical chye tau kueh. The sprinkling of spring onions provided some much-needed colour to the otherwise black and brown only dish.

Transferred to a plate, the carrot looked slightly better.  The taste of this dish was not bad.  It would have been better if it was not as sweet and there was more smokey flavour or charred edges,  as some people might describe it,  more  ‘wok hei’ .

Hai Nan Hometown Curry and Hock Soon Carrot Cake 

Units 01-49 and 01-29 respectively
Blk 20 Ghim Moh Road Market & Cooked Food Centre
Ghim Moh Road
Singapore 270020