MH Pencai Faceoff: The 5 Best Pencai To Get This Chinese New Year Like my Facebook page and follow me @springtomorrow on Instagram and Twitter for the latest updates! Latest update (22.12.2014): Fassler’s new retail outlet at Tiong Bahru is now open! Check out my post here. I was unlucky to have torn a ligament on my right foot earlier and my doctor had suggested that I consume more salmon to speed up the healing process hence this spurred my decision to visit the salmon factory at Woodlands Terrace just so I could buy the fish in bulk. Actually I had heard about these food factories in Woodlands 8 years ago when one of my colleagues then would drive a few of us there to grab some of the best brownies and gelatos I ever had so this time round, I decided to go exploring the entire Woodlands Terrace stretch with my godma who is always game for deals & bargains like me. This blog post will be split into 3 parts as we managed to visit 3 factories within 2 hours in the morning.

A fruitful trip with a bountiful loot. If you’re heading to Woodlands Terrace by public transport, take the MRT to Admiralty Station, cross the overhead bridge and take bus service 964. Alight at the 10th bus stop along Woodlands Link. You’d see a road slightly ahead that turns to the left. This is Woodlands Terrace where a number of food factories are open for business to the public. Products you can get from these factories range from frozen food, bottled sauces, canned food, seafood, chinese steamed buns & dim sum items, beef, mutton, sausages, ham, steamboat ingredients like fish balls, dried goods, snacks and desserts. Just remember if you intend to buy frozen food and seafood, do bring along a cooler bag or box to keep your products fresh. We arrived in Woodlands Terrace just before 9am and headed straight to Fassler Gourmet which is a factory dealing mainly with salmon & seafood. A word of caution – it is very, very cold inside. I could barely withstand the cold and had to keep popping outside to ‘defrost’ myself.

I was wearing flip flops because of my bandaged foot and my toes felt numb and frozen. Jackets and coats are provided on-site if you need them. Or cover yourself up in long pants, long sleeves and shoes before you come here. I did not manage to take a picture of the other half of the freezer where more salmon, sauces, soups were because of condensation on my camera lens. A glimpse of my loot from Fassler: Each pack of soup is 500g, good enough for sharing between 2 persons. The Boston Clam Chowder is rich and creamy, with plenty of clams inside! Haven’t tried the other two yet. I made salads with these smoked salmon and with just a light dressing of lemon juice and fish sauce. This same quantity would have cost $14 from NTUC Fairprice’s sushi counter so it’s 60% cheaper at Fassler. And it tastes exactly the same as the supermarket’s. Probably both have the same supplier? Price for the salmon belly cubes was just $10.00/kg. For $5-$6, I could only get a few pieces from NTUC Fairprice.

Salmon belly tastes good when pan-fried or added to miso soups. The salmon slices was $12.00/kg. What a steal, really. All pure meat with no bones. order sushi online budapestPerfect for pan-frying or fried rice. sushi chef coat in japanThe salmon fillet was $22/kg which is about 20% cheaper than Fairprice’s lowest grade of salmon. sushi tei jakarta indonesiaAnd the bag of odds and ends with jaws and cheeks? sushi making kit morrisonsOnly $2.00 per bag. sushi grade tuna fresh market

Though it looks like it’s only a bag of bones, any salmon (or fish) connoisseur would know that the best bits are in the cheek area. buy sushi mat online indiaI used them for fish stock as well as to pan-fry till crisp and then eat it alone like a snack. what to order at sushi zushiOne auntie customer there suggested to me to cook the jaws and cheeks with tau cheo (fermented soya beans). Will try that next time. My godma bought the more premium grades of salmon as well as several packs of saba fillets, unagi (eel) and ebiko (prawn roe) because her sons love them. This is probably the most affordable sashimi in Singapore. 300g comprises of approximately 34 slices. The husband and I had it for dinner, so much for the two of us, that I felt sickly of it. The sashimi is of course not of Japanese air-flown standard but they are very fresh and sweet and of mid-range Japanese restaurants’ standard like Sakae, Ichiban or Sushi Tei.

I like that Fassler sells fresh wasabi too at $0.60 per 50g tub and Kikkoman sashimi soy sauce $3.30 so you can get everything at once and enjoy your sashimi immediately when home. If you’re tempted by these bargains and are planning to make a trip down, do check out their website for the updated price list (in excel format) as well as opening hours (for January & February 2014) during this CNY festive season. I’m heading there again to grab some seafood for CNY steamboat as well as the salmon sashimi for Lo Hei so if you see me there, do say hello! Do note Fassler only accepts cash and cheque payments (no NETS or credit cards) so bring ample cash along. You can easily spend over $100 here, probably more if you have a big family and if you need to stock up. [In Part 2 of this post, I will be covering Melvados where you can get some of the best tasting chocolate brownies, D24 durian cake, gelatos, lasagnes, baked pasta & rice and more. Check out Food Factory Outlet Shopping at Woodlands Terrace (Part 2 of 3): Melvados]