Goldhill Hakka Yong Tau Foo: At last, a YTF I yearn to eat!
Ever since I started getting serious about food, I have learnt that it pays to try anything that other people recommend even though you may not think you like it. If there are people eating it, then there must be something good about it and its a matter of learning to appreciate it.
Take for instance Hakka cuisine, which I have only began to really appreciate after visiting Goldhill. In particular, I am talking about Hakka Yong Tau Foo. I can't understand why people would make such a big fuss about eating something as simple as Bean Curd with Fish Paste, really, until I tried it the way it should be served!
And I learnt that the way to really appreciate Yong Tau Foo is to have it piping hot after blanching with just a drizzle of fragrant oil. The Bean Curd here is excellent. They use Silken Tofu rather that Tau Kwa so the texture is smooth as silk. Fresh Ikan Parang (Sai Toh/Wolf Herring) is filletted and beaten to a paste every day by hand and used as a filling for the chilli, bittergourd, tau pok and Ngor Hiang.
Those of us who like their food sweet will really appreciate the sweet sauce. This is one of the best sweet sauce I have tasted. It is really thick, sweet and substantial! Their sauce is specially tweaked not fresh out of a bottle. Secret ingredients are added and its stewed for 2 hours. 4/5
This is the first time I am eating this special dish called Yam Abacus. Before I talk about the dish, let me just say that when it comes to new foods, our brain interprets the taste based on a frame of reference. So for instance, when you eat something like crocodile meat for the first time, the taste is so foreign that you can't really describe it. So your brain compares it with something that you are familiar with. In most cases it's chicken. That is why every thing that is a bland tasting white meat tastes like chicken!
Having the right frame of reference is so important to the enjoyment of any dish. When I first saw this dish, my immediate frame of reference was Mua Chee (Glutinous Rice with peanuts - a sweet dessert). The balls were made of Yam and rice flour and were chewy like Mua Chee, and they added some condiments on top. In the case of Mua Chee it is sweetened ground peanuts. In this case its a mixture of fried Hae Bee (dried prawns), Salted Fish and Jew Her (Dried Squid). I thought it was good and would have given it a 3.75.
Then Uncle told me that the dish was the Hakka Version of Yam Cake. The Cantonese version which I am familiar with has all the dried prawns, chinese sausages mixed in the Yam Flour dough before steaming. With the Yam Abacus, the dough is rolled and dimpled (it does look like the beads on the abacus) and the ingredients are added on top instead. With this different frame of reference, my next taste of the dish was sooo different!! Suddenly I could recognize the Yam taste in the dough and how excellently the crispy toppings complemented the dough! It suddenly became a 4.25/5
The other thing I learnt to appreciate was the raw fish. Have you every wondered why they always cut it so thin? I always thought it was because it was a ploy to spread a small amount of fish meat out to cover a plate. Then I found out that it was necessary for Ikan Parang to be served this was because the fish had really tiny bones which ran longitudinally down the length of the fish and it was really difficult to remove them. So by cutting it really thin, you only get a small 0.5mm piece of bone which won't cause you to rush to A&E!
Anyway the fish here is fresh and had no fishy taste. It is served with a savoury sesame oil dressing, garlic, ginger and lots of spring onions. When you bite into the fish you will get that bit of grittiness due to the fish bones. 4/5
The last dish was the steamed La La (Clams). This is quite a simple dish, but the broth is so satisfying! Fresh clams are put into the steamer with chilli and ginger and Hua Tiao Jiu (Chinese Rice Wine is added just prior to serving. The broth is slightly bitter but complemented by the natural sweetness of the clams and the fragrance of the ginger, garlic and cut chillies! 4/5
Conclusion
If you have never really appreciated Hakka cuisine, this is the place to start! The really good thing is that because less oil is used, after the meal you will feel comfortably full, but not uncomfortably bloated!
8.25/10 (T3+V2.5+S2+E0.75)
This is Mr Goldhill himself!! I'm serious. Goldhill (Jin Shan) is his Chinese name. His father who started selling Hakka food from a pushcart in the 1940's, eventually opened a restaurant and named it after him!
GoldHill Hakka Restaurant
299A Changi Road (After the SPC station)
6842 4283
11.30am to 4pm Daily
For Dinner, they have a special Hakka menu for functions
Acknowledgement: This was a great recommendation by one of our readers, Anthony Loke
Update: 16 Dec 2006
Brought the family to eat the YTF. They were not as impressed as I was! So considering their comments and having retasted the food, I have revised the ratings a little.
17 comments:
Had lunch there today. We like YTF but this Hakka YTF is not to our liking. Not enough fish paste we think.
may i know how are the prices like? very near my place, may take a look
Around $6 to $8 per dish
This is my favourite YTF. It is not the atypical YTF where it is fried (aka the type my husband or children love). But if you are into healthy eating, this YTF is healthy & truly tasty because it is heavenly fresh!
Uggh! Sweet sauce on Yong Tau Foo is a travesty.
you are yet to see how "genuine" YTF are supposed to taste!
Nothing else beats YTF in its origin: Meizhou, Guangdong province, China.
Mind you, I say this from a point of view of an Indonesian
Keep in mind Hakka in Meizhou are really fond of dog meat so do expect dishes like red braised dog, dog beehoon and dog hot pot. I do wonder why this dish doesn't exist in Indonesia, Malaysia or Singapore....
Sorry, this is the worst ytf i have eaten. The abundant flour they put it overpowerED the fish paste so much so you are eating flour ytf. For this reason, the fillings are very generous but has no bite. In addition the soup was tasteless and just luke warm. Was the products displayed for customers to see and select what they want? If its not then the attitude of this shop is wrong, its like saying TAKE AND EAG WHAT IS SERVED, NOT HAPPY LEAVE IT AND GO ELSEWHERE.
Sounds like a food nazi there, if their attitude is really that bad.
And to be the worse YTF you've ever eaten, those folks must have really upset you with their service. Average tasting YTF are everywhere but to be the worse, it takes some effort. I'm generally agreeable with Leslie's recommendations. Will try this out soon to see what kind of nazis those folks are, and how the YTF taste.
WKF, any personal YTF favourites? You tried the Siglap Canal one?
This is not one of those pick what you want ytf places. Having said that they do entertain you should you ask to omit stuff you don't like.
My kids love the ytf here even though they do not usually enjoy 'healthy' food.
wee kian fatt - i am a regular there at this Goldhill Hakka YTF. i like it for the fish paste with the flour in it, because its still handmade, it is TRADITIONAL and I appreciate tradition.
as for not displaying the "product" out for customers to choose, they serve just 6 items there - tau foo, tau pok, bittergourd, stuffed chilli, fish ball and tau kee, so there is little to choose from.
i m hakka, and this is the traditional way of serving hakka ytf. they serve u everything in standard servings, with portions of a little bit of everything. whatever you don;t like, you just tell them not to include it, or include more of the other stuff u like.
you have to remember, the hakka are a poor people in olden times. these are all peasant food, just like most of our hawker food you see today.
and in the old days, people had less choice, and u can imagine the ingredients being used like bittergourd, toufu and chillies are cheap and easily available ingredients. adding flour to the fish paste - one of the reasons being people are too poor then to afford the luxury of using pure fish paste. but it is traditional - it is the food of our forefathers.
the food court style u see with all the whole works laid out to choose and pick, with fake crab rolls, fried wontons etc etc, is the modern interpretation of the traditional ytf. if your mindset is fixed on the modern style, then you may not appreciate the traditional style.
you can look at it as Hakka YTF served the traditional style, which is really indeed take it or leave it. we only have so much more choice these days as people are more affluent, and modern entreprenuers add in variety to give consumers choice. in the old days in china, it was a blessing even to have food on the table, let alone pick and choose.
we have so much choice and our palates are so spoilt these days that we fail to appreciate the simpler things sometimes.
do give more thought to things before jumping to such conclusions from our own ignorance.
I think Mr WKF has not eaten enough YTF locally to make such a unwarranted comment. There are many types of YTF around these days, the ubiquitous pseudo ones in food courts which may just do for the masses with their less than average soups and quasi "YTF" items. The traditional ones are Hakka style like sumo mentioned, consist of only few types, typically beancurd skin, fishball, taupok etc, even more conventionally so, just drizzled with sauce and served dry.
There're others which are soup-based maybe you would like to give them a try. I can think of 2 stalls in Ghim Moh and Clementi Hawker Centre.
Otherwise Xin Ji at Chinatown or a nameless but famous YTF stall at People's Park Food Centre you may find them good too especially in their very flavorful soups. In the latter 2 however you can't choose your pieces either.
just one tip - when u order from goldhill, ask them not to pour the sauce over, but rather, separate it, and u dip what u want. i think its nicer that way.
and cactus - the auntie manning the orders is the laobanniang. not the most friendly but not a nazi either. she always remembers my orders, so usually no need to say what i want or dont want.. go work ur charm on her....
if want we can go together lunch time.. i think they are closed on mondays or tuesdays?
Tuesday
This place used to be at a corner kopitiam somewhere near Katong. They shifted to their current location sometime in the last 10-15 years.
My family is regularly patronise this outlet since I was young. I must say the standard had dropped after all this years. Infact just few years ago, it tasted different. They seems to have put in a bit more flour/starch into it today. The fish paste feel more spongy and 'fake' then the good old days.
But it's right that thats how they do their business since many moons ago. Not their practice to let you select what you want but regular eaters know they are free to request anything they don't want. Even the same style of ordering goes for Ampang YTF at thomson.
In the old days, the fish paste is very powerful and when you bite into it, you just know it's pure fish. I like this YTF for the type of fish they're using. It gives a refreshing texture compared to the otherwise dull everywhere-also-taste-the-same kind of fishballs in other YTF outlets. Another thing is that they actually add a lot of "TIK POR" aka grounded dried fried fish into their paste which give its a nice "GIAM HER" smell. I must also say that their soup is MSG loaded so be prepare to get drown yourself with lots of water after this meal.
And leslie, why haven't you reviewd the famous ampang YTF at Thomson road? Their ingredients are normal but their gravy is damn kickass! I heard they use giam her to make their gravy. That is the world's most delicious gravy. Just pour it in rice and i can eat 2 bowl!
Ah the Ampang YTF at Thomson, I always eat there when I am on reservist and that's when I don't have my camera! Yes it is very good.
REally? Me too. Always eat there during my NS time. I was from Sembawang Airbase, you?
i think this is the best best YTF place to go! everytime i think of YTF i will think of this place! Everything here is so fresh and so delicious!
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