Simpang Yong Tau Foo: Not Ampang......Simpang

With smart and PK


One of the good things about retirement is that you get to go around looking for good things to eat without the pressure of exams, loans, bills, kids and other stuff that add stress to your life. Not that I am speaking from personal experience of course, (still a long way from retirement) but more from the point of view of my two esteemed makankakis that afternoon who also happen to be old boys from my alma mater.

Anyway, both smart and PK have been friends since school days and it would seem to me that the baby boomers tend to keep their schoolday friendships better then us Gen Xers. Smart, PK and a whole bunch of their school friends still get together at least every month to makan together. Perhaps it was the days of playing catching, marbles and pretending to be Tarzan with the Banyan Tree rather then playing gameboys and computer games that made the big difference? Or maybe it is just me.

Anyway, this Yong Tau Foo place was recommended to me by smart who, being semi retired, makes it his hobby to walk around food centres scouring for good (and interesting) things to eat. He chanced upon this stall on one of his recce trips and it is just the kind of stall that makes one go "Phwa, must at least go and try leh!"

Yes, this is our very own SIMPANG Yong Tau Foo. You heard it right, not AMPANG but SIMPANG. The difference might not be as stark as the difference between Phua Chu Kang and Chua Chu Kang, but there is a difference.

The homemade Yong Tau Foo is fried first and then doused with the soy based sauce. But the similarity ends there. The sauce here is quite unique. It is sweet, a little tangy and mildly punchillie hot. Perhaps the right adjective is "piquant". Quite shiok actually and definitely unique. 4.25/5


Crispy Pork Knuckle $16

And if you feel that eating deep fried Yong Tau Foo doesn't do enough to clog up your arteries, you might opt for the Deep Fried Crispy Skin Pork Leg. Oh yes, Pork Knuckle or Ter Kah definitely ranks up there as one of those sinfully bad food that you would only eat if you wanted to reward yourself for scoring well on your latest cholesterol report.

The Ter Kah here is stewed first then deep fried just before serving. The skin is super duper crispy and went well with the Thai style chilli sauce. The flesh was however, a little on the dry side. Actually if you ask me, this seems to be more like the German version of the Pork Knuckle rather than the Chinese version. Not bad, but this really is a Gu Gu Jip Pai (once in a long while) type of dish for me. 3.75/5

Conclusion

Our very own Simpang Yong Tau Foo! It is the sauce that makes this particular Yong Tau Foo stand out from the rest. Casual and cheaper alternative to your German Restaurant if you wish to get your Crispy Fried Ter Kah fix.


Simpang Yong Tau Foo
Bedok Market Place
348 Bedok Road
#02-05/06
64449986
9.30am to 7pm
Recommended by smart

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Rong Xing Cooked Food Stall: Take a Queue Number and Relak one Corner!

With AlecEE, Kat, iwatch_ueat, pk, smart and zanzoo


One sure way of making your stall stand out from the rest is to install a queuing system. We Singaporeans just love a queue. Well, we don't actually love TO queue, but we love how the queue is such a reassurance that we are not going to experience some mediocre food that will waste our calories. (Sometimes this assumption is proven false)

So, a numbering system which we all have used before in the Doctor's clinic is a symbol perhaps, of how successful the stall is. I wonder if some stalls have installed a queuing system as a means to attract more customers rather then to actually manage the queue? If I were to chance upon any stall with a queuing system, I would automatically assume that the food has to be good in order to warrant a queue numbering system, won't you?

Anyway, I think the queue numbering system here is warranted. The Yong Tau Foo here is very good. The 40 or so items are all made on the premises and the owners take a lot of pride in the fact that they make their own fish and meat pastes as well as all the other items on the menu. We got there a bit late so there were only a few items left. I especially liked the handmade pork balls which were very savory and tasty. They use silken tofu for some of the items here, so it is really soft and silky and the soup has a strong taste of ikan bilis. 4.25/5

Conclusion

Another good Yong Tau Foo Stall which I can heartily recommend if you are around the area.

Rong Xing Cooked Food
Blk 6 Tanjong Pagar Road #02-04
Tanjong Pagar Mkt and Food Centre
7am to 2.30pm
Closed on Thursdays, Sun, PH

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Hakka Yong Tau Foo: Unique, Innovative, Never Seen Before YTF!

The book of Ecclesiastes tells us that "there is nothing new under the Sun" which is very true. Everything you see which is "new" has been tried before and recycled. Take mosaic tiles for instance. They were in fashion in the 70's and are now in fashion again. But when you trace it back, you find that they were already in fashion in Greek and Roman times! So there is really nothing new under the Sun.

BUT, this does not mean that we never get to experience novelty in our lives. We perceive something to be new because we are ignorant of its existence in the first place.

So with that excuse, may I say that I have been pleasantly surprised, delighted and very excited to share pictures of some Yong Tau Foo which I have never come across before. There may be nothing new under the Sun, but these were certainly new to me!



This stall boasts 60 different Yong Tau Foo items which means you can actually come every day of the week and still eat something different. The Boss proudly declared that there are at least 16 items in their menu that are not found anywhere else in the world. In fact a lot of the items here don't even have a name, they are just described by the ingredients.

The giant fried Sui Gao looking item above is called a Poh Piah. It might look like an XXL fried Sui Gao, but when you actually bite into it you find that the ingredients are quite complex. I could make out black fungas, carrots, vermicelli and maybe meat and fish paste. The owner was tight lipped about the contents of the "Poh Piah". All I can say is that it was very yummy and had a very unique texture that can really be described as spongy. The filling is like a spongy matrix which traps all the juices within the Sui Gao. Very difficult to describe. Very easy to eat.



The paste here is made from a combination of meat, fish and salted fish and is very good. It makes its way into many of the items here including this Pig Skin, Fish Paste Roll. Another variation of this theme is found in the Seaweed, Fish Paste Roll shown in the top pic and below right.

If you just had a quick glance at the picture on the right, you might have thought that it was the usual bittergourd with fish paste. But look again, it is actually long beans which have been weaved into a circle and filled with fish paste in the middle.



The other items that really got me excited were the Ngor Hiang which has very different ingredients from the norm. The Fried Yam with Meat Paste (pic right) is also another item you must try if you love yam. They have not one but several types of homemade meat balls which are very addictive. The one that I liked best was the Pig Tendon Ball which has a texture and taste that was a cross between a Siew Mai and your normal pork balls.

Conclusion

I could go on and on about the other stuff here, but I think you already got the idea. Just like a picture, a taste is also worth a thousand words so I shall spare you a few thousand words and just let you experience the YTF yourselves. 4.6/5

Here's a challenge for our readers. Let's see if anyone who has never been to this shop can come away not discovering a YTF that they have never eaten before!

If normal Yong Tau Foo were a sightseeing tour, this would be an expedition!

Hakka Yong Tau Foo
Tampines Round Market and Food Centre Stall
01-01
7am to 1pm (sold out)

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Fu Lin Tou Fu Yuen: Delightfully Deep Fried

I usually end up eating Yong Tau Foo when I feel that I want something that is reasonably tasty yet healthy. So the idea of a big bowl of soup with Toufu, vegetables and other stuff that has been blanched in water seems to me a good idea for healthy food. Of course, if you choose the deep fried stuff, then it is not so good. But soaking deep fried stuff in water first does remove some of the oil.



If you want something healthy, this is NOT the Yong Tau Foo to go for. They don't blanch their stuff in water, they actually deep fry everything before serving it in a Soy based minced pork sauce. So even the healthy stuff like fresh tofu and lady's finger gets deep fried in the oil.

But that is what makes this Yong Tau Foo so shiok! If you are the type that finds Yong Tau Foo a bit bland then this one will tingle your taste buds and change your mind! Although they don't use any pork in their filling, their Ngoh Hiang and wontans are all very savoury and yummy. Ah a Yong Tau Foo with oooomph! 4.5/5



The other thing that is unique about this YTF the thick beehoon that is served with a meat sauce made from Chicken Mince. According to the Alex, the stallowner, this style of Yong Tau Foo was first introduced by him 10 years ago. The stall had subsequently become so popular that they moved out of the corner coffeshop in Siglap to become a standalone restaurant.

Conclusion

For those who want some ooomph in their Yong Tau Foo!

Fu Lin Tou Fu Yuen
721 East Coast Road
64462363
8.30am to 8.30pm

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Ampang Yong Tau Foo: Just what makes a Yong Tau Foo "Ampang"?

How is Ampang Yong Tau Foo different from normal Yong Tau Foo?

Is it because you don't get to choose the items you want, or is it the fact that it gets served in a plate rather then in a bowl with noodles or bee hoon? Or is there any real difference in the items? So what really is the most important characteristic that qualifies a Yong Tau Foo as "Ampang"?

Certainly, it seems that the word "Ampang" confers a certain amount of privilege on a Yong Tau Foo. Instead of paying $3 for a bowl of Yong Tau Foo, suddenly you are paying $5 to eat a portion. As you probably know, "Ampang" refers to this famous village in KL where there are 3 shops selling similar style Yong Tau Foo. So the name "Ampang" describes a certain style of Yong Tau Foo in the same way as the name "Katong" describes a certain style of Laksa.

I don't know why I keep writing about Yong Tau Foo when it is really one of those things that don't excite me that much. Funny that. I guess I tend to eat Yong Tau Foo when I want to have something that has less cholesterol. BUT having said that, the Yong Tau Foo here is pretty good though I am finding it very difficult to rave about something that is so plain. Apart from fish paste and the sweet sauce, all the rest of the ingredients are pretty standard, know what I mean? Chillies are chillies, brinjal is brinjal and I find it hard to differentiate between a good ladies finger and a bad one. So it boils down to fish paste and sweet sauce. Both are good. Don't know what else to say. I'll leave it to the Yong Tau Foo experts to explain the finer details of appreciating Yong Tau Foo to us. 4/5

Conclusion

Place I come to to get something tasty and low cholesterol so that I can hop over to Chin Mee Chin the other side to have my kopi and kaya toast with a thick slice of butter!

Ampang Niang Tou Fu
225, East Coast Road
Singapore 428922
11.30am - 8.30pm
63453289

Special thanks to KL boy Russ for his inputs to the blog!

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Poy Kee Yong Tau Foo: Shorter Queue, but still quite good. People's Park Food Centre Part 3 of 3

With iwatch_ueat, smart, damien and liverpool


People's Park Food Centre was really a bit of an anticlimax. The place has so many stalls and is such a bustling hive of activity, but there are so few really die die must try stalls to eat at. Am I missing something? This is right at the heart of Chinatown! Surely there should be more great stalls around!

Anyway, those who like Yong Tau Foo, but are unwilling to stand behind a queue of 30 people, can make their way over to the other side of the Food Centre to try this Yong Tau Foo. The soup is very different from the other stall (I think it is because the other stall makes their own fishballs and so the soup is from fishball stock) but otherwise the Ngor Hiang and tofu is all pretty good. At least over here you get to choose what you want to include in your bowl of Yong Tau Foo. 4/5

Conclusion

Die hard YTF lovers would go line up the other side. Die soft YTF lovers can come over this side.

Poy Kee Yong Tau Foo
People's Park Food Centre
#01-1066
11am to 7pm daily

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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.

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Yong Tau Foo: Is this the Ultimate YTF?

With our new makanbro, Liverpool1965!


Tucked in the People's Park Complex Food Centre is this stall with the longest queue I have ever seen!! And for something as unexciting (for me) as Yong Tau Foo! How can people get excited over Yong Tau Foo?

Everyone gets a standard bowl of Yong Tau Foo with no options for noodles or beehoon and no questions asked. Each bowl is $3 and the items are all standard. It's beginning to sound like the Food Nazi from that Seinfeld episode!

OK the verdict: The fried beancurd roll with fish paste was the star of the bowl. You can taste that it is really freshly fried and I have never tasted anything so good from any other YTF stalls. The fish balls were also very good as they make their own. The rest of the tofu were good but nothing to rave about.

The reason the stall only opens for business from 1pm is because all the preparation is done in the morning. From the beating of the fishballs, to the wrapping of the ngor hiang, to the frying, everything is done in the stall. I guess that's why it's so popular.

Conclusion

As good as YTF can get, I guess. I am not a big YTF fan, so if you ask me to line up behind 20 people, I'd give it a miss. 4/5 (I am sure YTF fans would give it close to a 5)

Yong Tau Foo
Peoples Park Complex Food Centre
Stall with the perpetual long queue
Opens 1pm sold out by 4pm latest

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Ikan Bilis Yong Tau Fu Chinatown Complex Temp Mkt Part 4 of 5

If you want to taste a REAL fish ball, you just have to head down to this stall. Just look at the all the craters on the fishball. It looks almost like the face of the moon! Actually, that large crater at the 5 o'clock position almost reminded me of the Death Star in Star Wars.



Neh, I prove to you that they actually make their own fishballs! Good fish balls are made from Hang Zhe Her (Yellow Tail - See that yellow tail?) and Sai Tor Her (Wolf Herring/Parang). The fish shown above is the yellow tail -- see its got a yellow tail.




The fish paste is then used to fill all the Tau Fu and Tau Pok (Tau Fu is the fresh bean curd and Tau Pok is the fried bean curd shown in the picture). Everything still done by hand.




The difference between this stall and others is the addition of ikan bilis which gives that extra savoury taste to the soup. The texture of the fish ball is very light and it is not overly bouncy like those you get from the factories. The other thing is that they serve the Yong Tau Fu with only chilli sauce with no option of the sweet sauce.



Conclusion

Make sure you visit them either very early or very late or you'll have to wait in line for your bowl of Yong Tau Fu. Too bad I am not a very big fan of Yong Tau Fu, fans will definitely give them a higher score. 4/5

Updated 25 June 2008
The stall has moved back to its permanent location

Xiu Ji Ikan Bilis Yong Tau Fu
Chinatown Food Centre
Blk 335 Smith Street
#02-88
S(050335)
I forgot to ask them, but most of the stalls here are opened early in the morning usually cater to the lunch crowd.

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Special Yong Tau Foo - Golden Mile FC: Part 5 of 8

Accompanied by: ieatMaMa, iwatch_ueat, genetronic



Got there at almost 3pm and they have sold out most of their items. Aiya! Only able to taste the soup, a few fish balls and Tau Kee (Crispy Bean Sheets). I am not a big Yong Tau Foo man, so I've got to rely on ieatMaMa who loves the stuff to give her opinion.



If you want to eat great food, you have to look for hawkers who are passionate and proud of their heritage and cooking. There are a few types of hawkers nowadays. You have those in the food courts who are hired by a boss to run a stall, they won't know nuts about the food. Then, you have hawker traders who merely buy stuff to sell, like most Tau Hway (Bean Curd) and Ngo Hiang (Prawn Fritters) stalls. Most of the highest rated hawkers are of the third category. They insist on having the best ingredients and most of the time, this means that they have to prepare most of the food from scratch.




So here's the secret of this shop's success. They make their own fish paste and insist on using the traditional Hang Zse Her (Yellow Tail) fish. The fish paste is then used to fill the Capsicums, Brinjal, Tau Pok, Okra etc. The water that the fish paste is soaked in is used to make the soup! Mmmmm, no wonder the soup is so nice. And the fish balls are exceptional! They are not overly bouncy, but have that authentic bite and tastes like unadulterated fish meat, which is what it really is.




Conclusion

Have to come one day to try the full menu! They have over 10 items that they make themselves, and it should not only be really tasty, but quite healthy too! 4/5
(Real Yong Tau Foo enthusiasts may rate it higher)

Golden Mile Special Yong Tau Foo
B1-44 Golden Mile Food Centre
6298 5908
Opens 11am and usually sold out by 2.30pm
Closed Sundays

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