Hakka Yong Tau Foo and Tau Kwa Pau @ East Coast Road

Yayy! Now that my mobile phone is functioning again, I can resume regaling everyone with my epicurean explorations.

Today, DH brought lunch home from one of our favourite coffeeshop haunts along East Coast Road. I was home with Baby, naturally.


Our appetiser course was tau kwa pau (4 pieces for SGD4) from Mary's Corner at Orange Katong Coffeeshop 125 East Coast Rd. For the uninitiated, this refers to deep fried pieces of tofu stuffed with diced savoury bits of egg, fish cake, crushed peanuts, cucumber and crispy yam bits. It's dipped in gravy (optional) and a tangy spicy chili (mandatory!). I like the culinary juxtaposition between the soft yielding texture of the tau kwa and the crispy, chewy bits of filling.

As I understand it, the original tau kwa pau person has moved to the coffeeshop opposite, and the lady who used to be his assistant took over this stall. Having tried both, I personally prefer this stall's version because it is more generous with the filling.


Then we had our main course of Hakka Yong Tau Foo (SGD5.50 per set), also from East Coast Road, but a few stalls down. I think it is called Traditional Hakka Yong Tau Foo. Each set comes with your choice of dry or soup noodles and about 6 pieces of stuffed yong tau foo: 2 pieces of silken tofu, 2 pieces of beancurd skin, 2 pieces of tau pok (fried beancurd puffs) all stuffed with Hakka meat filling. Hakka Yong Tau Foo is different from the other more common type of yong tau foo in that it uses minced pork instead of minced fish for the filling. It is usually cooked in a gravy, rather than boiled in a soup or drenched in sweet red sauce like the common yong tau foo.

The portions were a bit small. And the filling lacked the meaty bite that I appreciate in good Hakka yong tau foo. All in all, it wasn't bad, but it wasn't mindblowing either. I prefer my mom's version!