Yong Xiang Xing Dou Fu

You can take the ah beng out of Singapore, but you can’t take the Singapore out of the ah beng!

After two weeks of travel in Japan, despite my love for Japanese food – and as any self-respecting ah beng would – I craved for local hawker food. Whenever I need something clean and soupy, yong tau foo is the answer. And what better place to go to than People’s Park Food Centre – the yong tau foo capital of Singapore? And if you ask me, this stall is the champion of the hawker centre, and I say this not because I’m some yong tau foo connoisseur, but because of the ridiculous line that snakes its way out of the shop. This is not a very complex dish and you don’t get to pick your poison like at most other similar stalls. It costs SGD4.50 for a standard bowl and you eat what you get. That’s it. It is clean and simple. But that’s where the magic lies – there is a certain “smokiness” to the dish, and the individual pieces are well flavoured and pack some serious umami.

Be warned: The queue can get a little crazy, so if you are ravenous, don’t bother; you wouldn’t make it. And it gets hot, but it’s a no- holds- barred hawker centre – what else were you expecting?! It’s how it should be: noisy, sweaty, and a little mad.