Chai Chee Pork Porridge

Normally when you mention Bedok 85 to someone, the first thing that will come to their minds is ba chor mee. Well, that's what made this hawker centre famous anyway. Flocks of people go to Bedok North Block 85 for the famous ba chor mee. And it's always highly contested about which stall is better. Well, today we're not gonna talk about the ba chor mee at Bedok 85, instead we're gonna talk about something slightly different. It still has pork in it, but no noodles.

Located inside the famous bedok north block 85 hawker centre, is this porridge gem called Chai Chee Pork Porridge. Run by an elderly couple, they have won numerous awards and been featured on various television programmes. Now what makes this porridge so special? Terence and I had to find out.

We both ordered pork porridge with egg. Took awhile to arrive. They're pretty popular, even at 2am there are still a lot of people ordering their porridge. Upon arrival I scrutinized the porridge, doesn't look much different from normal porridges you eat elsewhere. It was garnished with fried dough fritters(you tiao or you zhar kway) and lots of spring onions. The egg is cracked and poured into the bowl before the hot porridge is poured over it. Gotta give it a good stir to break up the egg and mix it in with the porridge.

Ok! Taste test time! First mouthful.... I was like "WOW". The flavour just fills your mouth! People associate porridge with bland food, but this porridge here is way way tastier than bland. It's got a semi smooth consistency and is full of juicy homemade pork balls and pork slices. The pork balls are basically minced pork clumped together. It's usually seasoned with oil, cornstarch, salt and pepper. My mom personally likes to add chestnuts to it to give it more bite. The meat is so soft, very easy to bite even if you're using false teeth. The spring onions also complement the flavour.As always, I like my food spicy so I added lots of pepper to give it the kick I like.

They have a few types of porridge like pork, fish and century egg. A normal bowl of porridge costs $3 and it's $0.50 to add an egg. You can also add ingredients for another $1 or $2. Bedok 85 is not only about ba chor mee after all, this is definitely worth a try.

Chai Chee Pork Porridge
Bedok North Street 4 Block 85 Market and Food Centre (next to Bedok North Police Station)
Opening hours: 1730 to 0300 (closed fornightly, no fixed day)