Niang Dou Fu (ndf), or Yong Tau Fu, is a Hakka dish. The Hakkas were nomads and generally settled in the Southern regions of China back in the days. It is believed that they used doufu instead of dumpling skin to make dumplings, thus creating this dish.

Niang would be the stuffing made of minced pork and fish paste, and they are stuffed into a doufu. The bitter gourd is a vegetable authentically used for stuffing too. Slowly, the vegetable with the most name, eggplants, are stuffed too. A typical ndf stall would offer at least 20 odd small items for selection. When you get to a ndf stall, pick up a bowl and a tong, and start selecting what you'd like. Some items are boiled, some fried before serving. They are always charged at a price per piece, with minimum spending required, they are the original minimum spending retailers! Trust the Hakka's to be calculative, their typical vocation is supposed to be pawn brokers!

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After selection, tell them if what type of noodles you want it with (some, not many, offer chee cheong fun, or rice rolls. The ones in Malaysia will typically have this). We always admire a ndf stall that offers Hakka noodle, a subtle flat noodle served with mince meat and a nice subtle clear sauce, not many offer this, even in Malaysia.

After that, it's to select soup or dry, some offer laksa soup. Dry means the noodles are served with soup separately, the fried items would be in the noodles, and the boiled items in the soup. If you opt for soup, everything comes in a bowl of soup.

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Sweet sauce and chilli in ndf stalls are pretty intense. For some, it can be the decider to whether it is delicious. Often self served, I'd douse mine with sweet sauce every time! Only in one, I like the original taste so much, this is not necessary.

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A good place for vegetarians, there are plenty vegetables without any niangs, and if you are not too particular, just take out the niang from bitter gourds. Eggplants are almost always available, and some stalls do not have it niang-ed... Of course, they would be boiled in a soup that may have boiled meat. Depends on how particular you are I suppose.

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There are also too many items to describe, and almost every stall has something different or unique. One has this cheese doufu that I simply love！Generally lots of vegetables and mushrooms available, which up to 80% are not niang-ed. I mean... how do you stuff brocolli's, spinach, button mushroom, enoki mushrooms! 🤣🤣🤣