Porridge | Ziggy

There are generally 2 types of porridge in Singapore, the Cantonese or Hong Kong porridge that comes with some meat like pork, chicken or fish, and century egg. The other would be the Teochew porridge, which is boiled with sweet potato, it is watery and more like rice submerged in water.

The Cantonese porridge comes in individual bowls with all the ingredients in it. Teochew porridge would be more like a mixed rice stall. You can opt for rice or porridge at the stall, then pick from a range of dishes available and displayed.

Porridge

Mar 2021

Currently my favourite porridge stall, good to call and place order when on the way there

Not sure how I missed this place the first time I was at this coffee shop, which probably has the longest Q per square inch. It has Victor Fried Chicken rice, Jin Xi Lai Bak Chor Mee, and this, side by side. Q is only visible for the chicken rice; Boon Kee gives you a piece of paper with a number which they’ll display when it is your turn like at the banks; and the BCM gives you a buzzer. Each Q is about 30-40 minutes during a typical weekday lunch.

This time round, here for the BCM, I noticed that many other customers were having porridge instead of the BCM, or the chicken rice. I got curious and gave it a try.

Gosh, it was one of the best porridge I’ve eaten. Maybe I’ve been deprived lately but the porridge was of a great texture, I like it this way while some others like it really smooth. It was sticky and full of goodies for $4.50 (with century egg plus an egg).

Without adding any of the soy sauce or pepper provided, I liked it and found it very tasty, with a unique bland yet deep taste about it. Happily announcing it to my friends, urging them to give it a try. One said he found it tasteless. Did I miss something? I tried again, this one bowl for us 4 to share (no, we weren’t going to play mah-jong after), and noticed that with each mouthful, first it was a little tasteless, then that deep satisfying bland yet deep taste kicked in. it was packed full of pork and egg. I’m sure those who find it a bit bland could use some of the soy sauce and pepper to spice it up… exactly what friend 3 did, he pointed at those spices when he heard friend 2 say it was tasteless… 🤣🤣

I will definitely put this as one of the better porridges around, especially for pork porridge, as the top porridge place off my head doesn’t serve pork anymore…

As the wait here can be up to an hour, it is best to call ahead to place your order as you start your journey here. They'll give you a number, when you arrive, tell them your number and you'll be served when it reaches your number. I didn't tell them I had arrived the first time I called ahead, they didn't prepare my order. The mode of operation is that they would not prepare your order if you did not let them know that you've arrived.

Johor Road Boon Kee Pork Porridge

638 Veerasamy Road (Yi He Eating House), s200638

630am – 2pm, closed on Mon

Chef Leong

Chee Cheong Fun, Porridge

Aug 2021

Deliciously Bland, tastelessly scrumptuous…

I will bet my bottom dollar on Chef Leung being from Hong Kong. The base taste for most everything here is “bland”. This is not a slight, just that it’s not like other local dishes where the taste is very strong.

We had the char siew and original chee cheong fun, and the pork rib with century egg porridge here. The porridge was hands down the most delicious. I couldn’t get enough of it!

The chee cheong fun or rice roll itself was soft and nice, came in thick rolls for us to enjoy layers of dense but thin rice rolls. The sauce was on the bland side, as were the rolls. The char siew could be of better quality too.

The plain roll was plain, and I was asked if I wanted sesame sauce on it. I ordered the plain one because the photos looked fantastic with drizzles of what looked like cheese, turned out it was sesame… the mother and son team that served me both laughed with me when I “complained” it wasn’t cheese…

With the thickness of the roll and the wonderful texture of the rice rolls, the plain roll was wonderful. Taste wise it was pretty normal, but texture wise it was wonderful.

Char siew roll

If you look carefully, you can see the sesame gravy on the rolls, light yellow in colour

The porridge came in a big bowl, burp. Spring onion and century egg pieces filled the tiny gaps of space not occupied by a two-fingered thick portion of pork rib and some prawns stuffed with seafood paste. They were generous with ingredients. Porridge was the typical Cantonese porridge that’s more watery with "mashed rice grains", it was typically bland, but I felt something as it was washing down the throat. Then the taste kicked in! It had a fantastic strong yet subtle aftertaste that seemed to be boiled into the porridge。 Thereafter, I couln’t stop downing it.

The pork rib was delicious and meaty, the prawns flavourful, slightly on the fishy side, likely from the seafood paste it was mashed with. It was uniquely one of the best bland porridge I have ever tasted!

Conclusion is that this is a chee cheong fun stall that serves better porridge than ccf. Don’t get me wrong, the rice roll itself was wonderful, I can imagine the hard work and skill required by Chef Leung to come up with this quality of rice rolls, and we should enjoy it, but I think there are better char siew ccf out there in terms of overall taste. The porridge, however, was excellent, one of the most enjoyable ones out there without a shadow of doubt.

Chef Leung’s Authentic Hand-Milled Rice Noodle Rolls

335 Smith Street, #02-096 Chinatown Complex, s030335

630am – sold out (around 1230pm), closed on Mon

https://www.facebook.com/chefleungcf/

Tong Shein

Porridge

Nov 2022

Nice fresh tasting porridge with a long tradition.

I have totally forgotten about this place until one day when a passenger’s appointment got cancelled en route to breakfast. She asked to recommend a place for breakfast, I suggested Chinatown and she thought of Tiong Shian. Oh, I got to come back and write about them!

Came alone and I ordered the fish belly porridge. Porridge was clear and lacked any basic taste, I had to keep adding soy sauce and pepper, but the fish belly was lovely. Fresh and chunky, it was very enjoyable, I definitely think this is the nicest fish belly (porridge) around, even if the porridge itself was not that great.

Had a pork and century egg porridge another day, we can definitely say that the porridge here is of the clear (and tasteless…) variety, very pure porridge. It would be fantastic place if you like your porridge clear. Pork was fresh and good, it was enjoyable and a good place for a bowl of nice clear porridge as the ingredients here are fresh and chunky.

Tiong Shian serves very pure clear porridge, providing ingredients that are fresh. If that's your cup of porridge, this is the place. As the ingredients are fresh and plenty!

Tiong Shian Porridge Centre

265 New Bridge Rd, Singapore 088745

8am – 4am, closed on Mon

ZhenZhen

Porridge

Aug 2020

Long standing porridge stall with Q’s as early as 7am!

Porridge that is so smooth and the rice grain so smashed it’s like a milk shake, without the milk. I have not tried taking it with a straw yet though….

You have a choice of fish, chicken and/or century egg with the porridge, raw egg in porridge additional option. I used to grumble to myself whenever I come here that they don’t offer pork with century egg porridge, the porridge of choice for most Cantonese, and I never thought chicken goes with porridge and fish is only good if it’s raw (which they used to sell but it has since been restricted).

To my surprise, the chicken porridge here is good, so is the fish. It is misleading for them to call it shredded chicken, which to me meant “pulled chicken” as in pulled pork sandwiches, the chicken actually comes in good bite sizes. The fish slices are smaller but thick, the century egg is abundant.

My $3 bowl of porridge had a good amount of ingredients in it. The money is well worth it on the accompanying dollop of mashed deliciously marinated vegetables, and I guess oil or lard. This I believe is what gives the porridge the supernatural taste! I remember eating and thinking this is just excellent and what makes it different from the others, thus earning its heavenly status in the makansutra list.

This fermented vegetables would be mixed with the porridge as we stir the porridge, like we usually would and infuse its taste all over, every spoonful of it will have it. I have not tried eating that alone but I’m quite sure it will be a little over powering on its own, but it definitely goes well when mixed with the entire bowl of porridge!

Definitely worth your buck here, abundant ingredient, there was so much century egg in my century egg and chicken porridge I wanted to return some to them!

Zhen Zhen Porridge

1 Kadayanallur Street, #01-54 Maxwell Food Centre, s069184

#01-54 530am – 2pm, closed Tue and Thu