Saturday, February 14, 2009

Bak Kut Teh or Pork Ribs Soup

Bak Kut Teh (in Hokkien) or 肉骨茶, if direct translation means pork ribs tea. But you will never find tea in making the pork rib soup. As the soup is made mainly with pork ribs, it could be quite oily due to the fats. So chinese tea is usually taken together with the soup to cleanse off the oil.

Bak Kut Teh is considered a signature dish in both Singapore and Malaysia. Bak Kut Teh in the old days are normally taken at breakfast, but now you can have it any time of the day. The are 2 common types of Bak Kut Teh you can find in Singapore, the Hokkien style or Teochew style. For both, the basic ingredients are pork ribs, garlic with skin, white pepper seeds and spices. For Hokkien style, normally dark soy sauce is added to the soup and it is also less spicy. Some will also add in star anise and cinnamon to strength the taste. As for the Teochew style, the soup is normally clear and more white pepper seeds are added to the soup which make it more spicy.

Bak Kut Teh is to be served with rice and cut red chilli in dark soy sauce is used to dip the pork ribs. In the recent years, Bak Kut Teh's stall owners have come up with more side dishes to go with the Bak Kut Teh. The commonly found are the preserved mustard vegetable (咸菜), you tiao (油条) and braised pig trotters. Others are like pig livers, pig kidney, pig stomach and pig intestines are served in the same soup base as the bak kut teh.

Someone recommended to Ng Ah Sio Pork Ribs Soup Eating House located at 208 Rangoon Road. It is one of the famous stall that served Bak Kut Teh in Singapore. They are opened for breakfast and closed after lunch around 2pm. I was impressed by the uncle who took my order with a HP PDA, and a while later my food arrived at your desk.
















Although the soup was good, but I found it too spicy for me. There are too much residue in the soup too, hopefully the stall owner can improve by draining off the residue before serving the soup to the customer. I like the chinese tea they served, there is a after sweetness left on your tongue after you drank it. I found the price there was a bit too steep. We paid almost S$20.00 for 2 bowls of bak kut teh, 1 bowl of vegetable, 1 bowl of you tiao and chinese tea.

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