A trip down memory lane for Yong Tau Fu and tea...

So... I had started on another food/ride journey.. after receiving encouraging feedback from friends and fellow cyclists who cannot be bothered with a cycling man who loves to eat and drink his way to the city. This sudden craving for "Yong Tau Fu" all started with an innocent food post in Facebook by a friend, which got me piqued as earlier the week before I had visited the same location but it was selling pizzas and beer. How can this be?? Ah ha, there is a catch..so this place at Tiong Bahru is a "Two Face"<-- (a link by another blogger who has great food posts) selling good old Yong Tau Fu koptiam style in the day and turning into a Pizza and beer place in the afternoons till night time.  I just had to visit this place in the day and get my curiosity and stomach fulfilled.

Got on a great morning ride with another Northern dwelling friend, Liu. It was a wonderful day with no extreme sun, no rain and plenty of cloud cover. It was a nice slow ride with plenty of historical discovery as you can see later, but here is our complete ride map at 24.7km.

Talking about historical...ever wondered how many bridges do we have along the Singapore river? Starting from the Kallang basin towards Nicoll Highway and the Singapore Flyer, I guessed we must had passed around at least 7-8 bridges. 

 I found a pretty good blog here about all the bridges along Singapore river,here.

The ride took us along one of the most iconic bridges of all , Anderson bridge. "Anderson Bridge is also the only bridge other than the Esplanade Bridge to be featured as part of the Singapore Grand Prix route. Similar to the Esplanade Bridge, it was also built to ease the traffic of another bridge". 

Cutting the story short, we rode northwards along the Singapore river, from its mouth into the Boat Quay area, then Clarke Quay and finally Robertson Quay before reaching the turn into Havelock Road, then Outram Road and our destination of Tiong Bahru, one of Singapore's oldest town. 

What greeted us was great weather, some available seats and very prompt auntie , presumably related to the owner of the Yong Tau Fu stall. She took our orders of a $4 rice vermicelli with assorted "yong tau fu". This dish supposedly originated from one of the minor Chinese dialect group of "Hakka" , and this is a simple dish, yet increasingly important for health savvy peeps who love a hot soup base with lots of fish paste based chunks of food items.

Note that they only open till 2pm on Saturdays and not on Sundays

 The chilli paste that came with it was very heartening, and the light soup base was not oily at all and the ingredients were fresh. The vegetarian and mee pok stalls which used to share this shop space had since moved out, and so now it is just this stall keeping the "Two Face" persona with the Pizzeria operating in the afternoons. I found the portion a little smaller than what I would had expected, probably because I was starving, but I can see the residents of Tiong Bahru frequenting this stall often.  

Now that we had our tummies filled, I guess a ride through the Tiong Bahru area would be just great, riding through the colonial or rather post colonial "HDB" estate, Singapore's first public housing location turned hipster suburb now. Took a few shots of my Brompton "posing" with the "white houses" as a backdrop.

Check out this CNN Travel article about Tiong Bahru here. 

Lots of artisan cafes, bakeries and Bistros are found along the lanes within this compound, as well as bookstores, specialty shops and even uncommonly found art decorative pieces.

I found this "slope" here which reminded me of the San Francisco city landscape, where cyclists were often challenged with shops and houses built on very steep slopes.  Of course, this is nothing compared to theirs but this certainly made a great backdrop for my B. Somehow I feel my Brommie is just right at home in Tiong Bahru.

We could not get seats at the ever popular 40 Hands for a cup of coffee, and settled for earl grey tea at "Poteato",  along this hip Yong Siak Street. Teas and potato food products are supposedly their forte. This is another emerging place to chill over a cuppa, in this case, tea. I would say this made a perfect way to end an afternoon with food and tea, some exercise and good company.

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Tiong Bahru Yong Tau Fu

56 Eng Hoon Street #01-46 Singapore 160056 

Tel:+65 6536 0024

Hours: In the mornings to noon- Mon-Fri

Till 2pm on Saturdays and closed on Sundays

Two Face Pizza (afternoon onwards)
http://www.twoface.sg/

PoTeaTo

78 Yong Siak Street #01-018 Singapore, 

Tel: +65 6221 2488

Opening Hours: 11am – 10 pm Tue to Sun (closed Mon)