The Beef House is a very popular 24-year-old stall, located in Gar Lok Eating House at the quiet end of Syed Alwi Road, which purportedly sells the best Chinese-Hakka beef meatballs in Singapore. The owner, Chia Teck Kwang, offers a selection of Hakka dishes: “yong tau fu”, Hakka “son pan ji” (abacus-shaped tapioca balls), Hakka “soon kueh” (steamed rice-flour cakes stuffed with vegetables & meats), and chewy Hakka egg-wheat noodles tossed in pork-lard and topped with minced pork.
Hakka flavours are hearty, and the ones here do not disappoint. A Hainanese friend brought me here - the Hainanese themselves are famous in Singapore for the Hainanese-style beef noodles and beef balls - but even he deferred to the superiority of the Hakka version served here. We ordered “yong tau fu” - a selection of fishballs and different types of tofu & yuba stuffed with a mixture of minced fish and pork forcemeat.
Hakka noodles here were chewy and springy, the way Hakkas love their food.
The piece de resistance, of course, were the golfball-sized beef balls, bouncy-chewy and utterly delicious - served floating a a bowl of deep-flavoured beef consomme.
Have to admit this is definitely the best beef noodle dish I’d had in Singapore in a long while.
Address
Gar Lok Eating House
17 Syed Alwi Road
Singapore 207776
Tel: +65 6299 1173
Opening hours: 8am to 2pm daily, except Fridays.
