Yong tau foo (YTF) is one of those few hawker dishes that can make all the lists of healthy choice hawker meals, from government, state newspaper, and of course online listicle. Now as this meal is a multiple choice adventure with tongs – your choices dictate the calories getting counted in your bowl. However, even if you pick all fried ingredients, there is an inherent satisfaction, a little pat on the back, for choosing yong tau foo over hokkien mee.

“Today I made a sacrifice for my health, it’s as if I walked 10,000 steps” - me, sitting there shoving fried beancurd dipped in sweet brown sauce down my throat

My biggest problem with YTF is self-inflicted; I over order. I cannot seem to visually comprehend how much is required to make me feel full and not stuffed. You would think at my age I would have a better grasp of this concept. I also cannot bring myself to waste food, so what is on the plate must be eaten. This stall has a wide variety of ingredients. To be honest I never know what half the things are in the selection, I try and ask about some, but I always feel the aunty or uncle becoming impatient with all my questions. And the list of ingredient and prices all being in chinese characters does not help me much. I only recognise noodles and 1-10.

Of course, once again I over ordered. I choose a mix of fried bean curd things and vegetables packed full of fish paste, cooked in clear soup with kway teow mee. The soup tasted and felt healthy, clean but also packed full of flavour. I was worried I would regret not choosing the laksa version, but no, this soup left me satisfied. All the chosen ingredients were decent, without being wow amazing. I dipped a lot in the sweet brown chilli sauce so probably couldn’t appreciate the flavour as much. Great value for money and I felt like I lowered my blood pressure through the eating of a meal.

Price: $5.30

Hawker centre: Haig Road Market and Food Centre
Address: #01-64, 14 Haig Rd
Hours: TBD