Singapore Eat: Hoo Kee Bak Chang (和记肉粽) Rice Dumplings @ Amoy Street Food Centre

Rick
20 hours ago
2 min read

Hoo Kee Bak Chang (和记肉粽) is recognised in the Singapore Michelin Guide for its Hokkien-style rice dumplings since 2016. The main stall is located in Amoy Street Food Centre, in Chinatown, with a branch in Bukit Merah Central.

Hoo Kee Bak Chang (和记肉粽) @ Amoy Street Food Centre

Hoo Kee Bak Chang has just 4 variants of rice dumplings with different combinations of ingredients. Chestnut and pork are the primary ingredients in all dumplings with salted egg yolk and mushroom as the varying ingredients. The rice dumplings are tied with different coloured strings (red for original, yellow with salted egg yolk, green with mushroom and blue for all-in).

After re-steaming the rice dumplings before eating, the bamboo leaves come off easily with no sticky glutinous rice sticking to them. This is an indication that the rice are well-cooked with enough moisture. And the hot dumplings filled the air with their nice aromas.

Hoo Kee Bak Chang (和记肉粽): Rice dumpling (with salted egg yolk) with yellow string

The Chestnut & Pork with Salted Egg Yolk Dumpling (咸蛋黄栗子肉粽), tied with yellow string, has several whole chestnuts, a salted egg yolk and lean pork wrapped in glutinous rice that is pre-cooked with savoury sauce. The meat is not fatty, which is surprising as traditional Hokkien-style dumplings always use fat pork belly meat — which I avoided. The salted egg yolk is not salty and has a nice savoury flavour that blends well with the mild sweetness of the chestnuts. It is delicious.

Hoo Kee Bak Chang (和记肉粽): Chestnut & Pork with Salted Egg Yolk Dumpling (咸蛋黄栗子肉粽)

Similar to the Chestnut & Pork with Salted Egg Yolk Dumpling (above), the Chestnut & Pork with Salted Egg Yolk & Mushroom Dumpling (咸蛋黄冬菇栗子肉粽), tied with blue string, has additional shiitake mushrooms added. This is the deluxe version with all-in of all ingredients. The big cuts of mushroom are soft, not tough to chew and add a nice mushroom fragrance to the dumpling — I can understand why I failed to get the two mushroom versions on previous visits.