I haven’t had Bak Kut Teh since I was a child and my dad used to make it. I remember the soup to have a very herbal flavour which I didn’t really appreciate at that age but as I had some visitors last week who wanted to try the local Singaporean Bak Kut Teh, we decided to go to Song Fa Bak Kut Teh as it always seems to be very popular with the locals. Song Fa Bak Kut Teh has several branches in Singapore with one in The Centrepoint on Orchard Road which is the one that we went to.
Bak Kut Teh literally means “meat bone tea” and is a soup made by cooking pork ribs with various herbs and spices. Song Fa Bak Kut Teh tries to keep the Bak Kut Teh experience as authentic as possible by recreating the 1960’s roadside dining atmosphere in it’s branches so you can find life-size replicas of the original pushcarts which Bak Kut Teh used to be sold from and vintage-style coffee shop furniture.
The menu has Bak Kut Teh soup with different parts of the pig in it such as the loin, kidney, liver, etc., you could also choose fish slices if you’re not so keen on eating pork and there’s a selection of braised dishes and side dishes available too.
We each had a bowl of the Pork Ribs Soup ($7 for a normal size, $9 for a large) and shared a plate of Braised Pork Belly ($7) and Kai Lan ($4 small, $6 medium and $8 large size).
The food came out quickly and the normal sized bowl of Pork Ribs Soup that I had had 3 large fall-off-the-bone tender pork ribs in it. The soup was very different to what I’ve had before though. It was a light-coloured broth with a peppery flavour but I couldn’t taste any herbs and spices in it which was very disappointing. The soup is free-flow so you can eat as much as you like but it’s hardly worth eating a lot of.
The Braised Pork Belly however was delicious, it actually tasted similar to what I remember Bak Kut Teh to be like. The sauce was definitely infused with herbs and spices and the pork belly was juicy, tender and melt-in-the-mouth.
The large plate of Kai Lan that we ordered was a nice side dish, the kai lan was crunchy and stir fried with soya sauce.
Overall I don’t think the Bak Kut Teh in Song Fa Bak Kut Teh is good at all and it’s definitely not authentic. The soup needs more herbs and spices although the pork ribs were cooked perfectly. The side dishes we got were very good but not enough to make me want to return. Service was also very efficient but we were there during a quiet time of the day so I can’t comment on what it would be like during busy periods.
Song Fa Bak Kut Teh (The Centrepoint branch)
Address: The Centrepoint, 176 Orchard Road, #02-29/30, Singapore 238843
Tel: 67348498
Opening Hours: Daily 10.30am – 9.30pm
Hope you’ve enjoyed my Song Fa Bak Kut Teh review, please feel free to leave a comment below with your own review of the restaurant or if you have any questions!
