Steamed fish, salted radish, braised duck… these are some of the dishes associated with Teochew porridge, which form the accompaniments to a watery rice porridge. Because of the nature of the meal, where there were a multitude of dishes to choose from, Teochew porridge was an excellent meal for groups to share, rather than for a single person.

Back in the 60s and 70s, there was one place in Singapore that one would go to for Teochew porridge – Owen Road. yg writes:

whenever i think of teochew porridge, i think of chye buay (preserved cut vegetable), steamed fish, hae bee hiam (chilli fried with dried prawn) , chye poh (salted radish) omelette, tau kee (beancurd strip) with stewed chicken feet, the bland watery, grainy porridge and owen road.

owen road in the 60s and up to the 80s used to be the place where people would zero in for teochew porridge, just like you will head for beach road and geylang for steamboat buffet, lau par sat for malay satay and upper thomson road for roti prata. in the past, we would also head to middle road for steamboat and waterloo street for indian rojak.

the authentic teochew muay or porridge stalls at owen road had a spread of many dishes, some stalls as many as 60 varieties for you to choose from. most, if not all, of these dishes that went with the bland porridge were salty. if it was not salty, like the steamed fish, then you would have to dip it in soya sauce or the fermented bean sauce to make it salty.

Because of its simplicity, Teochew porridge was considered working class food. Read more about Teochew porridge joints in Singapore in yg’s post here.