Ivy's Hainanese Herbal Mutton Soup, Pasir Panjang, Singapore ⭐⭐⭐✱✱

We were hungry around Pasir Panjang and decided to popped by Pasir Panjang Food Centre for lunch. There are about 50 food stalls here, and we opted for Ivy's Hainanese Herbal Mutton Soup as we all love the opportunity to have Chinese style mutton soup which is getting really scarce in Singapore - we can count them all with the fingers on one hand 😱

新加坡巴西班让小贩中心, 海南药材羊肉汤. 使用20种草药煮 成. 羊肉适当处理, 所以没有羊骚味. 肉汤微咸带微草药味. 羊肉鲜嫩微甜. 这是一个很好吃的海南羊肉汤. 朋友们不妨试试.



We launched immediately into hard core stuff - lamb shank and tendons in herbal broth served in claypots.



The medium bodied broth was a blend of savoury and herbal flavours with underlying lamb gaminess. None of the flavours - savouriness, herbal or gaminess - was overly pronounced. We all liked it and finished all the broth to the last drop.



There was a heap of taupok, fried tofu skin, black fungus etc smothering the lamb, adding crunchy textures and flavours to the dish.



The shank had a little bit of meat clinging feebly to the base of the socket joint. The meat was tender and juicy with very slight gamey flavour (very slight as in, you won't realise it is there if you don't pay attention).



The tendons have nice a spongy, jelly-like bounce to the bite though they don't really carry much flavour - relying on the broth clinging to the tendons for taste. Tendon lovers will have trouble resisting this. We love it.

There's more flavours in the rich greasy bone marrow but we all abstained today 😂



We liked the herbal broth so much that we followed up with a third claypot - this time with lamb ribs.



Oh... we loved this tender juicy meaty lamb with nice gentle gaminess. Some of the bones were soft, have a nice chew and we happily ate it with the meat.



I love this house made chili sauce. It has a sharp sting (which doesn't linger) and a mild underlying savouriness. It perks up the taste buds and makes everything tastes better.

(The mutton soup costs SGD9 per serving in a claypot.)



Stall holder Max had been running Ivy's Hainanese Herbal Mutton Soup for over 7 years now. He was initially located at Toa Payoh Lorong 7 before moving here at Pasir Panjang. Max's regulars followed him here, from Toa Payoh all the way to Pasir Panjang.

Hainanese herbal mutton soup is a disappearing dish in Singapore food centres and we are fortunate to still have such a good one, thanks to Max who is in his 40s.



The stall is named after Max's wife Ivy. The recipe is from Ivy's aunt who often cooked this mutton soup for the family. The broth is made with around 20 different herbs such as cumin, dangui, wolf berries etc. Max said that he chose herbs and proportions that make his mutton soup "cooling" instead of "heaty". So, there is no ginger (a heaty root) which is often used by other stalls to rid the lamb of it's gaminess.

Max uses New Zealand lamb which is processed younger so they are less gamey than Australian lamb which are slaughtered older.



3-Star There ain't many Hainanese herbal mutton soup in Singapore. Fortunately, we have a good one here at Pasir Panjang hawker centre. Recommend Ivy's, if you are around the Pasir Panjang area.



Restaurant name: Ivy's Hainanese Herbal Mutton Soup 海南药材羊肉汤
Address:  Stall 14, Pasir Panjang Food Centre, 121 Pasir Panjang Road, Singapore (right beside Pasir Panjang MRT station)
GPS: 1°16'34.0"N 103°47'29.8"E | 1.276120, 103.791623
Tel: +65 9818 8219
Hours: 11:30am to 9:00pm

No pork, no lard, no Halal cert

Date visited: 9 Sept 2016

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