British Hainan in Joo Chiat · Defender of Singapore Hainanese Food Heritage

Reviewed 2022. This was our second time at British Hainan after five years. We love it from our last visit. Things haven't changed that much at British Hainan, at least on the surface. The rustic, curio shop feel, familial ambience, the personal, warm hospitality of Frederick the boss are all still there. The menu hasn't changed much too, if at all. But, the food is different now - I mean it is better than I remembered it from five years ago 😋 👍

Restaurant name: British Hainan

Address: 75 Carpmael Road, Singapore 429812

Nearest MRT: 15 minutes walk from Paya Lebar station

Car park: Plentiful at HDB car park 3 - 5 minutes walk away

Tel: 6336 8122

Hours: 11:00am - 3:00pm | 6:00pm - 10:00pm (Tues off)

The vintage Morris car is no longer at the entrance of British Hainan. The duty of welcoming guests of British Hainan is now on the shoulders of a pair of sleepy lions.

Frederick the owner (in the lumberjack shirt on the right) greets every guest with "Welcome Home". Inside the restaurant, wall-to-wall, floor to ceiling, was chocked full of vintage collectibles, including the furniture we sat on.

Frederick went around to every table bantering with guests and introducing his menu. Frederick is not only an entrepreneur and restauranteur but a passionate ambassador of Singapore Hainanese heritage food. His British Hainan restaurants (at Joo Chiat, Kallang Way and Purvis Street) are outposts of Singapore Hainanese heritage food. So, we won't find the latest Instagrammable food trends in the menu but a wide range of Singapore Hainanese classics (sans chicken rice 🤔 ).

I zeroed in on British Hainan's Oxtail Soup. It's a homely vegetable stew with big chunky, meaty pieces of oxtail with melty soft savoury sweet beefy meat and fat.

The "soup" was a heavy thick stew made with sweet potato, butter and olive oil complemented with carrot, potato, onion, celery and other vegetables. British Hainan use no sugar, MSG or generic commercial BBQ sauce in their oxtail soup. We mopped up the stew till the plate was squeaky white with the French loaf slices provided.

The classic Hainanese pork chop slathered with brown sauce, tomato, onion and the iconic green peas. Comes with a side of shoestring fries.

The pork wrapped in a thick but light crisp batter of crushed cream crackers was soft-tender and juicy. The pork's natural sweetness was nicely complemented by the gentle, well balanced savoury sweetness of the brown sauce.

I am a big fan of Loo's Curry Rice but wouldn't naturally gravitate to Hainanese curry rice, if I were alone at British Hainan. Top of my mind would be "ang moh jiak" i.e. "British" cuisine. 

But, Buddy Jen is a true blue Hainanese and he picked a few Nanyang Hainanese comfort dishes like this curry rice. It's boiled rice slathered with curry and braising stock along with sides of pork chop, braised pork belly and stewed vegetables. A fusion of Hainanese, British and Peranakan. If there is one dish that represents Nanyang Hainanese, in my humble opinion, it would be Hainanese curry rice.

British pork chop, Hainanese stew pork and vegetables (chup chai), and Peranakan curry looked like an odd combination but the savoury, sweet, and spicy flavours were a surprisingly tasty combination (I mean this is the umpteen time I am eating Hainanese curry rice but am still amazed how all these disparate elements gel together so well).

Everything was great in this plate and together, it was a taste experience at the next level of pleasure. That old cliché, the whole is greater than the parts. Try it.

Jen also picked this Hainanese mutton soup.

I like this mutton soup as I love the mild gaminess that comes from the soft-tender fall-off-the-bone meat and juicy fat. The thick soup's gently herbal and sweet taste with ginger heat complemented and masked the lamb gaminess a little.

Truth be told, we didn't order this Hainanese beef kway teow at first. We already had enough food for four of us and didn't recall that it was very memorable from my last visit five years ago. But, Frederick was persistent, said we must try his beef noodle 😄

I am glad Frederick persisted as this Hainanese beef noodle was the most improved dish compared to what we had five years ago. I will even say that this is now my favourite beef noodle in Singapore today.

The thick gooey sauce made from scratch with sweet potatoes and a blend of soy sauce was savoury sweet. It was complemented with sweet tangy savoury flavours from the preserved vegetable, umami savoury cincalok (fermented shrimp), and savoury spicy sambal sauce. The lovely blend of flavours from the sauce enveloped the slurpy thick rice noodles.

There's soft-tender beef tripe, tendon and meat slices plus groundnuts which added crunch and nutty taste to the lovely savoury umami tangy sweet blend of flavours.

These tender beefy beef balls were so good that we had to clarify with Frederick if they were made in-house. No, they were from a supplier but made according to British Hainan specifications.

We had a great lunch at British Hainan - delicious food, best company. The menu is extensive, so there is something for everyone. The ambiance is unique - we ate in an interesting, quaint setting. The pricing is reasonable. Our bill came to $130 with drinks included i.e. $33 per person. We enjoyed the warm hospitality of Frederick and by eating here supported the preservation of Singapore's Hainanese food heritage. 

          

Reviewed by Tony Boey on 14 Mar 2022

Lao Diam - British Hainan from NickyLoh on Vimeo.

Written 2017. We gathered for Sunday lunch today at British Hainan restaurant which is at the intersection of Crane Road and Carpmael Road in Joo Chiat (about 15 minutes leisurely walk from Paya Lebar MRT station). A red and black bug eyed vintage Morris car stood at the front like a Queen's Guard in a red and black coat outside Buckingham Palace 😄



Stepping inside British Hainan was like walking into a curio shop but set up with tables and chairs. The interior was chock a block with old things, not necessarily British - Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley and President Obama shared wall space with Princess Diana. It reminded me of those century old Ang Moh homes (in Ang Moh land) where great grandpa and grandma's things are still around everywhere 😂



British or not, this place is certainly Hainan. Our's was the only table speaking in English in the full house restaurant - everyone else was greeting and bantering cheerfully in Hainanese. This was indeed a "Hainanese village" as owner Frederick envisioned.



British Hainan's speciality is a unique genre of cuisine which was born out of the history of Hainanese immigration to Southeast Asia. The Hainanese were late comers from China to Nanyang in the early 1900s, so they established themselves in whatever unoccupied industry that remained. Many ended up in the kitchens of British military bases, homes and even ships. 

I can still remember the Hainanese Ah Ko in white long sleeves, bow ties and black pants in Tengah Officers Mess when I was a young greenhorn. It was at TOM that I was initiated to British Hainan cuisine - I will always remember the French toast but that's a story for another post 😄 



The next step for many Hainanese chefs and their descendants was moving on to start up their own coffee shops and restaurants like British Hainan. Frederick's dad cooked for a British family and his sugar free recipes are still used in British Hainan today (exactly right for our national "War on Diabetes" campaign - why everything also must put in this type of language? 😜). Frederick's dad's boss was diabetic, hence he developed sugar free recipes replacing sugar with sweet potatoes.



Of the many dishes that represent British Hainan cuisine, my favourites are pork chop, chicken chop and oxtail stew. We indulged in them all today 😄



Hainanese pork and chicken chops were coated with a flour batter and crushed cream crackers. The deep fried coating has a characteristic crispiness from bits of cream crackers while the pork or chicken inside (shielded from the hot oil) remained tender and juicy - the contrast of textures and natural sweetness of pork or chicken make Hainanese chops so delicious 😋



The chops were served smothered in a thick savoury sourish sweet sauce with lots of peas, onion, tomato and carrots. At British Hainan it also comes with a generous salad of cucumber slices, lettuce, cherry tomatoes, pineapple, tangerine etc. We were busy chatting, enjoying the food and company, so I may miss out some ingredients 😂



I like the flavoursome sauce so much that I had to politely request the helpful staff who came to clear our table to let me finish up the sauce 😁



I like British Hainan's oxtail stew, which is another quintessential British Hainan dish. It's a homely vegetable stew with oxtail in the pot.



The tail joints were meaty with a bit of fat. The meat was tender and juicy with a mild beefiness. The meat had a gentle chew to the bite though personally I prefer it half a notch softer.



I like this thick stew a lot - it had all the essence from sweet potato, potato, tomato, carrot, onion, celery and beefy oxtail in its savoury sweet beefy sauce. I was cleaning up the plate and didn't want to return it to the staff, sorry 😂 I also ate those woody Rosemary leaves, yum yum 😋 



Frederick teamed up with Wah Eng beef noodles and now serves traditional Hainanese beef noodles at British Hainan.

The generic thick bee hoon is served with a mix of small pieces of lean beef slices, tendon, tripe and beef balls in a savoury beefy medium bodied broth. The beef was tender with a bit of chew to the bite which released beefy flavours with every bite.



We also had the "dry" version where the bee hoon and beef were smothered in a starch thicken savoury salty dark sauce with subtle underlying beefiness.



Restaurant name: British Hainan
Address: 75 Carpmael Rd, Singapore 429812
GPS: 1°18'44.5"N 103°53'55.5"E | 1.312351, 103.898759
Tel: 11:00am - 5:30pm | 6:00pm – 10:00pm (Tues off)
Hours: 6336 8122

Non Halal

Written by Tony Boey on 26 Nov 2017 | Updated 2022 | 21 Aug 2023

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