Maxwell Food Centre Fuzhou Oyster Cake in Tanjong Pagar Singapore 洪家福州蠔饼

Fuzhou Oyster Cake is a traditional street food rarely seen in Singapore nowadays. If you are in Maxwell Road Food Centre, you can try one of Singapore's last few Fuzhou oyster cake stalls.


Photo credit: National Archives Singapore

Maxwell Fuzhou Oyster Cake 洪家福州蠔饼 was founded by present owner Ms Voon's mother, Mdm Pang in 1962 at Tras Street (two blocks away). They moved here at Maxwell Road Food Centre when it was converted from a wet market in 1986. In her 90s now, Mdm Pang has retired.




Ms Voon who worked with her mum since she was a child makes the Fuzhou oyster cakes by hand at the stall. On a shallow spatula, Ms Voon pours in rice flour batter, followed by oysters, shelled prawns, minced pork, and chopped parsley (coriander or cilantro). She then pours in more batter to cover the ingredients and drops a few toasted peanuts on top.



The spatula brimming with ingredients of the Fuzhou oyster cake is lowered into boiling hot oil. It is deep fried till the golden brown "flying saucer" lifts off from the spatula, floats, and bobs on the churning hot oil.



Freshly fried Fuzhou oyster cakes waiting for you. When are you coming? 😄



I got 2 for myself at S$2 each. Seems like a lot of money for a 2 bite size street snack but the stall has held this price for over a decade. 



Breaking open the oyster cake shell, there's oyster, minced pork, peanut, prawn, and parsley in the steamy filling. The thin, well browned shell has a slight crisp and was slightly greasy. It feels greasier when cooled. The well cooked filling was tender juicy and tasted savoury in layers. The couple of oysters were tiny but flavoursome. I can taste the oysters more than see them 😄 Overall, it's quite nice.

Fuzhou 福州 is the capital city of China's southern Fujian province. Seafood and oysters are abundant in Fuzhou as it is a coastal city. In Fuzhou, where oyster cakes originate from, it is known as Li Bing 蛎饼, 蛎 being the word for oyster in Foochow language. The batter is a blend of rice and soy beans made into a paste after soaking overnight in water. In Fuzhou, Li Bing filling contains bamboo shoots, mushroom, celery, minced pork, and of course, big thumb size oysters (but, usually no prawns). This dish is known as hao bing 蠔饼 in Mandarin Chinese.

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Restaurant name: Maxwell Fuzhou Oyster Cake 洪家福州蠔饼
Address: Maxwell Food Centre, 1 Kadayanallur Street, #01-05, Singapore 069184
GPS: 1°16'48.5"N 103°50'41.9"E 🌐 1.280129, 103.844979  
Waze: Maxwell Food Centre
Hours: 9:00am - 7:00pm (Sunday off)

Non Halal





Date visited: 11 Nov 2019