Poh Hwa at Berseh Food Centre is one of my favourite Fuzhou oyster cake stalls in Singapore.
Jenny (her Chinese name is ็ๅฎๅ Poh Hwa) has been selling oyster cakes since her childhood, first with her grandmother who founded a back lane stall near Queen Street in the 1950s. Jenny started her own stall at Kitchener Road in the 1980s.
Jenny makes her famous oyster cakes at the stall. Everything is on this small table - batter mix, marinated prawns, oysters, minced pork, peanut, dried whitebait, and chopped coriander.
Jenny scooped a ladle full of batter mix in a shallow ladle. Jenny uses a secret blend of 3 types of flour for her batter - one of which is soy bean (which they use in Fuzhou, China where this dish originally came from).
She then adds in the minced meat, coriander, prawns and oysters.
Jenny then caps the ladle full of ingredients with a bit more batter mix. She next drops in a few peanuts and a sprinkle of dried whitebait, before lowering the ladle into a wok of boiling oil.
Jenny lowers the ladle into the furiously churning hot oil. When cooked, the oyster cake will lift off the ladle like a flying saucer. Jenny lets it bob around inside the wok of oil, turning them over occasionally so that the entire oyster cake is evenly well browned.
Jenny lets the golden brown oyster cakes rest a while in a strainer to let it cool and drain off excess oil. The oyster cakes are still piping hot when served. Waiting time is around 30 - 40 minutes during peak hours as each oyster cake needs to be fried for about 8 minutes.
I like the mix of textures in Poh Hwa's oyster cake - the bottom layer crust was thicker, fluffy soft, moist inside but crisp outside. The top layer is like a thin crisp shell. The minced pork, oysters and prawns added different types of softness and crunch to the cake.
The taste was mainly mildly savoury sweet in different layers from the oysters, prawn, and minced pork. The coriander added its signature taste and interesting aromatics to the cake.
The dried whitebait and peanuts add a bit of crunch and their savoury and nutty flavours to the cake.
Recommended for you ๐ Only a handful of places in Singapore still sell Fuzhou oyster cakes. Poh Hwa is one of the best here. Price $2.50.
Restaurant name: Fu Zhou Poh Hwa Oyster Cake
Address: Berseh Food Centre, 166 Jalan Besar, stall #02-34, Singapore 208877
GPS: 1°18'26.6"N 103°51'24.4"E ๐ 1.307375, 103.856776
Tel: 9029 9718
Hours: 10:00am - 6:00pm
Date visited: 18 Jan 2020
Is the stall open for business every day?
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