One of the most famous and often touted as the best Teochew fish soup stall in Singapore. First Street is the social media darling of Teochew fish soup in Singapore.
First Street Teochew Fish Soup is a stall inside Heng Long Teochew Porridge at the intersection of Jalan Rengkam and Upper Serangoon Road. I almost overshot the stall while looking for First Street. Fortunately, I was alert enough to notice that most people were eating fish soup at Heng Long as I was walking past, so went inside to check it out.
10am on a Weds morning, the coffee shop was almost full. Most people were here for First Street Teochew Fish Soup but the queue wasn't that long and I got my food within 15 minutes of arriving.
I got the $10 serving of Ikan Batang fish soup. Another 60 cents for the rice.
They also have Pomfret fish soup, Red Garoupa fish soup, seafood soup and fish head soup.
I like it that First Street's Teochew fish soup is the basic, no frills kind.
Just fish slices in an almost clear soup with lettuce and spring onion. That's it, that's all 👍 Okay, there's also optional fried shallot (but they weren't very aromatic here) and slivers of julienned fresh ginger.
Swee (nice in Hokkien or Singlish).
The clear, watery, slightly tea colour soup tasted umami-savoury with an underlying sweetness and hint of heat from ginger.
It's nice. The presence of tee poh (dried sole fish) was rather prominent.
There's a lot of fish slices but hey.... it's $10 wat....... . (I can hear you say: "Hey Tony, you think nowsaday your $10 very big issit!?" 😂
The Ikan Batang fish slices were cut a hair thinner than my idea of ideal. The fish slices come without skin - many people like it this way. Personally, I prefer to have the skin as it adds another texture and also another subtle layer of flavour.
The fish slices were soft-tender and had a subtle smooth slime on the surface. I prefer my Ikan Batang fish slice tender-soft and without the slime. They tasted fresh and sweet. The fish slices also had a slight salty-briny taste besides sweetness.
The smoking gun - tee poh powder on the fish slice.
Average quality rice (some broken grains) but good enough to complement the fish soup. I always splash a bit of light soy sauce and cut chili before I start eating 😄
Written by Tony Boey on 12 May 2021
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