Our guide Min brought us to Bubur Mendi - I thought we were just going to get some nice rice gruel but this porridge has an interesting, unique twist I soon realised.
Truth be told, we were on a whirlwind Kuching - Pontianak - Singkawang - Kuching road trip (I mean tight schedule so cannot try more porridge places for a better understanding). Coupled with my language handicap, I wasn't sure this porridge is unique to Bubur Mendi or a type of dish special to Singkawang or West Kalimantan (one bowl of porridge, so many questions ๐ ).
I gathered from the owners that this is considered "Hakka porridge". Very interesting as I never had porridge like this before.
(Afternote: Actually, it is known as "bubur Singkawang", so we were having Mendi's version of Singkawang porridge.)
Bubur Mendi was a dingy, gritty, folksy hyperlocal kind of place near Singkawang's city centre i.e. the kind of place I travel for.
Cooking was done at the front of the restaurant.
Spartan but comfortable interior.
Notice the calendars on the wall? The custom among Chinese in Pontianak and Singkawang is to use and display every calendar they received ๐ (Better than use one and stash the rest away for future reference, like I do ๐ฌ )
So what is unique about this pork porridge?
To me, it reminded me of kway teow or rice noodle soup.
What do I mean? ๐ค
First boiled rice and ingredients such as blanched pork intestine, liver, meat balls and lean meat slices with aromatics and fried garlic were assembled in a bowl.
Then, the bowl and its contents were flooded with simmering soup (not aum ้ฅฎ or plain rice water as the Teochews do in Teochew porridge). Instead, the aum is used to blanch the pork meat, intestine, liver, meat balls, eggs, etc., so it is aum-soup rich in infused flavours.
Yeah, so instead of kway teow (rice noodles), bee hoon (rice vermicelli) or yellow noodles, the carb was grains of boiled rice in aum-soup.
Top with crackly fried pork skin croutons, tong chai (preserved radish) and optional poached egg, and serve.
I love the natural textures and taste of the pork - humble, "nothing special" except that they were uber fresh and done just right to retain all its natural goodness for it.
Cannot ask for more ๐
The optional egg added egginess to the porridge.
Fried pork skin croutons were huge, biscuit crackly, great on its own and even better when it sponged up savoury sweet flavours from the soupy porridge.
The rice were soft, discrete grains. Sweet without infusing flavours from the aum-soup, so it was more layered than congee, in my opinion. I enjoyed it this way.
Happy because the porridge was delicious and a new experience for me to have it done this unique "Hakka" or West Kalimantan way.
Stall name: Bubur Mendi
Address: Jl. Sama Sama No.40c, Pasiran, Kec. Singkawang Bar., Kota Singkawang, Kalimantan Barat 79123, Indonesia
Hours: 24 hours
Written by Tony Boey on 23 Aug 2025
Who is Tony Johor Kaki?
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