Tau Huay @ Old Airport Road Hawker Centre

This is sometimes a food blog. 

This is my first food post but there will definitely be more in the future. Simply because I like food and I like to eat so its pretty safe to say food is something I get excited about. 

So today's foodventures brings me to the revamped Hawker Centre at Old Airport Road in the Kallang area. My mom had been talking about going to try the Tau Huay there for quite some time now and finally, we found a window to go there today. 

I love Tau Huay. It's everything that a health-nut-with-a-bit-of-wiggle-room, like myself  can ask for. Main ingredient being soy (Protein!) but served with a sweetened broth (Sugar! Satisfies my sweet tooth). 

Okay, its not that healthy after all the sugar but hey, there are worse chinese desserts. 

This particular place has garnered much attention after being featured in a Sunday Times article and true enough, when we got there you could see this permeating from all aspects of the business: 

• We got there at 10.45am and we couldn't buy anything because they were still setting up the store for the day's business. Basically putting stock into the fridges, setting up the cash register etc. Its 10.45am. That's pretty late in the day if you ask me. 
• The queue (ahh the famous queue) had already started to become substantial but lady boss and boss were still taking their time to set up. 
• Lady boss clearly used to big orders. I asked for 5 bowls of Tau Huay, splitting up my order 4:1 original and almond flavour. She thought I asked for 20. No, original 四个 almond一个！Then she looked at me funny. What, you're only buying 5?! Ha. I would've loved to see her expression if I had stuck with my original order of 1. 

Conclusion? Like most things that are hyped, they rarely meet expectations. This one was certainly no different. When I opened it, the texture on the surface looked like the soy was semi gelatinized and I didn't find anything outstanding about the taste: sweet in a boring sort of way and creamy? No, not really. 

Another thing important to me - while I stood in line reading the newspaper article plastered on their store front, I discovered: they use Coffeemate in their recipe. Oh hell no. Coffeemate?! That stuff is toxic. Coffeemate is a non-dairy creamer and is known to have partially hydrogenated vegetable oils, or, trans fats in its ingredients. Trans fat is quite simply put, the most harmful type of fat. It clogs your arteries and causes heart problems, among doing other stuff to your body. For a more comprehensive explanation, go here. You do not want to put this stuff in your body. 

While waiting, my mom decided to try another store selling tau huay just next door to 老伴 called Happy Boy. 

HAPPY BOY TAU HUAY WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN ALL MY LIFE? 

First, it is not as sweet as 老伴's. In fact, it is the least sweet tau huay I have ever had. And this is a good thing, which leads me to my second point; you can actually taste what the tau huay is made of: Soy beans. This scored the biggest points with me because usually you taste the sweetness first and then if you're lucky, a hint of the soy. But for this, the instant you put a spoonful in your mouth, you know what you're eating. I like my food to taste as close as possible to what it is in its rawest form. Third, the texture. Now this is what I call smooth. 'Glides' is the word I'd use. Glides on your spoon, off your spoon, into your mouth and down your throat. Truly. 

Happy Boy was the discovery of the day for me. I'm not exaggerating when I say this is probably the best Tau Huay I have ever had. If you need a scale, I just came back from a 2 week long trip in Taiwan where there's tons of must try Tau Huay everywhere you go. None of it was as memorable as Happy Boy. 

So, if you ever find yourself getting impatient in the queue for the famous store, try Happy Boy instead. Their store will be in your line of sight and you will probably be queueing past their store anyway (They are only two stores to the right of 老伴's ) so..summon all your willpower and resist the herd mentality, check out of that queue and go to Happy Boy's.  

Healthier, better tasting, more interesting flavours (they have milo flavoured tau huay!)..I'm glad I did.