My husband and I felt a little peckish after buying CNY cookies from Galicier Confectionery so we decided to head to the nearby Tiong Bahru Market for a quick bite. As I was skimming around the food centre, this particular stall’s colourful signboard caught my eye which I thought was perfect since we just wanted something light for a snack.
This stall offers rojak and tow kwar pop
While I was waiting for my order, I was mesmerised by the aroma of the tofu puffs barbecuing over charcoal. The uncle was patiently flipping the puffs and fritters to ensure every side was well grilled to crisp. I am impressed because such traditional way of preparing tow kwar pop is really rare these days. Most if not all rojak stalls I have visited only use electric grill or oven to crisp their fritters and puffs to save time and manpower so I really salute this stall for doing it the old school way.
At $3, the tow kwar pop were served with accompaniments of sliced cucumbers, turnip, red apple and pineapple just like a rojak. The portion size was good enough for sharing between 2 persons. Though there wasn’t a queue when I was there and I had to wait quite long for my order, I thought it was still worth the time because the tow kwar pop were served fresh, hot and crispy. I liked that the puffs weren’t soaked completely in the shrimp paste so they remained crispy to the last bite. With extra shrimp paste and chilli sauce plated separately, we could just dip each cube into the respective sauces whenever we wanted to. The shrimp paste was rich and fragrant but not overly salty.
Every tofu puff was stuffed with cucumber and bean sports that were blanched perfectly so you’d get this crunch from the vegetables with every bite. The ground peanut that was sprinkled on top complemented the sauce very well, giving it a lovely nutty flavour.
Overall, this was an excellent plate of tow kwar pop. Definitely one of the best I’ve had. This is a must try if you come to Tiong Bahru Market. Two thumbs up!
Tow Kwar Pop
Tiong Bahru Market
30 Seng Poh Road, #02-06
Opens: 12.00pm to 8.00pm (Tue-Sun), Closed on Monday
These look SOOO good! I wonder if I could find a place like this in NYC. It’s possible….. 🙂
These tofu puffs are more of a Malaysian/Singaporean type of snack so you might like to check out the South East Asian restaurants in NYC. Might be one near you! 🙂