This place here at one corner of Toa Payoh Hub I have walked past often a time, but out of all those times, I have only come here twice.
That's two times.
It isn't because I don't like the food.
It's just that Toa Payoh Central is one of those places where one has lots of other options, and somehow my feet, appetite, and stomach have always gone there.
But The White Tiffin is one of those cafes that you have to take special notice of- even if it be at least once.
At first glance it looks like nothing more than an ordinary cafe serving local food- no different from many other Singapore-style cafes that have sprouted up in the country over the last couple of years.
But study their menu a bit and you will soon realize that there is something unique about them that separates them from everyone else.
I'm not sure if the menu is the same across all their outlets in Changi City Point, Toa Payoh Hub, Woods Square or Esplanade XChange, but their one here at Toa Payoh carried a certain confidence I don't always see elsewhere.
Perhaps it is the decor.
Perhaps it is the food.
Perhaps it is the price.
Whatever it is, there is something that speaks to everyone, never mind whether they come here for a meal, a snack, a coffee, a dessert, or otherwise.
First time we came here, we had the Babi Pongteh.
Afterwards on our second visit, we decided to try their Nasi Lemak, and their Curry Chicken.
The Babi Pongteh was a deliberate choice.
I had seen it on the menu.
It was something I wanted to have.
Not just because the non-Peranakan me found it to be one of the most difficult, if not impossible, dishes to replicate at home, but because it came in a single-person portion at a happy price.
You know how it is that nearly every Peranakan restaurant around the island tends to make their dishes huge?
At The White Tiffin they are not.
You can do communal, of course, like how Peranakan meals traditionally are, but more often than not, it is a Nyonya or Baba who pops into the place and orders a plate for his or her own.
I have seen them have their own plates each.
I have seen them armed with big plastic cups of kopi peng and kopi-c peng.
And I have seen them sharing a box of dessert and a piece of cake each.
The one thing that I appreciate about the food here is the aesthetics.
The kitchen did not compromise.
I had expected my food to come in a bowl.
But my Babi Pongteh of braised pork belly and pork trotters in a sauce featuring fermented bean paste, gula melaka, shallots, garlic and soy sauce came served in a cute little pot reminiscent of the big enamel pots often used in the kitchens of many a family home.
And the gravy.
In all honesty I had thought that (for this price) the gravy would be watered down.
But, no.
It was thickly textured, richly flavored, full of the flavors a perfectly cooked pork stew gravy is supposed to be. I wish I could distinguish which part of the sauce had which, like where in the gravy was the fermented bean paste or the herbs of cinnamon and cloves?
But my skill lies only in the appreciation, not anything else.
Just imagine, I couldn't even tell that the sweetness came from gula melaka, not cane sugar.
And let's not even go down the line of how the shallots and garlic came in, and where...
This is where a dish like this means much to me.
Where else would I be able to have my own plate of Babi Pongteh pork belly chunks in such a delicious gravy otherwise? Where else too would I be able to have a lovely side dish of my favorite vegetable dish Sayur Lodeh served together with the meal?
And what about the Nasi Lemak?
I had wanted mine to come with a piece of chicken.
Which, yes, it did, along with a serving of beautiful blue butterfly pea rice shaped into a cone, a single hard boiled egg cut into half, a piece of crunchy pappadum, and a serving of achar, fried ikan bilis and peanuts.
The chicken was good, but for the life of me, I now cannot remember if I had the Prawn Paste Chicken Cutlet or the Ayam Goreng Berempah. If I'm not wrong, I think it is the latter. It didn't taste like prawn paste chicken, and the picture looks more like Berempah rather than Prawn Paste.
Next time I order this dish I might mix the rice up with all the other ingredients and not eat them separately. A piece of ayam goreng with a bit of egg yolk, achar, rice and a single ikan bilis in a single mouthful would go down quite well.
We'll see.
I'll also want to go for some of their kueh kuehs, cakes and the desserts.
Both times I'd been there, both times I had been quite attracted by their variety of Nyonya kuehs all neatly packed into plastic boxes. Besides the Ubi Bingka (I wonder if that is the tapioca kueh) and the Kueh Lapis, there was Kueh Salat, and what some of us call the colorful Nine-Layer Kueh. On the shelf near the counter, there were the cakes- I saw Coffee, Peanut, and Pandan Kaya. And on the menu they had Pulut Hitam with Coconut Milk and Bubur Chacha.
Will I order back the Babi Pongteh?
Probably.
But there are other dishes I want to try.
Like the Mee Siam Goreng, the Wok Fried Bee Hoon, and the Nyonya Curry Chicken. I also wouldn't mind the Nyonya Chap Chye. I like Chap Chye.
And if I'm sharing, maybe the Buah Keluak Fried Rice.