Our love dish

During our courtship days, my wife and I love taking our dinners at Whampoa market. Our favourite dish is the fish head steamboat. In fact, my wife named it as our “love dish”.

Eating fish head steamboat is a real joy, it is full of warmth and a truly food-sharing experience. Best eaten during those rainy evenings.

The steamboat is filled with charcoal to keep the soup piping hot. There is a generous serving of fish (a few choices), we normally go for batang fish. White cabbage, greens, seaweed and sliced yam are the peripheral food accompanying the fish to make up this dish. The soup base is well flavoured with the mixture of fish slices, yams and vegetables.

There are several stalls selling fish head steamboat in the Whampoa / Balestier area. Our one and only choice is Xin Heng Feng from Whampoa market. We are probably one of their more frequent customers and my wife takes pride that we are being served without having to make an order. All we need to do is just sit down and give the stall holder a friendly nod. That is the level of understanding we have with the stall holder.

This stall is sure hot, during some peak evenings, one might have to wait for an hour & half before your steamboat is served. I liken it to the "Soup Nazi" episode in Seinfeld.