For porridge and congee, rice grains are cooked in liquid until they become soft. Teochew porridge goes for softened grains that are still whole, while the rice grains in Cantonese congee are broken down completely to yield a thick, silky texture. 

For pao fan, the rice is steamed/boiled, just like the usual way we eat our rice, and then very briefly simmered in broth with other ingredients just before serving.

Fine Cantonese restaurants tend to serve pao fan in a decadent lobster broth, while Teochew joints typically use a lighter, seafood-based soup (which is what most of our featured stalls go for).

Pao fan has been a staple at atas Chinese restaurants for a long time, so we’re excited to see the recent crop of hawkers introducing an accessible take on it. These include $4.50 for a bowl bursting with umami and loaded with clams, or your favourite fishball noodles reinvented, pao fan-style. Read on to find out where you can try these affordable bowls of pao fan.

Named after the stall’s mission to let their customers feast like a king without having to pay a premium, King of Pao Fan offers seven different pao fan bowls ranging from the affordable Clam Pao Fan ($4.50) to a more luxe Lobster Pao Fan ($18). 

Every bowl is filled with broth bursting with umami that’s made from pork bones, fish bones, pork meat and prawn heads, and topped with fried egg floss and crispy fried rice for added texture.

According to the owners, which include an ex-Raffles Hotel chef and two others who’ve cooked in Chinese restaurants, the seafood ingredients are delivered to their two outlets – a kopitiam stall near Bugis+ and a newly opened Eunos Crescent branch – daily to ensure optimum freshness and quality.

Make sure you try the Seafood Pao Fan ($7), a generous bowl that comes with three prawns, four slices of fried dory fish and a handful of lala.

King Of Pao Fan has two outlets, including #01-237 Cheng Yan Court, Stall 4, 269B Queen St, S180269. Open Mon to Sun 11am – 8pm. Find them on Facebook or call them at 8800 2694. 

Opened by veteran actor Chew Chor Meng and his friend, Famous Pao Fan truly lives up to its name – even though we prefer its witty Chinese moniker “一泡而红”, which plays on the idiom for instant success and pao fan’s name.

Humour aside, the stall takes its pao fan seriously, offering seven types of pao fan with wallet-friendly prices ranging from $4.50 for the Lala Pao Fan, $6 for the Double Fish Pao Fan (with both fried and sliced fish) and Fresh Prawn with Sliced/Fried Fish Pao Fan, to $8 for the Fried Red Grouper with Lala Pao Fan and Kurobuta Pork with Lala Pao Fan. 

The light, comforting broth features a base of chicken bones, pork bones and prawns, resembling the nourishing soups that our mums would make. The most affordable Lala Pao Fan ($4.50) offers great value, thanks to a generous serving of clams, white rice, crispy fried rice and a heaping of deep-fried egg floss.

Famous Pao Fan is at #01-06/07 Sultan's Kitchen Food Court, 100 Jln Sultan, S199001. Open daily 10.30am-8.30pm. www.facebook.com/famouspaofan. 

Ex-Wah Lok chef Chan How Mun runs this new stall in a Ghim Moh kopitiam and keeps his version of pao fan simple, using only pork bones and carrots to achieve a clean-tasting, orange-hued broth with a hint of sweetness.

For just $6.90, you can enjoy the signature Seafood Pao Fan, which comes with a fresh scallop served on the half shell, two big prawns, lala and snakehead fish slices. The Mixed Pork Pao Fan ($5.50) is a refreshing departure from the typical seafood-dominated pao fan, and we appreciated the old-school flavour combination of pig intestines, meatballs and lean pork slices.

For the ultimate hawker spin on pao fan, go for the economical Fishball Pork Pao Fan ($4.50), which has yummy fish balls, meatballs, fish cake and lean pork slices.

Mun’s Seafood Pao Fan is at #01-01, 25 Ghim Moh Link, S270025. Open daily 10.30am-8pm. https://www.facebook.com/munseafoodpaofan/.

San Pin is run by 58-year-old Ng Chong Lay and two other chefs, who all used to work at Jumbo Seafood restaurant.

Business has been brisk, judging from how the owners have opened another stall in just two months – the first is in a kopitiam at Foch Road, and the new outlet is at China Square Food Centre.

Both stalls offer the same menu, which features six different types of pao fan. At $6, you can choose from Prawn With Seafood Soup Pao Fan, Fried/Mixed/Sliced Fish With Seafood Soup Pao Fan, or Lala With Seafood Soup Pao Fan, while $7 will get you the Mixed Seafood Soup Pao Fan – a sampler bowl with two big prawns, lala, and both fresh and fried mackerel slices.

Every bowl of pao fan comes with lala, as well as bitter gourd and fried egg floss along with rich, briny broth.

San Pin Seafood Soup Pao Fan has two outlets, including #01-18 China Square Food Centre, 51 Telok Ayer St, S048441. Open Mon to Fri 10.45am-7pm.

Find them on Facebook 

Gong Xi Fa Cai Eating House is a zi char stall tucked away in a Jurong East hawker centre. It doesn’t offer $4.50 bowls, but it is famous for its fairly reasonably-priced Lobster Pao Fan ($38 for 2-3 pax) in a claypot. Owner Cao Yong is an acclaimed chef with the Team Champion award from the World Championship Chef Shanghai 2015 contest and a runner-up award from Mediacorp food competition show Food Struck! in 2018 under his belt.

After several stints at top-tier Chinese restaurants, the China-born chef left the fine-dining scene in 2015 to open a hawker stall, where we can now enjoy atas dishes like Lobster Pao Fan for a steal (it costs  $78 for a roughly 600g Boston lobster pao fan at Jumbo Seafood).

The dish features a superior broth — a high quality stock typically used at good Chinese restaurants — in which a whole rock lobster weighing about 500g luxuriates.

Photo: Foodieuncle/ Instagram

Gong Xi Fa Cai Eating House is at #01-11 Yuhua Village Market & Food Centre, Blk 254 Jurong East Street 24, S600254. Open daily 11am-9.30pm. Find them on Facebook.

​​​​​​​Photo: Gong Xi Fa Cai Eating House/ Facebook

Located in a kopitiam at Teban Garden, this is another zi char stall in Jurong East giving fancier seafood restaurants a run for their money with its Flower Crab Pao Fan ($38 for 2-3 pax). 

This is a decadent wok hei-laced dish – T.K Kitchen uses egg fried rice instead of plain white rice to soak up their seafood broth, which is simmered in a claypot with flower crab, scallops and prawns before being served with a sprinkle of crispy fried rice.

The pao fan has become so popular that the owners have recently introduced a new variant: White Pepper Pig Stomach Ginseng Chicken Pao Fan ($35 for 2-3 pax). It comes with a whole chicken, sliced pig stomach, mushrooms in a rich, ginseng-based herbal soup.

T.K Kitchen is at #01-302/303 Blk 37 Teban Garden, S600037. Open daily 12pm-10pm. https://www.facebook.com/TKeatinghouse/

Photo: Xionglivestoeat/ Instagram