Song Fa Bak Kut Teh’s Yeo Family Opens New ‘Teochew-Inspired’ Restaurant Serving Their Home Dishes
The restaurant offers refined versions of dishes that the Yeos regularly cook and eat at home, like Teochew-style salted fish pork patty, braised pig’s trotter fried rice, and an interesting egg ‘pizza’ (no, not the Italian kind).
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‘Ka ki nang’ food
And home-style food is what you will find at Song Fa Signatures, with a Chinese name that spells ‘ka ki nang’ (family) in Teochew. The casual Chinese restaurant opened recently on May 30, at the basement of Paragon mall.
The 75-seat teahouse serves modern, refined “Teochew-inspired” dishes that are not quite full-on pig’s ear jelly, but still has all the hallmarks of old-school Teochew cooking. Like braised pig’s trotter fried rice, torched crème brûlée orh nee, and stir-fried qing long cai (Chinese garlic chives) with slices of atas Nagano pork collar.
Prices are kept reasonable, starting from $6.20 for a house-made ngoh hiang appetiser and topping off at $26.90 for traditional Teochew-style steamed flounder good for two pax.
Opened by the family behind Song Fa Bak Kut Teh
If the Song Fa name sounds familiar to you, that’s ’cos the restaurant is opened by the same family behind the Song Fa Bak Kut Teh chain, which has 13 outlets islandwide and a kway chap offshoot concept. For their latest restaurant, they are serving dishes that are pretty much straight from their own dining table.
Song Fa founder Yeo Eng Song, 76, had started his business in 1969 as a humble pushcart hawker along Johor Road. He named it Song Fa after his own name and the Chinese word for ‘prosperity’.
The staunchly Teochew man sold Teochew-style braised pig’s trotter and bak kut teh. But after decades of hard work, Eng Song has passed the business to his three children: eldest daughter Diana Yeo, 46, and two sons Yeo Hart Pong, 43, and Yeo Zhi Yong, 40.
Meet the Yeos
The second-gen owners have been helping out at their father’s restaurant since their schooling days, after he shifted his roadside operations in 1975 to a coffeeshop beside present-day Raffles Hospital. The trio now take care of every aspect of the family business, which ranges from R&D to marketing and operations.
“Our parents had minimal education. But we have seen them working tirelessly, and diligence was one of the most important lessons we learnt from them,” Diana shares. “Our father believes that there’s no shortcut in life. That’s why we had to work alongside our parents in the kitchen or serve food. That was their way of teaching us diligence — if we work hard at what we do, we will get there someday.”
Teochew family meals
The Yeos’ family meals at home are still very much Teochew-influenced. “We eat fish with a lot of bones, like most Teochews do. My dad loves the best part — the fish cheek and eye, eaten with a soy sauce dip with garlic, chilli and lime. Comfort food has always been our interest,” says Diana.
Like most folks cooped up at home during the pandemic, her mother, Tan Bee Hoon, 71, also developed an enthusiasm for whipping up YouTube recipes. “She even tried making luncheon meat,” Diana says with a laugh.
But one of the biggest hits in their home is pizza, though not the Italian kind you’d imagine. Diana explains: “My kids often ask their grandma to make ‘pizza’. It’s actually steamed eggs on a round plate! They call it pizza ’cos their ah ma would slice it to serve like a pizza (laughs).”
On succeeding the family biz
Other than the importance of hard work, Eng Song also drilled into his children to avoid complacency. Diana recalls: “He taught us to never take for granted that we have done enough, and that we must continuously learn and be a better version of ourselves.”
This lesson, his daughter reckons, is especially relevant in the F&B industry. “With stiff competition in today’s context, it’s important to stay ahead by adapting to the evolving demands and needs of customers,” Diana notes.
At 8days.sg’s shoot with the Yeo family, we observed its patriarch walking his talk. Like appraising an antique, he scrutinises a plate of steamed fish served from the kitchen, making quiet comments to his wife. “My dad is very strict. If the fish is not fresh, he will say it’s not a good fish,” explains Diana.
Over the years, she and her brothers have adjusted their bak kut teh offerings to cater to shifting consumer tastes. “Our pork ribs are fall-off-the-bone now, but traditional bak kut teh is cooked with leaner, tougher meat. Some elderly customers would even ask us for tough pork ribs that they can gnaw on,” says Diana.
Teochew food for young people
But the siblings have a new demographic to win over now — millennials, Gen-Zs and Gen-Alphas who grew up with international choices like pork donburi, lu rou fan and old-school bak kut teh.
Which is why Diana and her family came up with Song Fa Signatures, which she says is “Teochew-inspired” instead of purely “Teochew”. She clarifies: “There are many authentic Teochew restaurants in Singapore. But I wouldn’t dare to call this a traditional Teochew restaurant.”
It’s like having a meal in her Teochew family’s home, with tweaks to make their homecooked food restaurant-worthy. As Diana points out: “We were thinking, would people be interested if we do traditional food? Our kids don’t want traditional food. But I think we need to start somewhere to engage young people, by giving them something they know so that they can appreciate our traditional food.”
Given its more upscale Orchard Road location, she also reckons that “we didn’t want to just bring in Song Fa Bak Kut Teh. Over there people just sit down, eat and go. At Paragon, we wanted to do something a little more elevated, but not fine-dining".
Homecooked food, but make it restaurant-worthy
This includes subtle ‘youngster’ touches like omitting bony fishes from the menu, ’cos it’s hard to pick up dialect culture when you are rage-picking fishbones out of your teeth.
“My dad’s favourite is rabbitfish, especially during Chinese New Year when they are full of roe. But for our restaurant, we need our fish dishes to be more diner-friendly and juicier, so we chose flounder, which has fewer bones and people don’t have to worry about picking it out,” says Diana.
Silky Steamed Egg Tofu, $11.50 (8 Days Pick!)
And steamed egg smoother than a K-pop star’s skin, how ’bout that? We can’t be bothered to steam perfectly poreless eggs ourselves, but Song Fa’s chefs have skillfully sieved all the air bubbles out of the egg mixture to get this elegant, velvety dish.
According to Diana, her mum makes this at home the regular way by beating eggs with minced pork. For a silkier texture without air bubbles from the coarsely-minced meat, their restaurant serves her home-style recipe with the pork and egg tofu coins on top.
It’s elevated and decadent enough that you can ignore the voice in your head nagging that you can ‘make this at home’. 'cos it’s an absolute treat to savour this in a restaurant with a bowl of good fluffy jasmine rice.
Signature Pig's Trotter Fried Rice, $11.80 (8 Days Pick!)
Ter kah bee hoon (pig’s trotter bee hoon) is not so unusual in Singapore, but we have never come across this braised pig’s trotter egg fried rice. “It’s what we eat at Song Fa Bak Kut Teh after work; just take our braised pig’s trotter and mix it with a bowl of rice,” Diana laughs.
This is a much more shiok take on the typical Chinese restaurant shrimp fried rice. The loose grains are wok-fried with chunks of umami sauce-soaked pork trotter, eggs and shallots, and crowned with a delicate smattering of crunchy dried sakura ebi. Homely, yet fancy.
Teochew Steamed Minced Pork Patty with Salted Fish, $12.50
Steamed pork patty is one of the most underrated homecooked gems: it’s humble and familiar, yet satisfying.
At a pre-opening tasting, we tried Song Fa Signatures’ restaurant ‘prototype’, which boasts tender pork topped with a whole good-quality salted fish and finely julienned ginger. It could do with heavier seasoning, but we reckon that would probably be fixed when they open to the public.
Crispy Kang Kong with Thai Chili Sauce, $6.50 (8 Days Pick!)
It looks like limp kang kong can moonlight as crispy chips too. Order this punchy appetiser — it’s addictively fun to munch on the battered fried stems and leaves, jazzed up with a drizzle of tangy Thai chilli sauce.
Stir-fried Qing Long with Nagano Pork Collar, $14.50
Stir-fried Chinese garlic chives is another dish that the Yeo family matriarch frequently cooks at home for her clan. You can order it by itself ($11.50), or with succulent slices of Nagano pork (a pricey Japanese pig breed that’s raised in Canada). Pretty comforting, and feels like something Mum would make for you after you scored well for exams.
Traditional Teochew Style Steamed Flounder Fish, $26.90
One can’t say they had a Teochew meal if there isn’t steamed fish on the table. The fish dish here is wonderfully unpretentious, served simply with sliced tomatoes, ginger and pickled plums for a dash of acidity.
We find its light broth too bland even for the fresh, springy flounder, which could have leapt up and sung with a more full-bodied dressing. We will try the intriguing fried version (same price at $26.90) next time instead.
Imported Japanese Premium Loin Rib Bak Kut Teh, $15.50
For the blur folks who wander into Song Fa Signatures and still expect bak kut teh, well… you get it too. The restaurant serves options like Pig’s Kidney Bak Kut Teh ($10.50), Sliced Snakehead Fish Bak Kut Teh ($11.80), and an exclusive premium version with a whole Nagano pork rib in Song Fa’s signature peppery soup.
As for whether there’s a difference between this atas pork rib and the other premium loin rib served at Song Fa Bak Kut Teh, the short answer is: no. And it doesn’t even make sense to eat bak kut teh here when there is a regular Song Fa outlet just further down Orchard Road at Centrepoint. So we suggest ordering the harder-to-find Teochew fare, unless you die die must eat BKT.
La Mian, $4.90
That said, you won’t regret making a savvy exception for the pulled noodles in bak kut teh soup here. The silky strands swimming in steaming garlicky broth is pure comfort in a bowl.
Teochew Orh Nee Crème Brûlée, $6.90
The Chinese ‘teh’ in bak kut teh — originally served to diners to wash down the oily meat and fat — found its way into konjac jelly cubes in a Yuzu Slushie ($5.50).
The tea police patrol can still find five types of brews from Chinatown tea merchant Pek Sin Choon — Song Fa’s longtime tea partner — like the fragrant, earthy Roasted 8 Immortal Blend ($8.80 a pot), Chaozhou tea leaves exclusive to the outlet.
But we want to talk about old-school orh nee, the jilted bride at the end of every 10-course wedding dinner. The heavy yam paste is notoriously laborious to make and deserves more love, which is why we enjoy Song Fa’s makeover of it as a coquettish French crème brûlée.
It’s a manageably dainty layer of yam paste, tucked between jiggly soft-set custard and a crackly caramelised torched sugar shell. We want to complain that there is too little of this fabulous thing in a puny ramekin. But it offers just enough to avoid being jelak, and for once it’s something we would want to eat after a full meal.
Song Fa Signatures is at #B1-06 Paragon, 290 Orchard Rd, S238859. Open daily 11am-9.30pm.
Photos: Dillon Tan/ Wong Weiliang
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