The Beef House
Hakka beef balls bounce back
LOVERS of beef noodles might initially find this version a
let-down.
Instead of a bowl of rich, dark brown soup, this stall's version is
clear, watery and bland.
But it hasn't stopped hordes of regulars from lapping it up at The
Beef House, which is located inside a kopitiam in Syed Alwi
Road.
The point, you see, is not the soup.
It's the beef balls.
Done Hakka-style, they are almost as big as ping pong balls, juicy
and boast a rich, beefy flavour.
Owner Y. C. Chin, 35, started selling them 10 years ago when he
realised that Hakka-style beef noodles had died out in
Singapore.
'They were around in the 1950s but slowly, nobody made them
anymore,' he says.
A decade ago, while on holiday in Dapu, a Hakka region in China's
Guangdong province, he saw the dish whipped up at every street
corner and decided to re-introduce it here.
He invited a Dapu beef ball maker to Singapore who, over a month,
taught him how to select the beef, then cut, grind and cook it into
beef balls.
His business has since grown into a successful four-outlet
chain.
He still painstakingly makes by hand all the beef balls that are
distributed to the outlets every day.
Claiming that his is the only authentic Hakka-style beef noodles
chain in Singapore, he says other vendors shy away from it because
'it's very labour-intensive, nobody wants to do it'.
Made with lean thigh meat, the beef balls have to be ground at
around 8pm because cooler temperatures ensure a better texture, he
says.
But the most important factor is the quality of the meat, he
adds.
Even with his 10 years' experience, he fails one out of every 10
attempts, especially when the meat supplied to him is not up to
standard.
Customers can have the beef balls with super-smooth beef slices - a
texture achieved by coating them with tapioca flour - and either
beehoon or kway teow noodles. A bowl is priced from $3.
While the bald-tasting soup is true to the Hakka style, your
tastebuds will be more than fired up with its fabulous chilli
sauce, made with chilli padi, garlic and rice wine.
The Beef House
Four outlets, open between 8am and 6pm:
# Gar Lok Eating House, 217 Syed Alwi Road, closed on Fridays
97
# Joo Chiat Road, closed on Mondays
# 218 Killiney Road, opens daily
# Nanyang Technological University, Canteen 2, closed on
Sundays
____
Kopi! Three more stalls we can visit! 
