Tourists confused after trying local carrot cake for first time
Singaporeans are all too familiar with the savoury carrot cake, which can easily be found in pretty much any hawker centre across our little red dot. But the dish's name has proven to be a little misleading to those unfamiliar with it, including travel vlogger Ken. The German national recently visited Singapore and has been documenting his experiences here on YouTube and his social media platforms.
Upon receiving their food, Ken and his friend were still a little confused by the dish. "What actually is it? I'm still not sure what it is," he asked, adding that it looks like an omelette. And they also couldn't see a sliver of carrot in their food. "So, carrot. Just to get it right, it's this orange vegetable, right? But I don't see anything that looks like the carrot that I know," Ken said. But while they both really enjoyed the dish, they had yet to discover any carrots. A few more Google searches later and Ken realised that carrot cake in Singapore is also known as "chai tow kway" and originated from China. He also learned that the dish is not made of carrots, but rather radish. "So there's no carrot inside. This is a radish. But why is the name carrot cake, then? There's nothing to do with actual carrots," he questioned.
According to Visit Singapore, carrot cake indeed does not have any carrots in it and the core ingredients are rice flour and white radish, which some also call white carrot. The dish also does originate from China and was brought to Singapore by Teochew immigrants. "There, it is known as 'chao gao guo' (fried starch cake) which is made mainly with rice flour," explained Visit Singapore. In the comments, helpful netizens said the same thing and explained to Ken that the dish includes radish, which is also known as white carrot.
Fried Carrot Cake
Contrary to its name, there's nary a tinge of orange in the local fried carrot cake, a flavourful dish that comes in the monochrome colours of black or white. Do not confuse this with the dessert carrot cake, a moist cake made with carrot and spices; covered with cream cheese frosting.
This savoury carrot cake has no carrot, at least not of the orange variety. Instead, the core ingredients of the cake are rice flour and white radish, which some call white carrot. The mixture is steamed, then cut into cubes and fried with garlic, eggs and preserved radish called 'chai poh'. Commonly referred to as 'chai tow kway' in the Teochew dialect, these smooth and soft fried rice cakes can be found in almost every hawker centre. It is served black (fried with sweet dark soya sauce) or white (original).
The simple dish has its origins in Southern China’s Chaoshan province. There, it is known as 'chao gao guo' (fried starch cake) which is made mainly with rice flour. Fish sauce and black sweetened soya sauce are used to marinate the rice cake before it is cut and fried with eggs, oysters and prawns. Brought over to Singapore by Teochew immigrants, it was known as 'char kway' (fried rice cake), which was simply cubes of rice cakes fried with dark soya sauce. Teochew hawker Ng Soik Theng claims to be the first to have called this dish 'chai tow kway' in the 1960s when she added white radish to it. Another hawker, Lau Goh, is said to have popularised the white version.
Fried Radish Cake 菜头粿
There are two versions of Chai Tow Kway – white and black. I am featuring both, although I personally live for the black version.
I really enjoyed doing up this post because it brought back many happy childhood memories (hence the “old school” feel of my photos). I grew up eating the Chai Tow Kway at Siglap wet market. Those were days when people would BYOE (Bring Your Own Eggs!) for the hawker to fry their Chai Tow Kway with and ate this dish with toothpicks instead of chopsticks or forks.
If you are a child of the 1970s living in eastern Singapore, you will remember this. Ah, nostalgia!
Chai tow kway
Chai tow kway is a common dish or dim sum of Teochew cuisine in Chaoshan, China. It is also popular in Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Taiwan and Vietnam, consisting of stir-fried cubes of radish cake. It is made with radish cake (steamed rice flour, water, and shredded white daikon), which is then stir-fried with eggs, preserved radish, and other seasonings. The radish cake is often served in large rectangular slabs which are steamed and then later fried whole. Alternatives to chai tow kway include those made of taro or solely of rice flour.
The radish cake can also be eaten on its own, either just steamed, or steamed and then pan-fried, as opposed to the steamed then wok-fried with other ingredients in chai tow kway. Both the steamed and pan-fried varieties are commonly served topped with spring onions. The versions served by hawkers in Johor and Singapore, where Teochew people live, are typically prepared by frying the daikon cake with chopped preserved turnip, diced garlic, eggs, and Chinese fish sauce in place of soya sauce. Chopped spring onion is added just before serving. Northwards (eg in Kuala Lumpur), the same dish is darker due to the use of dark soya sauce, and bean sprouts are added. In Singapore, however, it is more commonly cut into pieces and stir fried with eggs, garlic, spring onion and occasionally shrimp (both dried and fresh). There are two variants: the "white" version does not use sweet soy sauce, and the radish cake is fried on top of a beaten egg to form a crust; the "black" version uses sweet sauce (molasses), and the egg is simply mixed in with the radish cake.
The dish is very popular particularly in Singapore and Malaysia, where it is enjoyed by people of different dialect groups and races, not just the Teochews and is served in a range of establishments ranging from the simplest hawkers to the most expensive Chinese restaurants. It is a much-loved local comfort food in the region and can be consumed at various times of the day; it goes from being a breakfast dish, to a main lunch dish, to a late-night supper dish. Many public figures are also known to have a fondness for the dish. Notably, the Singapore politician Chan Chun Sing declared his love for the dish in one of his speeches, specifying a preference of a particular variant of the dish (the "S$10 XO sauce chye tow kuay"), as opposed to the one commonly found in hawker centres and coffee shops, thus illustrating the many variations of the dish available in the region.
5 Best Fried Carrot Cake in Singapore
After seeking out some of the best fried carrot cake or chai tow kway around the island, we’ve narrowed down our favourite stalls. For us, a satisfying carrot cake should be well-fried, soft and smooth, but still with a good bite. It should have a balance of flavour, with a touch of ‘wok hei’ alongside welcome crispiness. We also love those versions with a generous portion of egg (fried so well that it forms a golden crust) and a sprinkling of crunchy chai poh or preserved radish.
Most of these stalls are open only in the morning, so make your way there early to avoid disappointment:
- Bee Bee Carrot Cake, 50A Marine Terrace, #01-275
- Good Luck BBQ, Toa Payoh Lorong 8, Block 210, #01-13
- Bee Kee Fried Carrot Cake, Geylang Bahru Food Centre, Block 69, #01-2759
- Ghim Moh Carrot Cake, ABC Brickworks Food Centre Stall 140
- Fu Ming Carrot Cake, Redhill Food Centre, Redhill Lane Block 85, #01-49
Chai Tow Kway 菜 头 粿 in 1950s
Bukit Merah View Carrot Cake is a legendary 70-year-old stall
“My grandparents started selling carrot cake some 70 years ago, and were later succeeded by my parents,” said Mr Ng. “I’m the third generation of this carrot cake tradition.” Since his family’s business stretched back to before hawker centres were a thing, I was curious to learn how the dish had changed and developed over the years.
“Back in the day, the popular carrot cake looked very different from how it looks now,” Mr Ng explained. “The black and white styles we know today didn’t exist. Carrot cake was deep-fried and sold in triangular pieces for about two cents. Two cents!” A few stalls, such as Chai Chee Cai Tou Guo, still offer such old-school chai tow kway. But they’re no longer widespread, and that’s down to the carrot cake revolution that culminated in the 1980s. “Somewhere along the line, the idea of adding dark soy sauce to cut up pieces of carrot cake caught on. So, white carrot cake was created to provide a healthier, less sweet alternative. By the 80s, most stalls were selling both options.”
Another major change is how the “carrot” component is made. For those who don’t know, fried carrot cake has no carrot at all—it usually consists of shredded radish and rice flour. In the past, hawkers had to mill the rice grains themselves, so for the sake of convenience, most have switched to exclusively using rice flour instead. Not Mr Ng, though.
