Ye Lai Xiang Hot & Cold Cheng Tng (1939)
Bedok Food Centre, 1 Bedok Road Stall 31, Singapore 469572
Cheng Tng, Tau Suan, Orh Nee: the old-person dessert trio that I refused to eat as a kid. But now I regret every bowl I’ve swapped out for ice cream and cake.
Ye Lai Xiang Hot & Cold Cheng Tng has been around nearly 80 years, drawing customers in droves with their SINGLE menu item served hot or cold, small or large. Their winning concoction has the basics down pat: lotus seeds check, honey dates check, dried longan, Chinese barley, white fungus, red dates check.
You’ll also find dried winter melon strips, sweet potato, dried persimmons, and tau suan floating around in this amber-coloured dessert. Perfect to stay cool – like the coolies in the olden days – in our mad weather.
Ye Lai Xiang Cheng Tng: 84-year-old heritage cheng tng stall with 11 ingredients in Bedok
Bedok Food Centre, 1 Bedok Road Stall 31, Singapore 469572
Started in 1939, this cheng tng stall has to be one of the oldest in Singapore. It is said that Ye Lai Xiang Cheng Tng started out by the seaside and shifted here, settling down in Bedok Corner Food Centre. Interesting fun fact: the empty space next door was an affiliated stall selling cuttlefish kang kong, which has unfortunately closed. Ye Lai Xiang Cheng Tng’s quaint stall greets its customers with a rather traditional signboard, showcasing their heritage in more ways than one. There are few decisions to be made at this stall, with just a simple choice of either Cold Cheng Tng (S$3) or Warm Cheng Tng (S$3). Truly the best for indecisive people like myself.
Uncle was extra friendly, joking with us whilst taking orders. Lucky for the non-Chinese folks, he is skilled in the English language, so ordering will not be a problem. For frequent patrons of this stall, you will be elated to know that it’s not going anywhere, as Uncle is already training the next generation to continue this local dessert legacy. Despite it being a weekday, the crowd was massive. Don’t be too surprised when people start hovering around your table, silently signalling you to hurry up. My personal observation was that folks from all walks of life are here to eat, from office workers to the elderly.
Ye Lai Xiang Cheng Tng in Bedok has cheng tng with An 83-Year-Old Recipe
When I saw that I’d been assigned to visit Ye Lai Xiang Cheng Tng, I have to admit I wasn’t stoked. I have never liked 清汤 (qīng tāng)—I shun it when it appears at catered buffets and wedding banquets, having tried and found it too sweet, with little by way of ingredients worth my interest.
Ye Lai Xiang Cheng Tng has been around the sun almost thrice as many times as I have since the current stall owner’s grandmother first started making the dessert in 1939. Surely they’ve got something right, I thought to myself, if they’ve survived this long selling just one item—and they most definitely changed my mind about the dessert.
The only decision you’ll have to make when you visit Ye Lai Xiang Cheng Tng is whether you’d like your bowl of dessert hot or cold. Each bowl is priced at $3, with the cold version being the more popular option. For what looks like a simple bowl of dessert, there’s a whole lot of preparation that goes into its making. There are a whopping 11 ingredients in Ye Lai Xiang’s version, which you’ll see in the display fronting the stall.
Ye Lai Xiang Hot and Cold Cheng Tng (1939)
Bedok Food Centre, 1 Bedok Road Stall 31, Singapore 469572
Established in 1939, this stall serves only two things: hot and cold cheng tng. But the folks here do it faultlessly. The cold version has just the right amount of ice to keep it refreshing without diluting the taste – though at a slightly pricey $3 a bowl, it’s speckled with plenty of ingredients. Besides the usual suspects of dried longan and white fungus, you’ll bite into the occasional strip of candied melon and even sweet potato.
10 Best CHENG TNG 清汤 In Singapore For Cooling-Off Day
Cheng Tng which literally means “clear soup”, is included with many nutritious ingredients such as pang da hai (胖⼤海), gingko, pearl barley, dried longans, red dates, white fungus and dried lotus seed.
However, there are some versions that don’t include certain ingredients (due to cost and effort needed to prepare), and add jelly or agar agar instead.
They key ingredient to many is pang dai hai, a type of dried malva nut which has a cooling effect and disperses qi to bring down body heat (not advisable for pregnant woman to have though). However, I noticed that some places left out this ingredient already.
Here are 10 places for refreshing Cheng Tng 清汤 in Singapore, because you know, people are quite heated-up these days:
- Ye Lai Xiang Hot and Cold Cheng Tng 夜来香清汤 Stall #31, 1 Bedok Rd, Bedok Food Centre, Singapore 469572
- No Name Dessert 69 #01-490 Bedok South Ave 3, Block 69, Singapore 460069
- Yatkayan Dessert 一家人 Fortune Centre #02-08 190 Middle Road Singapore 188979
- Xi Le Ting 31 Commonwealth Crescent, #02-70 Market & Food Centre, Singapore 149644
- Four Seasons Ching Tng #01-34, 448 Clementi Ave 3, Singapore 120448
- Dove Desserts 22 Lor 7 Toa Payoh, #01-21, Singapore 310022
- Ice Dessert 51 Old Airport Rd, #01-31, Singapore 390051
- Teck Kee Hot & Cold Dessert 2 Adam Rd, #01-31 Adam Road Food Centre, Singapore 289876
- Ayman Alam Desserts (Traditional Cheng Tng) Stall #13, 20 Kensington Park Rd, Singapore 557269
- Mohamed Sultan Road Hot & Cold Cheng Tng #01-32 Zion Road Food Centre, 70 Zion Rd, Singapore 247792
6 Places for Awesome Cheng Tng to Beat the Heat in Singapore
In view of SG51, let’s take a walk down memory lane with a bowl of Cheng Tng, which literally means clear soup. It is a dessert that is light and refreshing, sold in the olden days to the coolies who worked at the quay. Nonetheless, most stalls that serve Cheng Tng these days cut corners in their ingredients. With that, we came up with a list of 6 places that you could visit to get a good bowl of Cheng Tng:
- Four Seasons Ching Teng Blk 210, Toa Payoh Lorong 8, #01-34
- Xi Le Ting Blk 119 Commonwealth Crescent, #02-70, Singapore 140119
- Teck Kee Hot & Cold Dessert Adam Road Food Centre, Stall 31, 2 Adam Road Singapore 289876
- Ye Lai Xiang Hot & Cold Dessert Stall #31, Bedok Corner Food Centre, 1 Bedok Road, Singapore 469572
- No Name Cheng Tng Blk 69 Bedok South Avenue 3 Singapore 460069
- 88 San Ren Hot & Cold dessert Newton Food Centre, Newton Circus, 500 Clemenceau Avenue North, #01-05, Singapore 229495
Cheng tng
Cheng tng, meaning clear soup, is a traditional Singaporean sweet treat that is commonly enjoyed as a dessert. Although the ingredients may vary, the dish is typically made by combining dried longan, white fungus, gingko nuts, red dates, pearl barley, large sago pearls, lotus seeds, and candied winter melon.
The ingredients are simmered in water with sugar and pandan leaves until they become soft. Once cooked, the soup is usually enhanced with dried persimmon and pang da hai (Sterculia lychnophora), and it can be consumed either warm or chilled.
In the past, people who worked at the quay used to quench their thirst by having a bowl of this sweet and refreshing dessert. Cheng tng is available at numerous local dessert stalls in the country.
Cheng Tng 清汤
Don't you agree with us that the weather has been erratic lately? Look after your friends, family and yourself in this warm and humid weather by making a bowl of cheng tng! This weekend, you know what you can do to ease the heat and keep everyone in good health!
This recipe is one of Mdm Cheng’s signature desserts that her family and relatives loves! Not only is this cheng tng delicious, it also has rich nutritional value that is beneficial to one's health:
- Pang da hai 胖大海 a.k.a Sterculia Lychnophora: cooling effect to bring down the body heat. It is not advisable for pregnant women to consume it.
- Red dates: labelled as “the king of nuts” (百果之王), stimulates the production of white blood cells, which improves immunity, and decrease cholesterol level in your bloodstream, which also helps protect the liver.
- Longan: calming effect on the nervous system
- Gingko nuts: lowering cholesterol level and protection against cancer.
12 Must-Try Chendol in Singapore To Keep You Cool
CNN named “Cendol from Singapore” as one of the 50 world’s best desserts, there was an uproar on social media about the dessert’s origin
Cendol (or “Chendol”) is a sweet iced dessert known for its mixture of ingredients from the signature green rice flour jelly, to coconut milk and palm sugar (Gula Melaka). Some add in other ingredients such as red bean, sweet corn and attap chee.
Most stalls in Singapore serve Chendol as part of their huge dessert repertoire; and some may choose to add in ingredients that lang-ga (clash) from glass jelly to agar agar cubes. One word – No.
With the increasingly HOT weather, this makes such a refreshing treat in the staggering heat. After recommendations from readers, I went around to try some of the most fragrant and delicious Cendol in Singapore:
- Jin Jin Hot / Cold Dessert 6 Jalan Bukit Merah, #01-21 ABC Brickworks Market Food Centre, Singapore 150006
- Four Seasons Chendol 四季煎蕊 210 #01-07 Lor 8 Toa Payoh, Singapore 310210
- Dove Desserts 22 Lor 7 Toa Payoh, Singapore 310022
- Old Amoy Chendol 335 Smith St, Chinatown Point Food Centre #02-008, Singapore 050335
- The Coconut Club 6 Ann Siang Hill, Singapore 069787
- Nyonya Chendol 51 Upper Bukit Timah Rd, #02-147, Singapore 588215
- Malaysia Boleh (Jurong Point) 1 Jurong West Central 2, 03-28, Singapore 648886
- Qing Tian Desserts 青天冷热甜品 #01-60 Redhill Food Centre, Blk 85 Redhill Lane, Singapore 150085
- Makan Melaka 1901 Changi Village Rd, #01-2046, Singapore 507721
- Cendol Geylang Serai 1 Geylang Serai, #02-107, Singapore 402001
- Chendol Melaka 15 Upper East Coast Road, Singapore 455207
- 99 Dessert in Cup 208B New Upper Changi Rd, Bedok Interchange Food Centre #01-60, Singapore 462208
Singapore Traditional Desserts
The craziest reinvented traditional dessert I’ve had is probably the Mr Bean cocktail from local bar Jekyll & Hyde. While I was impressed by how the cocktail made with Lao Ban beancurd, vodka, kaya, and Frangelico tasted, it’s not something I’d crave for all the time, unlike a good old bowl of red bean soup or cheng tng. For these old-school treats, here are the stalls where you can get the best traditional desserts in Singapore:
Best traditional desserts in Singapore:
