We Built A Bowl Of Porridge With 16 Ingredients Like Oysters For Just $5 At This Stall

Porridge with a DIY twist

Peng Jia Zhou is the brainchild of Tommy Pang, 27, the second-generation owner of popular decade-old yong tau foo chain Bai Nian and Shi Nian, which sells pig leg rice. The entrepreneur also co-owns viral hotpot concept Hae! Prawn Claypot and Chinatown restaurant Nic & Tom Eatery.

In March, he invested $40,000 to open Peng Jia Zhou (which translates to Pang family’s porridge) at Bai Nian Food Court, which his family operates, at ESR BizPark @ Chai Chee.

The idea came about when Tommy was looking to start a new F&B concept. He wanted “something people can eat daily” and porridge was a natural choice as he likes to eat it. He decided to give it a twist by letting customers pick their own ingredients.

“If we can do it for yong tau foo and mala xiang guo, why not porridge? It’s just a new way to sell a traditional bowl of porridge,” he tells 8days.sg. 

“And you can try something different each time by mixing and matching ingredients. If you ask ChatGPT how many different bowls of porridge you can create with 16 ingredients, it’s a lot, way more than 100.”

They make their own you tiao

To stand out from the porridge crowd, Peng Jia Zhou also hand-makes its own you tiao from scratch. Tommy and his central kitchen head chef spent about a week learning the ropes from the owner of you tiao and kueh stall Lian Xing Kueh at Toa Payoh Vista Market.

“He’s a friend of my uncle and has been making you tiao and butterfly fritters for more than 40 years. My chef and I would go to the stall from 4am to noon to learn hands-on from him. He’s very generous and taught us everything and we came back to practise and teach our team,” shares Tommy.

As Peng Jia Zhou’s you tiao is made upon order, there is a designated cook just to make the dough fritters.

“It’s very labour intensive as we need to knead the dough and keep flipping the you tiao when frying so they are light and airy. But we feel it’s worth it to hand-make them as our you tiao is very nice. There are customers who come just to buy our you tiao,” he adds.

The menu

There is no regular porridge menu here, only DIY. Pick your ingredients of choice from bowls neatly displayed in a chiller and pass it to the staff who will cook it into a bowl of porridge for you.

Sixteen fresh ingredients are offered daily. There are the usual suspects like pork and liver slices as well as rarer offerings like oysters, la la, and prawn paste which is used to make Bai Nian’s bouncy prawn balls. 

Every other day, there are specials like frog legs, abalone, and pig tongue, shares Tommy.

You only pay for what you pick, at $5 per 100 grams, with a minimum of $5 per bowl. There is no differentiation in pricing for premium items, no limit on the number of ingredients and no extra charge for the porridge base.

Add-ons like egg, century egg, and salted egg are priced at 50 cents, while sides like you tiao and fried intestines are from 80 cents.

Full transparency

Unlike mala xiang guo where you have to guesstimate the price of your order, there are weighing scales at the counter for you to weigh the ingredients, so there are no surprises when you make payment.

“We are very transparent. Our weighing scales will show you the weight of ingredients (left on scale) and cost of your porridge (right). If customers feel they have taken too much, they can remove items from their bowl, but that rarely happens,” says Tommy.

“We want our porridge to be affordable, so we educate customers to use the bowl as a gauge. When it is almost filled with ingredients, it’s about 100g.”

According to Tommy, most customers keep their orders to just $5 or 100g of ingredients, which is “more than enough”.

“Before I started this business, I brought a weighing scale to several porridge stalls to measure the ingredients served in each bowl and most only give you around 80g to 90g. And these are cooked ingredients, which tend to weigh more than raw items. So, we give you more food but still at an affordable price,” he adds.

Can you pick all 16 ingredients & keep it to 100g?

Hearing this, we couldn’t resist testing the boundaries. Can we craft a bowl of porridge that includes every single ingredient and still keep it under the 100g mark? After all, isn’t experimentation and variety part of the fun of customising your meal?

By adding a piece of each item, sometimes two, for ingredients that we like such as scallops and the day’s special of pig heart, we managed to hit exactly 100 grams. Perfect.

We hand over our ingredients to the staff to cook and within minutes, our steaming 16-ingredient porridge is served to our table. Yes, you don’t have to wait at the stall for your order.

Build-Your-Own Porridge with 16 ingredients, $5

So how does the porridge fare? It’s very hearty, homey and tasty. 

The diverse but surprisingly balanced bowl is brimming with flavour and texture. The porridge base, which is cooked using pork broth, is thick and smooth, with a consistency that is closer to Cantonese-style jook.

There are ingredients with every mouthful and each one is a surprise and tastes slightly different. One moment it’s a pop of brininess from the prawn paste and scallop, the next a burst of creaminess from the oyster, then a rich, tender slice of perfectly cooked pork liver and pig heart. 

What stand out are seafood options such as scallops and oysters – good for when you want to luxe up your bowl. The generous toppings of fragrant fried shallots and shallot oil are the icing on the cake.

Tommy’s go-to pork porridge, $7.25, add $1.50 for egg, salted egg & century egg (8 DAYS Pick!)

We also tried Tommy’s go-to porridge loaded with his favourite ingredients: pork slices, pig heart, intestine, liver, oyster, and prawn paste, along with add-ons of egg, century egg and salted egg (top up 50 cents for each offering).

The result? A decadent umami-packed concoction. The holy trinity of eggs really amp up the flavour and creaminess of the porridge. Very shiok.

You Tiao, 80 cents 

The house-made you tiao is pretty good, considering these guys only learnt how to make it two months ago. Crispy and sufficiently airy, we like that it is not greasy and boasts a savoury taste. The dough fritters are shorter than normal, around hand length, to keep the price affordable. Not that we mind as we are usually so full from our porridge that we struggle to finish the fritter.

Hakka- Style Fried Pork, $5.90 (8 DAYS Pick!) 

The Hakka-style fried pork, or nan ru (fermented beancurd) pork is our favourite of the sides. Made with pork belly, the tender, juicy chunks, which have a good balance of fat and meat, are intensely flavourful, with a savory punch from the fermented red beancurd.

Fried Large Intestines, $6.90

The large pig intestines are deep-fried to a crisp exterior, yet retain a chewy, fatty centre. Though clean-tasting, the rich, savoury bites can be a bit jelak after a few pieces.

Fried Intestines, $6.90

The lighter and crispier small intestines are nicely done too. Boasting a hint of five-spice, the fried offal tastes almost like crackling and are satisfying to munch on.

Century Egg, $5.90

A cold dish of century egg bathed in a soy sauce-chilli oil dressing, topped with minced garlic, ginger strips and spring onions. Very appetising and garlicky, the sauce is perfect paired with the porridge. 

Bottom line

While we enjoy a good, comforting bowl of porridge, we’re not fans of build-your-own meals as we’re too lazy to pick and choose. But Peng Jia Zhou could change our minds, especially after we managed to pack so many different ingredients in our porridge for just $5 and at no extra charge for premium items — great bang for your buck. We like that every ingredient paired well together and every mouthful was a yummy surprise. If you don’t mind paying a bit more, we recommend adding an egg or two to elevate the flavour. 

Peng Jia Zhou is at Bai Nian Food Court, at #01-25, ESR BizPark @ Chai Chee, 750 Chai Chee Rd 469000. Open daily 7.30am to 9pm. More info via Instagram.

 Photos: Aik Chen

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