Best eats: This nutty vegan rice bowl in Bukit Timah strikes like a thunderbolt
Tired of salubrious hipster grain bowls? Yearning for more comforting local flavours? Thunder tea rice (lei cha fan in Mandarin) is a dish that combines the best of both worlds.
With a catchy proper noun that allegedly comes from the audio of the ingredients being pulverised, this age-former Hakka invention of veggie-garnished grains in an astringent pour-over soup is certainly healthy, comforting and local, even with boosted toppings of tofu and ikan bilis.
However because of its biting herbal taste, traditional Hakka lei cha fan isn't everyone's cup of tea, literally. Enter a crowd-pleasing version that's been given a surprising vegan twist.
I showtime discovered this apprehensive Bukit Timah stall in the throes of Singapore's "circuit breaker" when I was trawling the Internet for condolement food commitment that was shut to home. What arrived (delivered personally past stall possessor Wayne Tan) far exceeded my expectations. His vegan thunder tea rice may not have meat, dairy or garlic, just bland and boring it was not.
Impressed by how rich, aromatic and packed with protein the dish was, I plotted my visit to Living Wholesome Vegetarian at Bukit Timah Market place & Nutrient Heart when restrictions were lifted.
There, I met Wayne again, along with his girlfriend Agatha Teo, equally they were busy serving the final of their lunchtime customers. Dressed in casual athleisure gear and looking very much similar millennial urbanites, I was intrigued. How did this immature couple get into the bell-ringer food business?
In the suspension before dinner service, Wayne sat down to tell me his story. Almost on cue, lightning flashed and thunder rumbled. The afternoon had taken an aptly stormy turn, as nosotros talked thunder tea rice.
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Interestingly, every bit the owner of a vegan thunder tea rice stall, Wayne isn't vegan nor Hakka himself. Rather, it was a business opportunity he took upward when the previous owner (his female parent'due south ex-yoga student) decided to immigrate.
Previously from the IT industry, with his own spider web-hosting business in Kuala Lumpur, Wayne was already thinking of swopping the tardily nights and heavy entertaining for a more regular, balanced lifestyle when Living Wholesome opportunely beckoned.
It seemed almost like kismet, so with naught F&B feel, Wayne sold the Information technology business to his partner in KL and took the plunge. He spent a month learning the ropes from the previous owner and then he found himself on his ain.
Even after dent downward the previous carte du jour to just focus on thunder tea rice, he found the initial going actually tough. All the regular customers had left along with the previous owner, concern was tiresome and he was a i-man-operation slogging for survival.
For the first five years, Wayne had to proceed the stall's opening hours brusk just so he had enough time to focus on the labour-intensive food prep, cooking, cleaning and business management. Going it alone, Wayne stayed the arduous course, welcoming feedback from customers and taking on pointers from mentors in the industry.
And now after vii years of difficult graft, he feels grateful, saying: "People gave me really good advice, on how to scale things downwardly and work smarter. I've been able to acquire so much and not just about F&B. I actually plant my passion through this experience."
But that's not the only thing Wayne has institute. His girlfriend Agatha has been helping for the past year and shares his passion for serving healthy food.
Affectionately calling her his "greatest asset", Wayne explained that when he was single, he would take to shut shop for the entire duration of his annual reservist training. Simply at present, in Agatha's capable hands, Living Wholesome is able to stay open while he'south abroad.
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Learning to inquire for assistance has indeed been a learning milestone and even Wayne's male parent, Mr Ayam Tan, has been lending a hand with island-broad food deliveries since the start of the circuit breaker.
Perhaps one of the biggest lessons learned was to take what he was taught and get in his own. Wayne's enthusiasm was palpable when he described how he made the necessary changes at Living Wholesome.
"I wanted to create a thunder tea rice my generation would savor eating. I don't feel tied down to any detail tradition, so I totally inverse the previous owner'southward cooking method and tweaked the recipe to save on labour, but non cede gustatory modality," said the 33-year-old.
"It felt good to but simplify, innovate and experiment. As long as the end product tastes good, I'k happy."
A happy Wayne seems to have attracted happy customers and while it took about three years to build up his own customer base, they now render specifically for Wayne'due south signature thunder tea rice. He had thought hard about how to give a niche dish like that mass entreatment, only nevertheless proceed it vegan to boot. His solution? Nuts. Lots and lots of nuts for fragrance and flavour.
Peanuts and sesame seeds are a given in most thunder tea rice recipes, but Wayne decided to really bump upwardly the variety by adding cashews, walnuts, almonds, pumpkin seeds and sunflower seeds to the "tea" component of the dish. This green soup is traditionally made using tea leaves, but this was 1 element Wayne chose to exclude, based on customer feedback.
Making the proper name of his stall his motto seems to have become a priority, as he reasoned, "I recall the nutty flavour of my soup makes information technology a bit more modern, just information technology'southward still healthy to eat. I don't add oil. Also, I found out quite a few of my customers take heart issues and indisposition, and then I thought if I removed the tea, they wouldn't exist affected past the caffeine. As well, it didn't actually touch on the gustatory modality of my recipe."
Purists may balk at this approach, merely according to Wayne, it doesn't seem to be an issue with customers who really are Hakka.
"I've learnt a lot about thunder tea rice from them. One told me in the kampung days, they used to pound the ingredients with a branch from the jackfruit tree. But I apply a blender instead," he said with a sheepish grin.
Mayhap his Hakka customers are then forgiving because these days, fifty-fifty they might cull to utilize the convenience of a blender over a mortar and pestle.
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Besides the generous selection of nuts, Wayne blends herbs like mint, basil, coriander, mugwort and ku li xin (three-leaved Acanthopanax, or literally, biting toil heart in Chinese) into a concentrated paste that is then diluted with hot h2o to create the requisite green soup.
Yet again turning tradition on its head, Wayne prefers to consume his undiluted blend like an Asian pesto, tossed with rice and veggies.
He revealed: "Really, my family, friends and a lot of my customers adopt to eat it that way likewise. I fifty-fifty take those who buy extra sauce to have home."
Information technology wasn't difficult to understand why. Whether served thick or diluted with hot water, the sauce was lush and creamy, intensely fragrant and undeniably delicious.
It delivered maximum nutty season and a wonderful residual between savoury, sweet, and mildly bitter notes, cheers to the clever combination of the aromatic herbs. All the precipitous edges had been knocked off, leaving a rounded, crowd-pleasing flavour profile that paired beautifully with the rice and vegetables.
The regular Southward$6.30 rice set up (Due south$8.30 for a large one) made for an attractively-arranged basin, with soup on the side. The vibrant colours of finely chopped orange carrot, string beans, cabbage and cai xin in varying shades of green, mingled with whole brownish beans, golden-fried firm tofu and preserved radish burnished a glossy bronze.
A scattering of whole sesame seeds and peanuts completed the picture-perfect display, plenty to rival any hipster grain bowl.
The vegetables served vary with the seasons, but freshness and contrasting pops of texture are the deciding factors for Wayne when he sources for them. In fact, his supplier is conveniently located i floor below his stall, in the wet market place.
"I trust them to quality control for me. Take our winged beans for example. They are very seasonal so when they're bachelor, I select them very carefully because they demand to exist tender," Wayne said earnestly.
The solar day I paid Living Wholesome a visit, winged beans weren't on the carte, merely the veggies in my bowl were perfectly seasoned and cooked but correct to retain a juicy crunch. In dissimilarity, the brown beans were flossy-soft and the cubes of tofu were boisterous and crisp-edged.
Going with the traditional manner of eating thunder tea rice, I poured some soup over, gave everything an energetic mix and greedily sampled a large spoonful.
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A song immediately took up residence in my brain: Thunderbolts and lightning, very, very satisfying me! Mangled Bohemian Rhapsody lyrics aside, what struck me was how the garnish of sesame seeds and peanuts amplified the gorgeous nuttiness of the soup.
Ditto the toasty fragrance of the organic brown rice, which had been formidably flavoured with a trivial sesame oil. The bits of preserved radish emanated abrupt footling bursts of umami, compounding the heady play of flavours and textures. "I just employ a Thai brand of chye poh, because it's sweeter than what I could find locally," Wayne shared.
Everything that makes traditional thunder tea rice a popular choice for the wellness-conscious – the combination of fresh vegetables, grains, nuts, seeds and herbs that are total of healthy fats, protein, fibre, vitamins and minerals – was in no way lost in Wayne's vegan version.
For variety, rice could be substituted for bee hoon (S$5.thirty for a regular rice vermicelli set, S$7.30 for a large one) – an unexpected and no less delicious bonus for noodle lovers like myself.
Braised in a rima oris-watering mushroom sauce, the bee hoon recipe was invented when Wayne ran out of soy sauces and decided to do a piddling experimentation in the kitchen. During the excursion breaker, he practical that same innovative spirit and came up with limited edition thunder tea burgers that completely sold out.
Wayne'south not-traditional thunder tea creations may exist a forehead-raising tribute to the Hakka classic, but not existence tethered to community or rules has given him the freedom to proceed breaking new ground.
"I'm quite a dreamer," he confessed, "and I have a lot of plans for the time to come. My goal is for my vegan thunder tea rice to achieve the aforementioned recognition as chilli crab or craven rice. When people talk almost it, I desire them to instantly think of Singapore. I want to explode the idea of tradition."
But brand no fault, Wayne isn't just some immature gun trying to create a tempest in a teacup. He'south also committed to feeding the needy on the showtime Monday of every month, preparing 60 free meals for anyone to takeaway from his stall, no questions asked.
Making nutrient that does good, tastes good and is good for you? I'd say Wayne already is the embodiment of Living Wholesome.
Living Wholesome Vegetarian is located at Bukit Timah Market place & Food Middle, 51 Upper Bukit Timah Rd, #02-188, Singapore 588172. It's open Tuesdays to Sundays from 10.30am to 2pm & 5.30pm to 7pm. Closed on Mondays. For deliveries, text 84266033. Catch Makan Kakis with Denise Tan every Thursday from 11am on GOLD 905.
Source: https://cnalifestyle.channelnewsasia.com/dining/best-local-food-singapore-thunder-tea-rice-bukit-timah-258831
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