Huong Que Quan Vietnamese Cuisine (Chinatown Complex Market & Food Centre)

It is a bit sad that their location at the hawker centre is consider a much hidden side, but I hope they would attract the people who getting some drink at night here, as this area only much alive at night with all the pub stalls open.

I also gotten their fresh spring roll which freshly made upon order. Stuffed with pork, prawn and vegetable.

It seems like Vietnamese foods continue to rise within Chinatown, with this stall adding to the list of similar cuisine in this area.

The pork chop rice was attracting me at first and no regret getting it. Comes with juicy and big size of pork chop, tender texture as well. It could get a bit sweeter as you add with the sweet sauce, but not too overpowering the taste of the meat.

The rice also accompanied with a slide of egg and slices of tomato & cucumber.

There seems to be quite a bit of movement around the stalls situated around Chinatown Complex Food Centre recently — while there are many hawker legends whom have taken the route to close their stalls due to various reasons, there are also plenty of new stalls that had sprouted up around the food centre as well. One example would be Huong Que Quan 家乡 Vietnamese Cuisine — a new stall that has recently opened up in the green zone of the food centre. This isn’t their first time entering into the F&B scene however; Huong Que Quan 家乡 Vietnamese Cuisine was in fact situated within Tanglin Halt Food Centre at 1A Commonwealth Drive — the location being earmarked for Selective En bloc Redevelopment Scheme (“SERS”) to be demolished for redevelopment. Whilst most of the hawker stalls within the food centre have moved to the nearby Margaret Drive Hawker Centre along with most of the residents whom were also affected by the scheme, Huong Que Quan 家乡 Vietnamese Cuisine had seemingly disappeared from the F&B scene for quite a while before making its come back at Chinatown Complex Food Centre. The stall still looks pretty recognisable from its days being at Tanglin Halt Food Centre — the signboard being pretty similar to what it was previously, while the menu features a pretty wide selection of items including the Vietnamese Bee Hoon dishes, Pho, Rice, Salad and Banh Mi, Spring Rolls; just to name a few. For those looking for dishes to share around the table, we did note that there are Beer Steamed Shrimps and Crispy Fried Onions being offered at Huong Que Quan 家乡 Vietnamese Cuisine as well.

It was difficult to make a choice on what to order here; whilst we do have a preference to go with Banh Mi usually, we found ourselves going for the Grilled Pork & Fried Spring Roll Bee Hoon since we have had quite a number of Banh Mi of the late — some variance would definitely work well for us. Here, the Grilled Pork & Fried Spring Roll Bee Hoon is served like how most Bun Cha dishes would be at any establishment serving up Vietnamese — the Bee Hoon is being warmed up in the oven and placed into the bowl; all that before the pork chop is being laid above before the fried spring roll is being cut up and placed into the bowl as well. There are also slices of cucumbers and beansprouts — pretty common elements found in such a dish, as well as shallots and spring onions being sprinkled atop the grilled pork. There also comes the small bowl of fish sauce that comes on the side; this would come with some strips of pickled carrots and radish, as well as some chili for some spiciness — the fish sauce to be used as a “dipping sauce” to the Bee Hoon like how Japanese would enjoy their Tsukemen. Overall, we did quite like what was going with this entire bowl — there is little that can go wrong with Bun Cha anyway; the Bee Hoon being springy and was especially flavourful when laced with the fish sauce. The fish sauce introduces that umami, spicy and tangy kick to the Bee Hoon; all that whilst making the Bee Hoon especially slurpy. Between the two, we seemed to prefer the Grilled Pork better; coming with bone-in, the Grilled Pork was tender and juicy — fairly easy to chew off, the pork chop carried a hint of sweetness, ridding off any undesirable porkiness that may have came along with it. On the other hand, the fried spring rolls were not done much to our liking; the fried spring rolls being a little bit on the limp side especially after being left there for a while.

Being pretty much a one-woman show on her own, one could definitely sense the hard work that is being put out by Huong Que Quan 家乡 Vietnamese Cuisine — the Grilled Pork & Fried Spring Roll Bee Hoon that we have had definitely does feel like one that has been made with effort, even though that it isn’t the best one we have had over the years and that is really pretty alright. One thing is definitely for sure though; the Grilled Pork & Fried Spring Roll Bee Hoon is one that we have found that would satiate cravings for such Vietnamese dishes — there is ample flavour going on with all the elements and we also did like how the grilled pork was also done without it being too dry as well despite lacking the hint of smokiness from the charcoal grill, though the fried spring roll’s texture could be admittedly better. With such a wide variety of dishes available here though, we can only say that perhaps Huong Que Quan 家乡 Vietnamese Cuisine might have done so dishes over the Grilled Pork & Fried Spring Roll Bee Hoon way better; a lady who was helping out at the stall at her personal accord had also told us that while she does not have Vietnamese cuisine regularly, she did enjoy the Beef Pho that is offered at Huong Que Quan 家乡 Vietnamese Cuisine. There are also some rather unique dishes that we noticed Huong Que Quan 家乡 Vietnamese Cuisine serving up on their menu; this would include the Shrimp and Minced Pork Bee Hoon — only available on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays, as well as a Steam Baguette with Minced Pork. The dishes at Huong Que Quan 家乡 Vietnamese Cuisine are priced reasonably — the mains coming at a range of $6 to $7 with the exception of the Baguette with Egg that is priced at $4.50. We would be pretty open to give the other creations at Huong Que Quan 家乡 Vietnamese Cuisine some other time — a dining option worth considering whilst in the Chinatown area, especially if one has a craving for Vietnamese cuisine to scratch.