Kway Guan Huat Joo Chiat Popiah & Kueh Pie Tie

Kway Guan Huat Joo Chiat Popiah & Kueh Pie Tie shop house restaurant at 95, Joo Chiat Road.

Kway Guan Huat Joo Chiat Popiah & Kueh Pie Tie

Popiah (薄饼) is my go to snack food when I feel peck-ish in the afternoon for a snack and it is available. Singapore Hokkien-style popiah is a burrito-like food and the filling is mainly finely grated and steamed or stir-fried turnip, jicama (known locally as bangkuang), which has been cooked with a combination of other ingredients such as bean sprouts, French beans, and lettuce leaves, depending on the individual vendor, along with grated carrots, slices of Chinese sausage, thinly sliced fried tofu, chopped peanuts or peanut powder, fried shallots, and shredded omelette.

Traditionally, popiah "skin" (薄饼皮) is a soft, thin paper-like crepe or pancake handmade from wheat flour. The method of producing the wrapper involves making an extremely wet and viscous dough. A ball of this dough is held to the right hand, then quickly "rubbed" (擦潤餅皮) against a hot steel plate in a circular fashion, and lifted. It is only through this handmade process, that a very thin layer of the wet dough adheres to the plate and begins to cook. The upper surface of the crepe is then usually cleaned of excess pieces of dough using the dough ball through a dabbing process. When the dough has been cooked to completion, it is peeled off of the hot steel plate before being removed. The rubbing is typically done over two or three plates at once, which allows the baker to continuously produce crepes and gives the proper time for each crepe to be properly cooked.

Kway Guan Huat is the only manufacturer I know that still makes this by hand. If you arrive early at the shop, you can order the shop’s specialty: popiah and kueh pie tee, and watch the masters perform and create their magic on the hot griddles. Their deft and rhythmic is at once hypnotic and elegant. You can have a go at making the skin, but don’t be fooled: there is a skill behind the deceptively simple movement. Check out the video:

I decided to do what I do best: eat and sketch. So while the popiah skin master was doing his thing, I did mine, with a pen, a sketchbook and a pair of chopsticks – to pick up the food). Popiah can be eaten on its own or accompanied with a sweet sauce (often a bean sauce), a blended soy sauce or hoisin sauce or a shrimp paste sauce and optionally with hot chilli sauce before it is filled. I like mine with chilli and without dip – just the way I remember it from my childhood.