1018 Upper Serangoon Road, Singapore 534756 | Daily 5pm–2:30am
Overview
Sin Chie Toke Huan is a long-standing Hainanese curry rice institution tucked along Upper Serangoon Road in Kovan, operating out of what is essentially a coffeeshop unit that has become a neighbourhood fixture. It draws queues from the moment its shutters go up at 5pm, and its willingness to serve until 2:30am every night has made it one of the more reliable late-night supper destinations on the northeastern side of the island. The stall is unpretentious to its core — no reservations, no tasting menus, no frills — just a glass display counter of braised, fried, and stewed dishes ladled over rice and doused in curry.
Ambience
The physical space is modest. A handful of tables sit outdoors under the coffeeshop eaves, with a few more inside. The ventilation is reasonable for an open-air setup, though on humid evenings the outdoor seating becomes more contested. When the weather turns and rain arrives, the insects follow, which makes the indoor seats preferable. The lighting is utilitarian — fluorescent overhead strips that cast the kind of flat, honest glow you find in hawker centres across the island, with no attempt at atmosphere beyond the warmth of the food itself.
What the ambience lacks in design, it compensates for in energy. The counter staff work at pace. Plates are assembled quickly, the queue moves, and there is a rhythm to the whole operation that feels practised over years. Most customers take away, which keeps the seating area from ever feeling overcrowded. The language of the stall is Mandarin — the staff communicate exclusively in it — so non-Mandarin speakers may find ordering by pointing at the display counter the more practical approach, which, to the stall’s credit, is made easy by how openly everything is laid out.
The Food — Dish-by-Dish Analysis
The Curry Rice Base
The foundation of any Hainanese curry rice plate is, obviously, the rice and its curry, and here the execution is competent if slightly cautious. The rice is cooked soft and slightly glutinous — each grain plump, yielding, and designed to absorb the sauce it will be drowned in. The curry itself is a pale golden-amber in colour, opaque with coconut milk, carrying the unmistakable fragrance of fresh curry leaves. The flavour profile leans aromatic rather than fiery. There is warmth, there is depth from what tastes like a blend of dried spices toasted before grinding, and there is a pleasant round sweetness. The spice level, however, sits well below what a heat-seeker might hope for. It is a curry built for broad accessibility rather than intensity, and while this is a legitimate stylistic choice, those who prefer their curry to bite back will find it mild.
The colour of the curry when poured is a warm turmeric-yellow deepening to amber at the edges where it concentrates, and it stains the rice a beautiful saffron hue that makes the plate visually inviting even before you reach the sides.
Braised Cabbage
This is arguably the dish that best demonstrates the kitchen’s technical competence. Braised cabbage is a deceptively difficult preparation — leave it too long and it collapses into mush, pull it too early and it remains raw and bitter. The version here threads that needle well. The outer leaves are soft and yielding, releasing braising liquid with gentle pressure, while the inner core retains a faint structural crunch. The colour is a pale jade-green, slightly translucent from the braising, with a gloss from the light soy and garlic sauce it has been cooked in. The garlic flavour is present but measured — enough to provide savouriness and prevent the cabbage from tasting flat, without overwhelming the vegetable itself. This is simple food executed with care.
Prawn Paste Chicken (Har Cheong Gai)
The chicken arrives fried to a deep amber-brown, the batter crust tight and audibly crisp at first bite. Inside, the meat is moist and tender, a clean white against the dark exterior. The prawn paste (har cheong) imparts its characteristic fermented, briny depth to the marinade, though the concentration here sits on the milder end of the spectrum. A more assertive version of this dish would have the prawn paste flavour punching through every bite; here it is present as a background note rather than the dominant register. This will please diners who find pronounced har cheong overwhelming, but may leave enthusiasts of the dish wanting more. The frying is consistent, the crust uniform, and the oil clean — no greasy aftertaste.
Sliced Soya Pork
The pork is sliced thin, covered in a dark soya marinade that has penetrated the meat thoroughly. The texture is tender to the point of pulling apart with minimal resistance, and the batter coating adds a light crisp layer that provides textural contrast. The flavour is salty — noticeably so when eaten alone — which is a direct consequence of the soya marinade. This is not a flaw unique to this stall; soya pork across many curry rice preparations is intended to be eaten with rice and curry, where the salt is diluted and balanced. Eaten alongside the mild curry-soaked rice, the saltiness resolves into a coherent umami backbone. The portion is generous. The hue of the meat is a deep mahogany-brown, lacquered with the reduced soya, which visually signals the intensity of the marinade before you even taste it.
Sweet and Sour Crispy Fish
The standout dish of the visit. The fish — white-fleshed, dense, and sustainably flaky — is fried first to a crisp golden skin before being doused in a sweet and sour sauce the colour of deep red lacquer. The textural tension here is the most interesting on the plate: the flesh inside remains moist and tender, yielding in soft flakes, while the skin, despite being coated in sauce, maintains a residual crispness. This is difficult to achieve. Most preparations of this style result in a soggy crust within minutes of the sauce being applied, but the fry here appears to have been done at sufficient heat and with enough structural integrity in the batter that it survives contact with the sauce. The flavour of the sauce is sweet-forward with a bright acidic finish, balanced enough to complement rather than mask the fish.
Dessert — Cendol ($3)
The cendol is served in a generous bowl: shaved ice mounded over coconut milk, gula melaka (palm sugar syrup), green pandan-scented rice flour jelly strands, grass jelly, and red beans. The gula melaka is the critical variable in any cendol, and here it is used with a measured hand — sweet, smoky, and caramel-adjacent without being cloying. The coconut milk is creamy with a faint natural saltiness. The textures are layered well: the softness of the pandan jelly against the slight firmness of the beans, the crunch of the shaved ice, and the silkiness of the coconut milk pooling at the bottom. It is a composed bowl rather than a casually assembled one, and at $3 it represents significant value.
Approximate Recipe & Cooking Notes — Hainanese Curry Rice at Home
For those who wish to recreate the experience, the following outlines the core preparation methodology.
For the curry: Fry a curry paste of dried chilies, lemongrass, galangal, shallots, garlic, and toasted coriander and cumin seeds in oil until fragrant. Add coconut milk, chicken or pork stock, curry leaves, and kaffir lime leaves. Simmer low and slow until the oil separates at the surface, which signals the paste has cooked through. Season with salt, sugar, and a small amount of fish sauce. The resulting curry should be pourable, not thick — it is designed to be ladled over rice, not served as a standalone dish.
For har cheong gai (prawn paste chicken): Marinate bone-in chicken pieces in fermented prawn paste (har cheong), oyster sauce, sesame oil, white pepper, sugar, and a small amount of Shaoxing wine for at least four hours, overnight preferred. Coat in a batter of rice flour and plain flour for crispness. Fry at 175°C in small batches, resting before a second fry for maximum crust integrity.
For the braised cabbage: Stir-fry garlic in oil until golden. Add sliced cabbage and toss briefly over high heat. Add light soy sauce, a small amount of oyster sauce, white pepper, and water or stock. Cover and braise on medium-low until the outer leaves soften but inner stems retain texture.
For the soya pork: Marinate thinly sliced pork belly or shoulder in dark soy sauce, five spice powder, garlic, and a small amount of sugar. Rest for one hour minimum. Coat in a light flour-egg batter and shallow fry until caramelised and cooked through.
Delivery Options
Sin Chie Toke Huan does not appear to have a formally verified presence on major delivery platforms such as GrabFood or foodpanda at the time of writing. Given the nature of the food — curry-drenched rice that continues to absorb sauce in transit, fried items that lose their crispness rapidly — it is a stall best experienced in person or taken away in containers from the stall directly. For those in the immediate Kovan and Upper Serangoon vicinity, self-collection takeaway is the practical and quality-preserving option. The stall can be reached at 9003 5337 for direct enquiries.
Verdict
Sin Chie Toke Huan is not a destination restaurant in the aspirational sense. It is a dependable neighbourhood stall that has earned its place through consistency, accessibility, reasonable pricing, and the singular convenience of being open until 2:30am. The sweet and sour fish is the dish most worth ordering. The braised cabbage is quietly excellent. The cendol is underpriced. The curry is fragrant but restrained. Come late, point at what looks good, eat with the rice, and do not expect the prawn paste to announce itself loudly.
Rating: 8/10 Recommended dishes: Sweet and Sour Crispy Fish, Braised Cabbage, Cendol, Sliced Soya Pork (with rice), Har Cheong Gai