Keng Eng Kee Seafood (KEK)

Coffee on pork ribs sounds like a mistake. Fifty-six years of regulars say otherwise.

KEK is the zi char to book for a table of six who want a dependable family dinner without anyone reading a wine list, and the coffee pork ribs are the reason. Order them first, and probably twice. The compromises: it isn't the cheapest zi char in town, the portions aren't the biggest, and it isn't halal-certified, which matters if you're planning for a mixed group. Call ahead for a table.

Keng Eng Kee is one of the city's longest-running zi char kitchens, dating to 1970 and starting as a rented stall on Old Havelock Road before it made its name at Alexandra Village. It is still a family operation: siblings Paul, Jia Min and Wayne took over and expanded their parents' business, with Wayne heading the kitchen. Along the way it collected a Michelin Plate for six consecutive years from 2016 and turned up on numerous TV programmes. In 2022 the family opened a second outlet at SAFRA Tampines.

The original is the one to cross the island for: an air-conditioned dining room across from a coffee shop at Block 124 Bukit Merah Lane 1, a step up from plastic chairs but not by much, which is how a zi char should be. Tampines is the answer if you live in the east, and it has its own reason to go in the white pepper pork collagen soup.

What to order: the coffee pork ribs, in a thin, crisp batter, are the signature and the one thing nobody at the table should skip. Then the moonlight hor fun: dark, glossy flat rice noodles with lup cheong, prawns and fish, crowned with a raw egg you stir through at the table. The claypot seafood is the sound choice for a group. Chilli crab is on at seasonal prices, so ask before you order rather than after.

How to do it well: go on a weeknight, book ahead, and treat it as a sharing dinner – a dish per person plus rice is the usual zi char maths, and the ribs count as one even if you order them twice. Weekends are when families fill the room, so a weeknight is the easier table. Bring the people who'll fight you for the last rib, and settle who pays before the crab arrives.

Good to know The Alexandra Village original is at 124 Bukit Merah Lane 1, #01-136. Call ahead for groups; crab is priced by season.

Keng Eng Kee Seafood (KEK) | 124 Bukit Merah Lane 1, #01-136, Singapore 150124