Carrot Cake

If you thought it was another review on carrot cake, you are half right. The fried carrot cake is made from rice flour and radish, which is steamed till a soft white cake is formed. There are several ways in which the carrot cake can be eaten.

Today, I'm talking about the favorite fried chai tau kueh, which is fried with soy sauce, eggs, garlic and bits of pickled radish (chai poh). If you like it slightly sweet, there is the 'black' version that uses sweet black soy sauce. If you prefer it more savoury, ask for the 'white' version which omits the sweet sauce.

Chai tau kueh is a popular dish that used to be eaten for breakfast only, now it is eaten at all hours. It started out fried and scrambled, until the 1970s when a smart hawker in Toa Payoh fried it crisp like a pancake, followed soon after by the Hong Kong dim sum chef’s version - steamed with a seasoned soy sauce.
I bought my packet of fried carrot cake from Good Spice Carrot Cake in the Cambridge Road Hawker Center. Be prepared to stand in line for up to 20 minutes as the old man who fries the carrot cake takes only one person's order at a time. As his carrot cake is very tasty people are prepared to wait and believe it or not a plate costs at cheap as $1 going up to $3. My packet was a $2 packet and it includes two eggs. I asked him to mix both white and black version together so that it wouldn't look so black in the photo. Personally, I like the black version. It was enough for two people.