Herbal bak kut teh (RM$32.50)!
Tuesday Malaysia — herbal bak kut teh RM$32.50. Malaysian Hokkien-style bak kut teh.
Dinner on our Malaysia trip with BB: herbal bak kut teh, RM$32.50 (~SGD$11.20). The Malaysian dark-herbal style. 😋
This was a treat precisely because it’s so different from what we get at home. Singapore bak kut teh is usually the Teochew style: a clear, peppery broth heavy on white pepper and garlic. Across the Causeway, the Hokkien herbal style rules, and that’s what this was, a dark, amber-brown broth simmered with Chinese herbs (dang gui, liquorice root and the like) along with soy.
The result is a completely different bowl: deeply savoury, aromatic and almost medicinal in the best way, with a complex herbal fragrance and a rich, warming depth you just don’t get from the pepper version. The pork ribs were slow-cooked until tender, soaking up all that herbal flavour, and you eat it the classic way, with rice, you tiao (fried dough fritters) for dunking into the soup, and a pot of Chinese tea to cut the richness.
At RM$32.50 (around SGD$11.20), it was lovely value too, roughly half what you’d pay for bak kut teh back home. A proper taste of the Malaysian style, and a reminder of how much regional variation there is in a dish we think we know.
Overall: 4.8 / 5. 😋👍🏼 A rich, aromatic herbal broth with tender ribs, the Malaysian style done well and at great value. Would seek it out again on the next trip.
