Yuhua Village Food Centre is home to many long-standing cooked food stalls, including my brother’s favourite hor fun stall Cai. Recommended by his wing chun shifu, it’s a place he looks upon fondly as a go-to place for his after-class lunch.
I’ve visited Cai only once after he convinced me to accompany him to satiate his beef hor fun cravings. That one visit convinced me that it was the best I’d eaten in a while after I fell in love with its Beef Hor Fun. Besides this, it also serves seafood or mixed hor fun as well as stewed rice and pork chop rice.
However, another stall in the same hawker centre recently caught my attention. Gong Xi Fa Cai Eating House gave me an amusing first impression, especially since it sounded exactly like its Chinese name.
Other than the similar name, another trait that Gong Xi Fa Cai shares with Cai is its menu. While it serves mainly zichar dishes including steamboat, coffee pork ribs and bee hoon, you can also buy Beef Hor Fun here. This sparked my inspiration to stir up some beef between the two with a Hor Fun Showdown.
Both stalls seemed to be relatively popular, as there was a long queue at both. Cai is self-service, so my brother needed to wait and collect his order before making his way to our table. Meanwhile, there are instructions stated at Gong Xi Fa Cai to give the staff your table number so that they can bring the food over once it’s done.
Another difference between the two is the mode of payment. While Gong Xi Fa Cai accepts both cash and cashless payments, Cai only accepts physical money.
Price & Portion
Gong Xi Fa Cai’s Beef Hor Fun was the first to be done, and the plate was swiftly served. There are S$6, S$10 and S$15 portions available, and my brother and I chose the smallest at S$6. Cai’s on the other hand comes in a fixed portion at S$5.
At first glance, the portion of Cai’s Beef Hor Fun looked smaller than that of Gong Xi Fa Cai’s. Despite this, it was an insignificant size difference considering the S$1 difference in price.
Gravy
The first trait that struck us was the visibly different shades of each plate.
If I had to guess which plate belonged to either stall from a distance, I would identify Gong Xi Fa Cai Eating House’s (on the left) straight away. Its gravy was a dark brown, possibly from adding a significant amount of dark soy sauce. It contained fried shallots, which weren’t very visible since they were a perfect colour match and mixed in as an ingredient rather than a topping.
Scooping up the liquid for a taste, we observed that Gong Xi Fa Cai’s zhup was slightly thinner than Cai’s (right). Furthermore, the former had an obvious dark soy sauce flavour alongside the sweetness and a hint of onion.
In comparison, Cai’s gravy was paler and more translucent with bits and swirls of egg drop. Despite the colour difference and additional starchiness, it matched up to the former in terms of its strong and savoury flavour.
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Hor Fun
The same noodles were used for both plates, but there was an obvious difference between the textures of each. They did arrive slightly clumpy but loosened up after we gave the dishes a good stir.
For Gong Xi Fa Cai, its hor fun was soft and dyed brown from the gravy. While some parts were chewy, other pieces were soft and broke apart when picked up. Coated with the smooth sauce, they tasted decent and possessed a light wok hei fragrance.
Cai’s hor fun on the other hand was consistently springy and Q with every bite. Each one was accompanied by what I’d call an explosion of wok hei – addictively rich and smoky.
Beef
There was plenty of beef on both plates, and the ratio of meat to gravy and noodles was perfect for each! An obvious difference between the meat in the Beef Hor Fun dishes however was their taste.
Placing a slice of tender beef from the Gong Xi Fa Cai plate into my mouth, I was hit with a strong taste of onion. While it wasn’t clear whether or not it was from the gravy or from marinating the meat, it was very savoury and overall quite delicious.
If GXFC’s beef was more chewy, Cai’s would be softer. Though the slices were slightly smaller, they were quite velvety – this could’ve been the result of tenderising them in egg white and cornstarch. Their meatiness also shone through a lot stronger, considering that they weren’t seasoned as heavily with other more powerful ingredients.
Vegetables
There wasn’t much more to compare, literally. Both plates contained a small amount of the same chye sim, which didn’t add much flavour-wise. However, both stalls had cooked the greens just right, leaving them with a light crunch and not too raw.
Verdict
Here’s a spoiler: my brother claims his predictions were right from the start.
Cai’s Beef Hor Fun won us over – it was incredible and overall a purchase we didn’t regret. Despite its simplicity, it tasted amazingly rich and flavourful. The powerful wok hei was a plus factor – I doubt we’ll be finding hor fun this smoky elsewhere for a long time.
Of course, Gong Xi Fa Cai’s Beef Hor Fun was great – it was an excellent portion for the price, with delicious meat and gravy. However, it fell short in terms of the hor fun’s quality and texture; it was too soft for my liking. Another reason we didn’t choose this was the strong dark soy sauce taste – it was flavourful but not our first choice.
Our ultimate decision was based on taste, but a tiny part of me believes the price difference does matter. Perhaps I’m a money face; I’d choose Cai anytime because it’s cheaper by S$1 for a somewhat similar portion.
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