A Popiah Party

Ok, not a party exactly, but lunch with friends at Lao Beijing in Plaza Singapura on Friday. I had only had popiah once before, from a hawker stall on Smith Street in Chinatown, but here it was make-your-own, and all the better for it! One of the girls is Malaysian and has grown up eating popiah, so she was able to talk us through the ingredients and show us how it is done like a true expert!

As I took my seat, the waitress removed the lid from a teacup filled with fruit and flowers and filled it with tea for me. This, I later found out, was Eight Treasures Tea – the first treasure being the jasmine tea, which is poured over chrysanthemum flowers, red dates, dried longan fruit, walnut kernals, raisins, sesame and rock sugar (the other seven treasures). Apparently it has medicinal properties to help decrease body heat, promote digestion, induce appetite and relieve fatigue – well, what a perfect accompaniment to a popiah party!

A display of ingredients was then placed in the middle of the table – the main portion being steamed vegetables with pork, surrounded by various accompaniments – plum sauce, garlic sauce, chilli paste, beansprouts, shredded omelette, crushed peanuts, crushed dried shrimp, some large lettuce leaves and a plate of paper-thin pancakes.

So then the fun began – each of us taking a pancake, smearing on the plum sauce, topping it with a lettuce leaf, scooping in the vegetable/pork mix and sprinkling on the various accompaniments, before rolling it up fajita-style. The result was really pretty good, with the combination of all the different flavours and textures – the sweetness of the plum sauce, the heat of the chilli paste, the juiciness of the vegetables and the crunch of the peanuts and beansprouts all in one delicious fresh spring roll mouthful.

Being a greedy group of friends, we also ordered some side dishes to enjoy alongside the popiah – some pork dumplings and onion pancakes, which were fantastic, and so very moreish…

There was even one extra pancake left at the end… and no prizes for guessing who it went to… must have been that Eight Treasures Tea inducing my appetite…

Lao Beijing - http://www.tunglok.com/laobeijing/