Popiah is one of my favourite Singapore Hawker food. But I honestly think that it is not given enough credit. Whenever people mentioned about hawker food in Singapore, they will think of Chicken rice, Laksa, Char Kway Teow, Rojak, and Hokkien Mee, but popiah?

It is just an extra dish which people can do without. Surely the delicious roll deserves more recognition? I went on a hunt recently to find the best popiah in Singapore. Here’s a list of Popiah Restaurants in Singapore that you should check out:

Unless you have a very small appetite, it is not filling to have a popiah alone, so it is best enjoyed as a snack rather than a proper meal. Sometimes I feel it’s a little silly to spend $1.50 to $2 for a popiah, but it is just so addictive! I always see Kueh Pie Tee as the cousin of popiah. It has similar fillings, served in a crispy shell (instead of the popiah skin), and most importantly – it looks good!

Glory Catering Nonya Popiah

Located at a corner on East Coast road (besides Awfully Chocolate), Glory Catering is famous for their halal Nasi Padang, Nonya Kuehs, and Nyonya Popiah. They have a very different type of popiah from the Hokkien Popiah that we usually get everywhere.

Nonya popiah uses a thicker skin, it has more lettuce, and the whole spring roll is very wet with a lot more sauce. Glory Catering’s Popiah ($2.2) is like a monster. It is probably twice the size of a normal popiah and I swear it’s impossible to put everything in your mouth at one go.

139 East Coast Road Singapore
Tel: +65 6344 1749

Long House Popiah & Kueh Pie Tee

This is known as the ‘Popiah that I went all the way to Toa Payoh for’. Long House Popiah ($1.20) uses homemade popiah skin with fresh ingredients, and it’s incredibly crunchy. If you fancy a popiah party at home, Long House sells their skin and fillings for DIY popiah too.

Remember to try their Kueh Pie Tee too – happiness now comes in the form of a crispy cup.

Blk 22 Lorong 7 Toa Payoh
#01-03 Toa Payoh Food Centre
Tel: +65 9171 7157
Closed: Mon & Tue

Qi Ji Popiah

With 13 outlets all over Singapore, Qi Ji Popiah is like the Old Chang Kee for Popiah. At $1.90 per roll, their popiah is not exactly cheap, but they have accessibility on their side. Even though I always say that cravings must always be satisfied, it is very unlikely that I will go all the way to Toa Payoh or Joo Chiat just for a roll of popiah.

109 North Bridge Road #01-17
Funan Digitalife Mall Singapore
Tel: +65 6336 6330

Yue Yi Tai Shan Clementi Popiah

Yue Yi Tai Shan Popiah ($1.4) is so popular that if you ask where is the famous Clementi Popiah, people will point you to the stall located beside the equally famous Brothers Rojak. The two stalls will always have a never-ending queue all day long.

Blk 449 Clementi Ave 3
See Lam Herm coffee shop

Kway Guan Huat Joo Chiat Popiah & Kueh Pie Tee

Kway Guan Huat Popiah (or more commonly known as Joo Chiat Popiah), is one of the few Popiah Restaurants in Singapore that still make their own popiah skin. It’s very interesting to watch how the masters throw the dough in mid air and make it into the paper-thin Poh Piah skins. Try your hands at rolling your own popiah with their DIY Popiah set, and they cater for Popiah Party too! Free Popiah delivery for orders above $250, otherwise collect them at Joo Chiat yourself. Personally, I prefer their Kueh Pie Tee over the popiah, and I’d go as far to say that they have the best Kueh Pie Tee in Singapore.

95 Joo Chiat road
Tel: +65 6344 2875

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If you have other recommendations for good popiah in Singapore (other than the five mentioned), please feel free to leave a comment and share with others. As for me, I think it’s time to throw a popiah party and have a good feast to celebrate the new year!

I met Bob Blumer, the Surreal Gourmet.

Calm down people, calm down! I know you are excited at the sight of your favourite chef!

I’m going to be frank, I didn’t have any idea who Bob is when I received the invitation from Discovery Travel & Living, well the name sounds familiar and I know he’s a celebrity chef. It was only when my friends went gushing over, “his toaster van.. “, then I remember seeing his show before. I didn’t really notice the chef’s name back then, but I definitely do now.

And I’m not about to go, “oh Bob you know I love the episode where you ran a marathon and drank twenty one wine in France..” The idea is simple enough, Bob’s in town, and he wants food, the local Singapore food! So the group of us (media and bloggers) had the pleasure to bring Bob exploring some of the places in the East.

Our first stop was at Kway Guan Huat, for Popiahs! I’m really excited about this because I’ve been craving for popiahs, and here, they do all their popiah skins by hand. It sure wasn’t easy to do so, Bob had some fun trying to do the popiah skin, and learning to wrap a perfect popiah from Zita, the owner. Benjamin (Mr. Miyagi) took a cool video of the whole popiah-making process too!

Bob eating his very delicious popiah, which he would gladly pay ten bucks per roll!

We had the premium roll which had more ingredients; lots of vegetables, and of course our orders were “special” so we had extra shrimps too! The popiah at Kway Guan Huat is Nonya style, I couldn’t exactly remember all the ingredients; but there’s omelette, garlic, turnip, and lots of greens.

But I actually preferred the kueh pie tee to the popiah! It was awesome; using about the same ingredients, they were placed within the crunchy shells instead of the soft popiah skins. And I finished it, in a bite, or at least I tried to!

There was some time while waiting for the food to be served at our second stop, Old Mother Hen, so we hopped across the street and look at the local fruit stalls.

The folks at Old Mother Hen were indeed good hosts, the big table was filled up with so many dishes! We tried a bit of everything, but my favourite was definitely their claypot rice! And despite knowing there’s more food after this, I couldn’t stop myself from having more helpings of the rice.

This was the stir fried fallopian tubes that got everybody attention. We also had KL style black Hokkien mee, the very good home-made beancurd, claypot frog legs, herbal kampong chicken, and steamed shark’s head.

Our last stop was supposed to be trying out three katong laksa and let Bob determine which is his “favourite authetic” one, but due to some unforeseen reasons, we ended up at Seng Kee for bak chor mee (minced pork noodles) instead.

We wished there was more time for us to try out more places, but Bob had a busy schedule during his short stay here so our tour ended here. It was really cool to chat with Bob and hang out with the other bloggers for the day. We had fun chatting on the mini-bus (no toaster van) while moving from point to point, busy snapping photographs of food, and of course enjoying the food with great company! My appreciation to Priya and Rita of Weber Shandwick, and to Discovery Travel and Living for the invitation.

Kway Guan Huat
95 Joo Chiat road
Tel: 6344 2875

Old Mother Hen
136 Sims avenue
Tel: 6841 8789

Seng Kee
316 Changi road
Tel: 6345 7561

Glutton for Punishment 3 premieres Thursday at 2230hrs starting July 23. Encores air on Sunday at 0200hrs and Tuesday at 0800hrs on Discovery Travel & Living (Starhub Channel 16).