Food Trip: Bak kut teh

Here's another must-eat dish in Malaysia and Singapore that is worth featuring in the food trip corner of my blog... join me as we try out and discover the bak kut teh.

Bak kut teh

The name bak kut teh came from the Hokkien dialect that literally translates to "meat bone tea". Despite being called a "tea", the dish does not contain any actual tea as an ingredient. It is, however, rich in herbs and spices like cinnamon, cloves, dang gui, fennel seeds, garlic, and star anise which is boiled with the meaty pork ribs that give it its complex taste.

Bak kut teh in Singapore's Chinatown 

I hope they added more ingredients to my Bak kut teh

Throughout time, additional ingredients were added to the dish like mushrooms, dried tofu, choy sum, and offal. Some Chinese herbs were also included like ju zhi and yu zhu. The bak kut teh dish is best served with tea. It is believed that the tea helps in dissolving the fat that was consumed from the dish. 

Fishing for other ingredients in this bak kut teh

I got to eat my first bak kut teh in the Chinatown District in Singapore during our 2017 Singapore-Malaysia tour. I was also planning to eat one in Kuala Lumpur to check out its difference from the one in Singapore but filed to find one due to time constraints. Overall, the bak kut teh is a dish worth trying. Its rich taste is surely something for your palate to experience.