Boon Lay Ho Huat: $4.50 Truffle Carrot Cake from this old-school hawker

About this promotion

When a friend offers to bring you for “truffle carrot cake”, you’d probably think of the cream-slathered spongey version and not a piping hot plate of our local chai tow kway. But as things turn out, you can actually get a plate of that eggy radish goodness perfumed with the exquisite aroma of truffle at a hawker stall.

So I guess it’s not just a debate between black or white anymore, we’ve got truffle carrot cake joining in the age-old contest for Singapore’s best version of carrot cake.

You’d also be surprised that this idea didn’t come from a trendy new hawker stall in an upscale compound like Timbre+ but from Boon Lay Ho Huat Fried Hokkien Prawn Mee. This old-school hawker name has been around for decades, with a few stalls scattered around the country.

What’s the catch with this unique Fried Carrot Cake With Truffle (S$4.50/ $6.50) then? It’s your typical white carrot cake, fried into blocks that are a blend of golden eggy crisp and moist radish cake softness. But unlike your typical chai tow kway, they finish off the frying process by adding some truffle oil to the carrot cake.

Yeah, so not quite the shaved black truffles like the sign may lead you to believe.

Still, for those who’re suckers for that intoxicating truffle fragrance like we are, you’d probably be salivating when they spritz the carrot cake with puffs of truffle oil and its distinctive scent fills the air. Always cool to see fusion touches like this in our hawker scene — Singapore is a melting pot of culture, after all.

While the social media hype is for their truffle carrot cake, it’s probably also a good idea to get a plate of their Hokkien Prawn Mee. It’s in their name after all —Boon Lay Ho Huat Fried Hokkien Prawn Mee— so it’ll be a bit of a waste to not dig into one of their signature plates of flavoursome, gravy-filled Hokkien Mee.

A truffle carrot cake isn’t something you’d find every day, so it’s worth making a trip down if you want to try a new spin on a local hawker classic. Do note that you’d only find this special carrot cake at their Sixth Avenue, Clementi West, and Tampines outlets and not at the OG Boon Lay stall.