216 Chee Cheong Fun @ 216 Choa Chu Kang Ave 1

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The location that I am headed for today is just a ten minutes walk away from my place.

Having lived in my area for the last thirty-odd years, not once have I come to this part of the neighborhood for breakfast. And it is high time I did.

216 Coffee Shop is situated at 216 Choa Chu Kang Ave 1. It is a small coffee shop housing just a coffee stall, a mee hoon kueh stall and the subject of today's review - the chee cheong fun stall.

The stall does not have a signboard so, allow me to call it 216 Chee Cheong Fun.

I only got to know about this chee cheong fun through words of mouth from someone who, ironically, stayed at the other end of the country.

So, I took a brisk walk from my house and reached the coffee shop just before 7am however, there are no customers at all. I was secretly screaming for joy on the inside because that meant I could take all the photos I wanted without being judged by anyone.

What they serve here is the dim sum-styled chee cheong fun that are freshly made upon order. Apart from the usual fillings such as char siew and prawn, they also have... siew yok (roasted pork)!

I ordered a char siew chee chong fun ($4) with the lady helper who told me to take a seat and that she will serve my order to my table.

When my order was served ten minutes later, something triggered me to WhatsApp a photo of it to Mum immediately and her reply made me laughed out loud because that is exactly what I had in mind.

"你一大早到哪里吃黃芽白？" ("Where did you go to have wong ngaa baak (Napa cabbage) so early in the morning?")

I honestly thought the lady had served me cabbage rolls until I took a closer look. This has got to be the most wrinkled chee cheong fun I had ever seen!

A physical inspection of the rice roll revealed another two rolls stacked underneath the two rolls on top.

Now, I am not sure if this is considered as two rolls or four rolls so I went back in to observe the making process. The batter are steamed in metal pans and each pan yield one roll which is first split into halves then further cut into threes.

Hence, for a typical order like mine, it took two pans (two rolls) to make. Because the batter are steamed directly in metal pans, the chef had to use a tool to scrap the formed cheong fun off the pan, resulting in the wrinkles.

And I must commend them on their liberal use of char siew. It may not seemed much on the outside but if you actually unroll it, the char siew bits are all in there.

Then, the sauce.

At first glance, it seems like there is way too much sauce but by the time I started on the second roll, the sauce are pretty much gone.

I thought it would be awfully salty given the amount of soy but the balance of savoriness and sweetness is well taken care of.

The chee cheong fun is so thin and delicate that the edges rolled up. Coupled with the layers of overlapping 'wrinkles', it formed a thicker layer. Despite that, the texture is still soft and silky which makes it a great medium to mop up all that delicious sauce.

The coffee shop is located along this stretch of shop houses along Choa Chu Kang Ave 1. There is something rustic about this place that is reminiscent of my pre-Covid19 day trips to the dai pai dong of Malaysia.

The awning is a permanent structure to shield patrons from the elements. If not for that, this would truly be an al fresco dai pai dong experience in Singapore.