Hippo Family Restaurant – Humble Zichar Eatery for Gatherings with Family, Colleagues & Friends

Hippo Family Restaurant is owned by a lady who moved to Singapore from Jiangsu, China, in 1992. Hippo Family Restaurant first started 10 years ago, and has been popular with the office crowd and families.

Understanding that F&B manpower is scarce in Singapore, especially when it comes to skilful chefs, the lady boss was firm on not opening more outlets. So, you can be sure that you won’t find another franchise of Hippo Family Restaurant, and that is what makes this place irreplaceable.

We ordered classic zichar dishes such as curry fish head, shrimp paste chicken wing, sambal kangkong and hotplate tofu to get a rough idea of the standard of the food at Hippo Family Restaurant, since it was our first time here.

At $19, the curry fish head boasted a fish head that was bigger and meatier than expected. Also, a generous amount and variety of ingredients such as taupok, cabbage, long bean, eggplant and lady’s finger were inside the claypot. You just need some rice to go along with it. The spiciness of the curry was just right, while the sourness of the tamarind was satisfying. This will be even better on a rainy day!

Usually, shrimp paste chicken is priced at at least $8 per serving (typically for 8 pieces), but here at Hippo Family Restaurant, it’s only $6.50 (for 7 pieces)! Even though we only had it after a while, it was still very crispy. In the end, everyone was fighting for the last paiseh piece!

The sambal kangkong($5.50) was just enough for 4 of us. Hippo Family Restaurant’s sambal kangkong is moderately spicy so that it is acceptable for most. The kang kong didn’t have a very strong dried shrimp or sambal flavour, but I like how crunchy the stems were.

We ordered the hot plate tofu without looking at the price, so when it arrived we were a little disappointed as the portion looked slightly pathetic. After checking the menu, I was surprised to learn that this dish was only $6.50!

The egg yolk was runny and went very well with rice! Honestly, the amount of tofu was too little for 4 people. If there’s an option to get a bigger portion, I will definitely get that.

The lady boss was very friendly and thoughtful. We actually ordered more than these 4 dishes but she advised us to stop at 4 dishes since we only had 4 people. Thankfully we heeded her advice because we were belly-full and we had leftovers in the end.

I can foresee myself bringing my family here to try the other dishes Hippo Family Restaurant has to offer. The food is good and I don’t have to worry about  burning a hole in my pocket!

MissTamChiak.com made anonymous visit and paid its own meal at the stall featured here.

Let’s build a food community that helps to update the food news in Singapore! Simply comment below if there’s any changes or additional info to Hippo Family Restaurant. We will verify and update from our side. Thanks in advance!