The Hungry Guppies went for lunch one fine afternoon and managed to swim into a soup place at The Arcade. It was very crowded and everyone there was having warm soup with rice. This place actually prides itself in its soup, one of them being the herbal chicken soup, which is my favourite!

The herbal chicken soup is very rich in taste and has a very traditional “herb-y” taste. It tastes just like home-cooked herbal chicken soup; you can tell that they are generous with the ingredients used. The serving was quite big too, definitely worth it for just S$4. What’s more, hua diao jiu (a type of rice wine) is available there. Take some and dip the herbal chicken in it.. It’s heavenly!

The other two types of soup tried were lotus root & peanuts soup (top) and watercress soup (bottom).

The lotus root & peanuts soup was very thick and has a rich full-bodied taste but the watercress soup was a little diluted though. Another thing that I must say is that they do offer other types of rice to go with the soup, besides plain rice! We tried fried rice (left) and pumpkin rice (right) that day! (Sometimes they do serve different types of rice. Once, we tried cabbage rice!)

The fried rice was yummy in my opinion, not so much of the pumpkin rice (but my opinion could be biased as I do not like pumpkin very much). Anyway before I end off with my rating, let’s see the types of pots they use for the soup!

Laughing Guppy’s Rating:

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What other guppies say:

Health Freak Guppy says: “Fantastic, the moment I swam around the shop and eye-balled the soups, I could tell the soup was ‘thick’ and full of taste. And my first gulp into the Lotus Root with Peanuts soup did not disappoint. Tasted like those home cooked soup straight from Mummy’s kitchen. They’re also very generous in their portions of peanuts, pork ribs and lotus roots! “Zhen cai shi liao!” (“the real stuff man!”). Also Laughing Guppy’s Herbal Chicken soup … and that was even better! Full-bodied traditional herbal taste. I had my soup with their Pumpkin rice, which is cooked with mushrooms. Delicious! Fins up from me ‘cos soups in general is …well.. healthy”

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Sweet-Toothed Guppy says: “The watercress and pork soup that I had was not fantastic. It is a little too light for my taste, but my main complaint is that there is too little watercress! AN IRONY! I ate my soup with pumpkin rice which tasted like any other soggy glutinous rice. Still, for the supposed-health benefits of this meal (tonic soup and all) and its wholesome price, I guess I will probably return to this stall on the days i need some tonic boost to my health.”

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What: Hup Huat Cafeteria

Where: The Arcade, 11 Collyer Quay , #01-32, Singapore049317

Operating hours: Go early during lunch time, they close at about 2pm

Price: $3.50-$4 per bowl of soup, $2-$3 per rice serving (for rice of the day, e.g. fried rice), $0.50 per serving of plain rice