One day during my brief holiday in Singapore, my uncle sent me a TikTok video of a soup stall in Kallang called Soup Kambing Haji M Abdul Rajak. It wasn’t the first time he sent me random TikTok videos, from food to propaganda, but I was intrigued.
“Shall we?” I texted him back. “We will see you there at six“, he replied. So that evening, Fafa and I took a taxi from our hotel G Bugis to Kallang.
It was easy to find the viral Kallang Soup Kambing place. It was one of the few lit stalls in the Kallang Hawker Centre that evening. So we waited, and the rest of the family joined a few minutes later.
As usual, my uncle insisted on doing the order – but this time, I followed him to check out what was on the verbal menu.
It was a pretty standard-sized stall for a Singapore hawker centre, but there were more than the usual number of employees. There were two humungous-sized pots – one for the boiling soup and the other for just various mutton parts. I guess the meat has been cooked and will be toasted to the soup before serving it to the customers. The whole scene was far from tasty, but food presentation has never been integral to Singapore food culture, so I kept my hopes.
And Soup Kambing Haji M Abdul Rajak delivered.
The soup came in a blue bowl accompanied by a few torn bread. The gravy was thick, darker than any meat soup I had before, and decorated with bountiful pieces of meat. I took a few sips and must admit it was as delicious as attested on the viral TikTok video.
The gravy was flavourful, and the meat was tender. Eating the soup with bread soaked in it was comforting and pretty filling. As usual, my uncle paid for everything and offered me a second bowl, but I decided not to preserve the memory of just a perfect-sized bowl of soup to be savoured on a rainy day. It was monsoon season in Singapore at that time.
So lessons for the day: not all TikTok video is useless, your uncle’s food recommendation is always good, don’t judge food by appearance, but most importantly, you must try the mutton soup at Soup Kambing Haji M Abdul Rajak when in Singapore.
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