New Restaurant, Old Broth: Hup Lok's Fish Soup Becomes a Steamboat
Hup Lok is a new restaurant on Havelock Road carrying an old taste. It opened last September, but the fish soup behind it goes back three generations, to a father who once sold fish from baskets around Mohamed Sultan and River Valley, and built that trade into a wholesale business now approaching its 50th year. The founder, who spent six years at BCG before returning to the family trade, built Hup Lok around one idea: seafood sourced close to the source, served generously, at prices that stay honest.
Located along Havelock Road, Hup Lok has drawn a crowd looking for familiar flavours done with better quality. The restaurant’s signature dishes reflect that same approach, with each plate built around careful sourcing, traditional methods, and a preference for letting good ingredients speak. For many diners, the appeal is simple: food that feels comforting without feeling ordinary.
The Same Six-Hour Stock, Now Served as a Steamboat
Hup Lok’s own fish head steamboat is built from the same base as Grandpa’s Pomfret Soup: batang bones and a shell base, boiled for six hours until the stock turns into a rich broth with real fish collagen, not milk. Where the signature soup is served as a bowl, the steamboat brings that same six-hour stock to the table in a hotpot, anchored by thick pomfret fish slices, so the fish keeps cooking gently in a broth that has already done the hard work before it ever reaches you.
The result is a style of steamboat that focuses on the natural sweetness of seafood rather than relying on heavy seasoning. Diners can mix and match their ingredients based on their own preference, adding yam slices for texture or choosing different seafood additions depending on what they enjoy. Each combination creates a slightly different experience, but the foundation remains the same: a broth built patiently over time.
A Seafood Steamboat Built Around Choice and Comfort
What makes this version different from a typical fish head steamboat is what bits you can add to it. Alongside the pomfret, customers can add on Alaska king crab, scallops, or prawns, seafood sourced through Hup Lok’s direct supplier relationship for premium seafood, the same network that supplies the restaurant’s other dishes, rather than a generic frozen add-on tray.
This variety is what highlights the Hup Lok’s steamboat experience compared with more standard versions. It turns a familiar format into something built specifically around Hup Lok’s own sourcing and its own stock, making it a perfect match for families with kids, groups, or diners looking for a meal that brings people together around the pan.
What Makes a Great Fish Head Steamboat
A fish head steamboat is really a fish soup cooked at your own table. The head, or thick slices of fish, simmers slowly in a broth over a pot, usually alongside fried yam, cabbage, silken tofu and other steamboat additions, until the broth turns rich and the fish is just cooked through. The best versions use a fresh fish, and let the collagen and natural sweetness of the bones thicken the soup, rather than reaching for milk or cream as a shortcut.
The dish rewards patience. A good fish head steamboat needs real cooking time, both for the stock beforehand and for the fish itself once it hits the pot, so expect to wait, especially at the more popular stalls during dinner hours. What you are paying for is fresh ingredients cooked properly at the table, seasonal vegetables, and a broth that only gets more fragrant the longer it simmers, not a shortcut dressed up as one. This is exactly why Hup Lok starts its own version with a six-hour stock rather than a quick one: the extra hours are what let the collagen do the thickening, instead of milk.
Whampoa Keng: Singapore's Best-Known Head Steamboat
Ask any local for a fish head steamboat recommendation and Whampoa Keng comes up almost immediately. Its story began at Whampoa Market in the late 1990s, and it has since grown from a single stall into a small group of restaurants with its own central kitchen, best known for its charcoal-fired sliced fish and fish head steamboat. Regulars order a choice of batang or red grouper, and the signature spread usually includes prawn paste chicken, salted egg yolk dishes, and a fried yam ring popular enough that many tables order it as a side dish on its own.
Whampoa Keng still uses charcoal for its pot, which lends the broth a slightly smoky note, and the fish is typically served in thick slices that hold their texture well even after simmering. It is not cheap, and on a busy evening, especially with a large group, you should expect to queue.
Where it differs most from Hup Lok’s own steamboat is the add-on tray: Whampoa Keng’s steamboat stays focused on fish and standard steamboat sides, while Hup Lok’s version lets the table add on Alaska king crab, scallops or prawns to the same pot.
Fishhead Steamboat Etiquette, and How Hup Lok's Own Version Works
If you are new to fishhead steamboat dining, a few habits help. Eat the fish slices early rather than leaving them in the pot, since fish overcooks in seconds in a bubbling broth. Mash the fried yam into the soup if you like it creamier, or eat it on its own if you prefer the texture intact. Most stalls serve the dish alongside a wider zi char menu, so it pairs naturally with a stir-fried vegetable dish or a plate of sambal kang kong for the table.
At Hup Lok, the same order of eating applies: pomfret slices first, so they do not overcook, followed by the seafood add-ons once the pot is properly hot. A group ordering the steamboat for a family gathering can start with the base pot and build it up with, as mentioned before, Alaska king crab, scallops, or prawns to share, which makes the dish scale naturally from a quiet dinner for two to a bigger table.
So, Steamboat or Soup? Now, Both.
A place like Whampoa Keng does the classic charcoal steamboat well, with decades of practice behind it. Hup Lok’s fish head steamboat takes the same six-hour pomfret stock behind Grandpa’s Pomfret Soup and brings it to the table in pot form, with the option to add on premium seafood like Alaska king crab, scallops and prawns.
Come with an appetite, order the pomfret first, and build the pot up from there.
