Beach Road Scissor Cut Hainanese Curry Rice in Singapore

You hear a lot about Hainanese chicken rice in Singapore. But not so often about Hainanese curry rice.

Yet another culinary creation in Singapore, this one a mishmash of flavors and cultures, is Hainanese curry rice – and according to Makan Sutra, it still remains a Singapore mystery how the dish was actually invented.

And when you’re looking for legendary Hainanese style curry rice in Singapore, there’s no better place to go than Beach Road Scissor Cut Curry Rice.

Beach Road Scissor Cut Curry Rice

When I first heard the name of the restaurant, I was a little confused.

Why would curry need to be cut? And why in the world would scissors be used to cut it?

But in fact, the name is literally exactly what happens.

The longstanding restaurant is a shophouse, and remains open air and laid back. The food is all placed into a cabinet at the front of the restaurant with all sorts of random fried and braised Chinese meats and vegetables all prepared and waiting to be ordered.

It’s set up similar to many rice and curry restaurants throughout Southeast Asia, where you get a plate of rice, and point and choose to designate what to go on top.

Once you’ve made your choice, everything is grabbed out of the cabinet, and with the most swift scissor hand I’ve ever seen, the pork cutlets and braised pork belly are sliced into bite sized pieces, so fast, you’ll want to watch a replay.

It was a pretty tough choice for me, but I ended up ordering a piece of the braised dark soy sauce pork belly, a fried cutlet of some-kind, and finally a piece of the juicy braised tofu.

For my wife, she ordered a piece of the fried cutlet, tofu, and finally some blanched bean sprouts on the side.

As soon as everything was scissor chopped up, and messily spread over the top of our plates of rice, a big ladle of Hainanese curry sauce was sloppily poured over all the ingredients, mixing with the various braised sauce of the dishes, and completely submerging the rice in golden sticky sauce.

Let’s Eat!

I don’t think Hainanese curry rice will win any awards for beauty or presentation…

But there’s something quite amusing to me about swirls of sauce, that look similar to a Jackson Pollock painting, where paint is scattered on the canvas – just this time it’s all edible, and served on a plate.

Total price – 2 plates for $ 7.20 SGD ($5.11 USD)

For braised dishes, Ying (my wife) only had a piece of tofu, so she had a lesser amount of the black braised sauce on her plate.

The cutlet, remained crispy yet soft in the middle. But the ingredient I really liked, and something I would order again, were the beansprouts. Somehow their crispness, covered in the sauce, tasted really good.

When I published a video about this place, someone commented saying the cabbage is one of the best things to order – so you might consider a wedge of boiled cabbage if you visit.

My plate of curry rice included quite a lot of the black braised sauce, all mingled with the different curry sauces and the scissor sliced ingredients.

The braised pork was a little sweet and pretty fatty, and the black sauce had a nutty hoisin like flavor to it. The cutlet was again crispy, yet drowned out in the curry sauce to make it even better.

What I really liked from my plate were the slices of tofu, which I think were also braised, and they were the type of really juicy, yet slightly chewy tofu – perhaps it was deep fried before being braised to give it a skin like texture.

The curry sauce itself was quite mild in flavor, not a really strong curry powder taste, but more just very comforting, and similar to a very sticky brown gravy with a hint of a curry taste.

Hainanese curry rice is the type of food that would taste really good at about 2 am. And at Beach Road Scissor Cut Curry Rice they know that very well.

They are open until 3:30 am everyday, and I haven’t visited them late at night yet, but I’m pretty sure they stay busy all the way through the night.

Video of the meal:

To see the most amazing scissor cutter, press play to watch the video below:

(You can also, watch the video on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILchGqTWQ_8)

Conclusion

Beach Road Scissor Cut Curry Rice is a longstanding Singapore restaurant that specializes in Hainanese curry rice, the combination of a choice of different dishes, all sliced up over rice, and submerged in a thick and sticky curry sauce.

Also check out my Singapore Travel Guide!

While it likely won’t win any awards for presentation or food quality, there’s something truly remarkable and comforting about a random selection of fried and braised meats, all over rice, drowned in curry.

When you’re in Singapore, don’t just try Hainanese chicken rice, but also give Hainanese curry rice a try. And in addition to the food, you’ll definitely be impressed with their scissor skills!

Beach Road Scissor Cut Curry Rice

Address: 229 Jalan Besar, Singapore 208905
Open hours: 11 am – 3:30 am daily
Prices: About $3 – $5 SGD, you are charged on how many toppings you choose. Our total price for two plates was $ 7.20 SGD ($5.11 USD).
How get there: The restaurant is located right along Jalan Besar (where there’s a high concentration of delicious food). You can either walk from Lavender or Farrer Park MRT station.

For the map, on the left side, scroll down until you see Beach Road Scissor Cut Curry Rice: