Cô Chung @ Boat Quay

Walked past this restaurant when sending my Princess to her office, was attracted inside by the wonderful scent of the broth.

Cô Chung (which means Aunty Chung) offers delectable Vietnamese cuisine. After working as a Head of nurses for 25 years, Aunty Chung has retired and is now pursuing her dream of creating good food. With passion, tenderness and knowledge of hygiene from her nursing background, Aunty Chung offers quality Vietnamese food which brings happiness and love to all diners.

There is a wistfulness as Co Chung’s owners speak of the food they know and love so well. Built upon decades-old family recipes, Co Chung is run by Aunty Chung (as she is affectionately known by loved ones) along with her daughter, son, and daughter-in-law. Her son first relocated from Vietnam to Singapore for work in 2017. The family has been back and forth since, and they’ve always missed their childhood favourites while here.

Due to its popularity, this family-run Vietnamese eatery has expanded its outlet in Boat Quay, taking over the first floor of the shophouse unit next door at 4 Lorong Telok. The expanded new space can seat 50 indoors and 30 outdoors, is modelled after owner Ly Pham’s old home in Ho Chi Minh City in the 1970s. The door frame is a replica shipped from Vietnam.

I was quite surprised by the variety of choices of many Vietnamese dishes that I used to get during my business trips to Hanoi. But since I was dining along, I just ordered their pho.

Vietnamese coffee is known for its rich, bold flavour, primarily using strong Robusta beans, often brewed with a metal drip filter called a “phin,” and typically mixed with sweet condensed milk for a creamy, sweet contrast, served hot or, most famously, iced cà phê sữa đá over ice. The unique slow-drip process and use of condensed milk create a strong, distinctively sweet and nutty brew, a staple of Vietnamese coffee culture. But I don’t like condensed milk with the coffee, so I skipped that but still get a really strong brew of coffee.

Phở Beef Noodle Soup | Phở Bò Tái Viên

Phở is a popular food in Vietnam where it is served in households, street-stalls, and restaurants nationwide. The traditional way of serving is to pour boiling hot broth at table side over a bowl of raw, thinly sliced beef and rice noodles to cook the meat instantly. This ensures the beef is tender and the ingredients are heated perfectly. 

Cô Chung is the first restaurant in Singapore to serve the phở using the “pour-your-Phở” concept. Family recipe and secret ingredients combine with slow-cooked beef bone for at least 10 hours creates the unique beef broth, uncompromising flavours with healthier choices developed from traditional phở recipe that is free of added sugar free and MSG.

They are the only restaurant so far that I find this method of serving phở in Singapore. You get thinly sliced beef meat perfectly cooked at the table, enhancing the traditional Vietnamese noodle soup experience. OF course if you are not confident of handling boiling soup yourself, you can ask them to add the soup at the kitchen. But this experience is quite unique and actually fun to do.

Just be warned that the beef would definitely be undercooked as the temperature of the broth would not be sufficient to cook the beef thoroughly. But beef at this doneness is just perfect in terms of tenderness.

And then there’s the matter of the rice noodles. Cooked rice noodles are placed in a bowl, topped with raw, paper-thin slices of beef when served. While the soup and the rest of the process were perfect, the rice noodles were not as great as they were clamped together.

The pho is then served immediately with a side platter of fresh herbs and other accompaniments, such as bean sprouts, Thai basil, cilantro, sliced chilies, and lime wedges, allowing each person to customise their bowl. 

Besides the raw sliced beef, there were also boiled beef balls and cooked beef brisket, as well as other choices of toppings for the noodles including Impossible meat if you want.

I was impressed by the pho experience, but now I am intrigued by the rest of the menu since the pho was outstanding.

Cô Chung Restaurant
4 – 5 Lor Telok, Singapore 049018
Tel : +65 8876 8137 (Reservations)

Visited Aug 2025