Spring Court 詠春園 @ Chinatown

Relatives from Canada came for a visit, and the family brought them to the oldest family run restaurant in Singapore – Spring Court Restaurant.

While started by a Cantonese chef, Spring Court does not serve strict Cantonese food. Instead, it serves Singaporean-Chinese cuisine that blends Cantonese foundations with local Hokkien, Teochew, Malay, and Indian flavour influences. The recipes have been past down over four generations of owners, and many of the original classics are still being served today.

Established in 1929 by self-taught Cantonese chef Ho Loke Yee, Spring Court was originally known as Wing Choon Yuen. Born from a passion for traditional Chinese cuisine, the restaurant became a favoured venue for wedding banquets, birthday celebrations, and gatherings of the Chinese community, often hosting four to five joyous events in one evening.

I remember going there for a wedding dinner one time when I was very small with my parents, no air-conditioning, but I was so happy to have a bottle of 7-Up all by myself. And the dishes like Yam Ring with Mixed Vegetables and Prawns, Roasted Chicken Stuffed with Minced Prawns, etc became Singaporean Chinese wedding classics that cross the boundaries of Cantonese, Teochew and Hokkien cuisines.

After the closure of Great World in 1978, Spring Court moved around Singapore before finding its permanent home in a 4-storey heritage shophouse in Chinatown. Today, it is proudly run by the fourth generation of the Ho family, preserving the same commitment to hospitality, heritage, and timeless recipes.

詠春園薄餅 Spring Court Tradition Popiah

This is one of their signature dish, a recipe handed down by Mrs Ho. The Spring Court popiah is three times as expensive as a typical popiah in the hawker centre. But you are paying for a generous popiah with a lot of stewed jicama, slices of boiled prawn and a flavour and texture that you wouldn’t get elsewhere.

法钵飘香 Yam Ring with Mixed Vegetables and Prawns

法钵飘香 Yam Ring with Mixed Vegetables and Prawns can be found in most Cantonese restaurant, but to get one that is not oily and yet crispy like the one here is quite rare. The ingredients were quite gon shan 干身, which is dry in a good way. The yam ring was flavourful and moist, but it is missing the most important ingredient to make it extra special – pork lard. Nevertheless, the overall result was still quite tasty.

金龙白花鸡 Roasted Chicken Stuffed with Minced Prawns

This dish used to appear in every wedding dinner in the 80s and 90s, and suddenly it disappeared all together. 金龙白花鸡 Roasted Chicken Stuffed with Minced Prawns is made with a deboned chicken spread with a layer of minced prawn paste and then deep fired. Because of the work needed to debone and dry the chicken, and then spread the prawn paste, the dish is not served in today’s short-staffed kitchens as it cannot fetch a high price. I am just glad that we can still get this delicious taste from yesteryears here at Spring Court for a reasonable $29 for half a chicken.

黄埔虾球河粉 Stir Fried Horfun with Omelette and Prawns

No one else serves stir-fried horfun like this.  Underneath the 黄埔虾球河粉 Stir Fried Horfun with Omelette and Prawns, you will find the typical horfun that had been wok-fried over a dry wok to get that wokhei. The horfun is then smothered with a silky egg and fermented bean paste sauce. And then an omelette is added on top with sautéed prawns.  If you like an eggy and wet horfun you will not be disappointed. I find it a bit bland, as with all the rest of the dishes, the amount of salt has been adjusted for the modern palate. 

脆皮燒雞 Roasted Chicken

And to celebrate the Nation’s birthday, they were running a promotion of offering the 脆皮燒雞 Roasted Chicken for $0.97, in conjunction with their 97th anniversary. This idea of a super cheap offer of the roasted chicken came from the 2nd generation owner and daughter-in-law of Mr Ho, Mdm Soon Puay Keow. When the restaurant hit hard times during the 1997 Asian financial crisis, Mdm Soon came up with $1 roasted chicken to attract the crowd to the restaurant, and it worked wonderfully as those who came not only ordered the chicken. Now, the offer is offered every now and then to remember those difficult times. And the portion was not a subpar version of the normal offering; it was exactly how it would be served when the dish was not on offer. Catch? You have to spend a minimum of $97 in your food orders to enjoy this offer.

干贝芽白 Chinese Cabbage With Dried Scallops

The amount of cornstarch used to thicken the sauce, you would be forgiven to have mistaken this to be a Hokkien dish. And this 干贝芽白 Chinese Cabbage With Dried Scallops was actually a favourite among the Teochew towkays that used to frequent their restaurant at Great World. The Chinese cabbage was steamed until soft with whole dried scallops. The resulting stock was flavoured with other condiments and thickened with cornstarch and poured over the scallops and cabbage. You can eat this even if you have no teeth. And this is a healthy dish that my cardiologist will approve – there’s almost no cooking oil involved.

The service was friend and impeccable. The lunch was value for money. The food was not exactly what I remembered. The taste has been adjusted to be less salty and less oily. Not sure if the other dishes are like these too.

Spring Court Restaurant 詠春園
52-56 Upper Cross Street, Singapore 058348
Tel : +65 6449 5030

Visited Aug 2026