Beef bone marrow claypot rice at Geylang Claypot Rice

SINGAPORE – Like countless other heritage institutions across Singapore, Geylang Claypot Rice, a 44-year-old restaurant, is trying its best to keep pace with an industry in flux. 

When it moved from Geylang Lorong 33 to Beach Road in 2019, it traded flimsy plastic stools and creaky tables for sturdier furniture and air-conditioned comfort.

But flashes of the past remain in the tiled walls that recall the original coffee shop’s blue-beige tones, in the turquoise shelf – then, as now, laden with tableware and sauces – and most of all in the food, which still cleaves to tradition. 

The latest addition to the menu – a beef bone marrow claypot rice ($42++) – takes what the kitchen does best and dials it up to 11. It is all things good, rich and fatty tossed into an earthenware claypot and simmered till tender. 

This decadent medley consists of marbled slices of beef short plate, charcoal-grilled bone marrow, spring onions, egg yolks and dark soya sauce, which burnish each grain of rice with a layer of savoury gloss. Its aroma is enough to make mouths water and arteries clench. 

It is a lot and can get too cloying quickly. So, the best way to cut through the richness is to alternate between a variety of dishes. For instance, the BBQ crab ($18++ for one piece, $35++ for two pieces) – another relatively recent addition. Sweet and fresh, it can be dipped into a tangy chilli sauce or devoured plain. 

Old favourites prove tasty as ever. It is hard to beat the original chicken claypot rice ($22.80++), with its depth of flavour, crisp bottom and succulent parcels of meat – chicken leg, pork belly, two types of lap cheong and salted fish that laces the rice with umami funk.

The prawns with homemade tofu ($14.80++) and kai lan with lard and oyster sauce ($12.80++) are solid options too, delicious in that smoky, nostalgic way so reminiscent of old-school coffee shops. 

Where: 361, 363 and 365 Beach Road
MRT: Nicoll Highway 
Open: Noon to 2.30pm (Saturdays to Wednesdays); 11.30am to 2.30pm (Thursdays and Fridays); 5 to 10pm daily 
Info: @geylangclaypotrice on Instagram