Food Pick: Fresh soya milk at Gogo Beanz Soya Bean

SINGAPORE – Tired of insipid watered-down factory-supplied soya bean drinks? Gogo Beanz Soya Bean at Chinatown Complex sells fresh and flavourful soya bean milk that is made at the stall. 

Priced at $1.30 a cup, the Original Soymilk is a steal. Ask for less sugar syrup to taste its full-on beany flavour. 

The stall’s co-owner, Madam Neow Ngok Leng, has been making soya milk at the stall since 2008 and spares no effort in its preparation. 

The 66-year-old uses organic soya beans – which cost almost thrice as much as non-organic beans – from Canada to prepare the soya bean milk and soya beancurd.

The resulting soya milk is concentrated and has more intense nuttiness.

No preservatives are added to the soya milk and Madam Neow recommends drinking it as soon as possible. The ultra-fresh soya bean milk is ill-suited for keeping overnight and will coagulate if left to stand for a period of time, she adds. Thus, she prepares it in small batches throughout the day.

She does the same for the soya beancurd, which is sleeker than silken tofu. 

My top pick is the Ginkgo Beancurd ($2.50). The ginkgo nuts, tender and mildly sweet, are painstakingly prepared by Madam Neow, who shells the raw nuts, skins them and removes the bitter inner stem from each kernel.

For a morning pick-me-up drink, try the Ice Blend Mocha Soymilk ($2.60). It has a rich taste of coffee, with a perfect balance between the mocha flavour and soya milk.

On sweltering days, give the Mint Soymilk ($1.60) a go. The combination sounds strange, but thankfully, it does not taste like mint toothpaste as I had feared. The mint flavour is rather mild and does not overpower the drink, despite its verdant hue. Not too sweet is the default level of sweetness for the Mint Soymilk and the drink is meant to be savoured chilled.

Where: Gogo Beanz Soya Bean, 02-138 Chinatown Complex, 335 Smith Street
MRT: Chinatown
Open: 9am to 2.30pm, Tuesdays to Sundays; closed on Mondays. The stall is, however, closed on Oct 16.