[CLOSED] Huoyanshaiziniu: Taiwan’s flame-grilled beef cubes come to Singapore

Singaporeans take to Taiwanese food trends like moths to a flame.

Last year, we embraced castella cakes, and earlier this year it was (salted egg yolk) Danish polos. Now flame-grilled beef cubes, a popular street snack in Taiwan, has made its sizzling-hot debut in Singapore, and already people are rushing to get their fix of it.

Huoyanshaiziniu (it means “flamed, diced beef cubes” in Mandarin), a takeaway stall located at basement two of Plaza Singapura, is the first concept to offer the street snack here.

Started by two friends, Sean Lee, 23, and Cheo Tian Feng, 21, Huoyanshaiziniu will serve beef steak cubes that are first cooked over a teppan grill, then torched, and then seasoned.

Huoyanshaiziniu offers three different seasonings for its beef cubes: garlic, seaweed, yakitori. The type of beef used is Australian Angus rib-eye, which Cheo says was decided on after extensive kitchen testing for its rich beefy flavour.

The beef cubes are priced at $6.90 for 130g (for all three flavours), and are served in Chinese takeaway-type boxes. The portion is adequate enough to be a meal on its own, at least to small eaters.

Make sure to mix the seasoning and beef cubes well, since they don’t do that for you.

The beef cubes that I had were succulent and flavourful, though not particularly smoky, and I would have preferred them more charred. I think the garlic seasoning is the safest choice if you don’t know what to order, though the seaweed seasoning adds a different layer of flavour to the meat and also melds well with the beefy flavour.

The yakitori sauce ain’t bad too, but tasted a bit too strong, at times even overpowering the beefiness of the cubed meats.

If you really like the savoury-sweet yakitori sauce, a good choice is to top up and go for the rice box ($8), so you can have your beef with rice and use the latter to soak up the sauce.

Even though these beef cubes are all packed in takeaway boxes, I recommend eating them ASAP because they dry up very quickly.