Bringing three kids around, including a three year old toddler, means that it is not always practical for us to eat at places with long queues, big crowds, and restricted eating times. Some of our online research brought us to some really popular places like the Austin Lala Hotpot, but despite arriving for what we thought was early for dinner at 5.30 pm, we still turned back after seeing the horrendously long queue.

We pivoted our strategy to that of exploring the less hyped places that still serve good food. This was also an impromptu and accidental find that was on our way to Toppen Mall.

The name “Belly Good Cafe” caught our eye first and we decided to do a quick lookup on it. Seeing the fairly good reviews, we decided to take our chances with it.

It’s a fairly non-descript cafe with a very simple old school interior. We were a little doubtful when we saw the menu because it was a mishmash of local, western, and Vietnamese food. Good cafes tend to have a singular theme, with a focus on one type of cuisine, but this cafe serves a range of cuisines.

We asked if the owner is Vietnamese because their strength appears to be in Vietnamese food, and found out that the owner is a local Malaysian.

My first order was of course one of their signature dishes – White Curry Ban Mian. It came in a thick, flavourful curry soup with a generous serving of fishcake, taopok, one hard boiled egg, and heaps of bean sprouts. This is of course spicy, but well within the spice tolerance of most local adults.

They had multiple recommended items on their menu and the Braised Egg Pork Belly Ban Mian was one of them. Juicy chunky pieces of pork belly on ban mian – Mr Dino loves ban mian so this was of course for him.

Fish and chips for the girls – the fish fillet pieces were huge, and the fish meat tender and slightly flakey. The fries kept the kids happy of course.

We also ordered Pork Banh Mi which was seasoned pork pieces in a small baguette.

My favourite was the Vietnamese Spring Rolls – I thought this was the most value-for-money dish which was a whole platter of spring rolls for only MYR 14.80 or less than SGD 5. While it is not difficult to find a meal under SGD 5 in Singapore, that typically applies only to the commonly found local dishes. Foreign flavours like Vietnamese and Thai dishes tend to be available only at a premium, so this was a delightful find.

Perfect with the sweet dipping sauce.

A pair of half-boiled eggs is standard local breakfast fare, and also a favourite with many kids who love to slurp it down. You can choose the doneness of your eggs if you don’t prefer the liquidy half-boiled texture – just ask them for 80% or 100% done.

The highlight of our meal was definitely this Vietnamese drip coffee. The coffee is dripped slowly into a layer of condensed milk. We would have preferred it slightly less sweet with less condensed milk but we enjoyed the strong flavour of the coffee nevertheless.

The kids always go crazy for Milo dinosaur or any similar beverages. Whoever invented this is a genius.

Iced honey lemon.

So stuffed but so satisfied with our meal. This is one of the reasons why I love visiting Malaysia – good food around every corner, even random corners and even a little relatively lesser known cafe can serve up amazing food at affordable prices.

Definitely would come back, if just for the Vietnamese Spring Rolls and the drip coffee.