We all know that for mee pok tah(dry fettuccine), the differentiation of ingredients can be broad to levels beyond belief. You can get a mixture of things like pork, prawns, fishballs, fishcakes, bak chor, braised mushrooms, different types of balls, different types of dumplings and so on. It is very common to get 2 fishballs and a few slices of fish cakes for a $3 mee pok tah, so much so that, anything more than that can be considered a BONUS.

Mee Pok Tah $3

Now I am going to tell you about this terrific mee pok tah stall which will give you a LOT of ingredients(seriously a lot!!) for just $3 and not only that, all their ingredients are handmade at the stall and not only that, it is a damn shiokadodoly good bowl of mee pok tah with every ingredients that come in the bowl taste damn shiok!!

Ingredients rack

Hui Ji Fish Ball Noodle cum Yong Tau Fu stall at Tiong Bahru market looks like one of those typical noodle stalls except that when it’s your turn to order, the seller will ask you ‘Yong Tau Fu’ or ‘ Fish Ball’ ?

I’m not sure about the yong tau fu but the fishball bowl is damn power alright! You get 4-5 fishballs, 2 big pieces handmade meatballs(extra shiok!), 2-3 pieces of fish dumplings aka her giao(made in the stall also!), 4-5 pieces of pork slices and plenty of delicious hand made fried fishcakes(super shiok)! It all looked more like a $6 bowl and truth is I would even be happy to pay $6 for it!

Mee Pok Tah $3

The best part of this mee pok tah experience for me is the ingredients which are seriously authentic. The chilli is also shiok and the soup is also shiok! For $3 I don’t know how a bowl of mee pok tah can get any shioker. The only gratitude I can show to Hui Ji Fish Ball Noodle stall is to say shiok shiok shiok many times on my blog. Do yourself this favour, show up at Hui Ji Fish Ball Noodle at Tiong Bahru market and pay them $3. It might just be the best $3 you’d ever spent for any meals. Indeed it was for me.

Mee Pok Tah $3

Price: $3

Recommendation: Fish ball mee pok tah

Conclusion: Super authentic mee pok tah stall. Everything is made at the stall in the morning so you are guaranteed to get the freshest ingredients in your bowl. The amount of ingredients are unbelievable for only $3.

Likes: Authentic. Very shiok. Generous portion.

Dislikes: Nothing.

Address		Overall Rating
Hui Ji Fish Ball Noodles #02-44 30 Seng Poh Road Tiong Bahru Market & Food Centre Time: 6am to 2pm Off : Wednesday		Food: 9.5/10   Authenticity: 9/10   Value: 10/10   Service: 8/10   Ambience: 7/10   Cleanliness: 7/10   Overall: 8.5/10

So what can come to the rescue?

Lam’s Abalone Soup is popular with several ministers and even our PM is a fan!

Ah Lam Abalone Noodles looks like one of those contemporary food joints where the setting is a little more appealing and the ingredients used are a little finer. They specialise in upgrading comfort food to very shiok food with ingredients like abalone and sharksfin.

Special Braised Abalone

A bowl of Lam’s Abalone Special Noodle will set you back $6 while other items like Sharkfin(sic) Handmade Noodle will cost you $15 and they have other shiok food like Buddah(sic) Jumps Over The Wall($38), Fresh Abalone Soup($8) and even fresh abalone sliced on a plate for $38. Of course they also have other common food like braised pig’s trotter($6) or braised beancurd($6) if you’re not looking to break your piggy bank.

Lam’s Abalone Special Noodle $6

I must say that their $6 abalone bak chor mee is quite respectable. The sauce is very delicious and the extreme wetness makes me slurp the noodles enthusiastically. Chilli was good and the strong hint of sourness expounded the liveliness. Other than 2 pieces of abalone(1 inch cube), you get some other miscellaneous ingredients like fish dumpling, pork ball, pork liver, dried sole fish and minced pork. It is delicious enough to make me want to part $3 for it without the abalone so I’m literally paying another $1.50 for each piece of 1 inch abalone. You are technically having a ‘cheap chew’ of abalone instead of having to spend $50 for a can otherwise.

The one thing Ah Lam Abalone Noodles does well is giving you the portion of the noodles just enough to have you minimally filled so that your tummy will ask for more after your bowl is emptied. I have already visited them 3 times in the past few days and I can tell you that the thing that trapped me is not the abalone nor the sauce but how it always makes me yearning for more when nothing is left in the bowl.

For $6, this bowl of bak chor mee contains very simple ingredients and 2 pieces of abalone cube(3 at some branches). If you are not an abalone person, it might be better for you to spend your $6 elsewhere because for all the shiokness of the sauce otherwise, $6 is way too steep. For me, I really love the sauce and wouldn’t mind a cheap bite of abalone for $3 more.

Specially Braised Abalone in a $6 Mee Pok Tah

Price: $6

Recommendation: Special Abalone Noodle

Conclusion: Bak Chor Mee is a simple food but the ingredients here are enriched with the addition of abalone. The abalone pieces are braised in some kind of delicious gravy which is very shiok for me. Not the best abalone in the world but for $3 more, there should not be any complaints. They have several branches around the island in places like Boon Lay and Kaki Bukit. At Kaku Bukit it goes for $6.50 but with 3 pieces of abalone instead. Somehow it can keep me coming back for more. 3 visits in just a few days even surprised me but the fact is I keep wanting more after my bowl is emptied. The soup is also quite nice with a subtle herby flavour.

Likes: Sauce on the noodle is good. Very wet.

Dislikes: Bak chor precooked.

Address		Overall Rating
Lam’s Abalone Soup 460 Race Course Road 10pm to 8pm Off: Monday		Food: 8/10   Authenticity: 8/10   Value: 7/10   Service: 8/10   Ambience: 7/10   Cleanliness: 8/10   Overall: 8/10

Inevitably, we became more appreciative towards coffeeshops that look like they were caught in a time warp because naturally, it is at these old school eateries where we can still find foods that are really authentic.

Hin Hollywood Canteen From Haig Road

For those who have been to Haig Road, I’m sure you would have seen this Hin Hollywood Canteen which is a lao kok kok(old fashion) kopitiam. It’s address is actually 57 Tanjong Katong Road(because the parking area that you can see from Haig Road are to be entered via Tanjong Katong Road).

From Haig Road, one can see that there is a chicken rice stall, a duck rice stall and other noodles stalls with the lao kok kok look which you can only find by the roadsides in Malaysia. So feeding my curiosity I entered to see whether are there any authentic food to be found.

The first stall that grabbed my interest was Yong Li Fishball Noodles which is a noodles stall that sells fishball noodles, bak chor mee and mian fen guo. I was surprised to hear that their fishballs had sold out because it was only 1pm. So I went for a bak chor mee pok tah instead.

Yong Li Fishball Noodles’ Mee Pok Tah $3

The thing that really impressed me here is the bak chor. A little ironic to see a fishball noodles stall producing very delicious bak chor which tasted like it were marinated heavily. Ok if you can think of the bak chor in the mapo tofu(without the spiciness), then your imagination is quite close.

Other than the bak chor, the chilli and the sauce on the noodles are also quite spectacular. I guess this is what you can really call authentic, where a bit of every flavours you can find from every condiments are infused into the noodles and it is so shiok that I just slurped it non-stop till everything is gone. This has the potential to be an outstanding bowl except that the noodles are not as QQ as I would like. And further to that, I am not a mushroom person so the generous amount of braised mushrooms became another good reason for me to drop some points.

I guess the authenticity is there in the sauce and the bak chor but other ingredients like sliced fishcakes and pork balls tasted like something you can eat anywhere else. Wouldn’t mind to eat this again. May do better for you if you like braised mushrooms, otherwise I will give this an overall score of satisfactory and I’m sure a bit more creativity can turn it into something really impressive.

Yong Li Fishball Noodles’ Mee Pok Tah $3

Price: $3

Recommendation: Fishball noodle(fishballs get sold out by 1pm, that tells you something right?)

Conclusion: Not your stylish mee pok tah but the sauce has enough oomph and the bak chor is very shiok. Braised mushroom harmed it for me and the noodles are not QQ enough. Will come back to try the fishballs.

Likes: Authentic chilli sauce and bak chor(minced pork).

Dislikes: Braised mushrooms added. Noodles not QQ enough. Ingredients like sliced fishcakes and porkballs are factory made.

Address		Overall Rating
Yong Li Fishballs Noodles Hin Hollywood Canteen 57 Tanjong Katong Road 6am to 3pm Off: Monday		Food: 7.5/10   Authenticity: 8/10   Value: 7.5/10   Service: 7/10   Ambience: 7/10   Cleanliness: 7/10   Overall: 7.75/10

There have been many discussions about this and some said that our foods are very shiok, but so are Indonesian food, Thai food and many other foods in western countries like Italy or Spain and the sixty-four thousand dollar question is, why don’t we see others behaving like Singaporeans?

Then others said that Singapore is a small place, so travelling from one point to another is easy and we are accessible to good food easily THEREFORE-WE-LOVE-EATING. But if you look at major cities like London, Hong Kong or Sydney, those places are also about the size of Singapore and they have a wide selection of international foods too but yet we don’t see them loving their food like how we do.

Singaporeans’ love for food may not be easily understood but our desire for GOOD food definitely can. If you’ve been to places in Indonesia like Jakarta, you can see a whole lot of ‘Warungs’ which are those food sellers doing businesses from those little small shops(or huts) that is actually part of their house. In this kind of casual eating places, the rental costs are practically nothing so it is very affordable to setup ‘a shop‘ therefore it is also easy to get continued because anyone in the family can just take over the business. In short, those businesses can easily be passed from family to family or even generation to generation. You see, the authenticities of the food never(or seldom) die.

Here in Singapore, it’s obvious that our foods have suffered from decades of identity crisis ever since we strived to become a developed nation. So the notion “Singaporean love eating” can mean whatever but the epitome for that claim can literally be translated into “Authentic foods that can thrill us are scarce in this country so if there is one lurking somewhere, we die die MUST travel all the way to eat!“. Agree?

Foreigners somehow got that misinterpreted and bought the story that our food is really shiok and one of the things to do when they are here is to live up to the spirit of “EAT EAT EAT” till you drop and that novelty has been widely publicized in a lot of tourist’s guide books. Sadly, truth is any char kway teow stall in Malaysia can shiok a Singaporean to no end but that obviously won’t be the same case for a Malaysian in Singapore.

What it all means is that the function(of the reality) has changed the equation to ‘higher cost of operating but lesser authenticity in our food‘ and it’s just too bad that we are technically receiving the shorter end of the stick as far ‘good food per square foot of the country is concerned‘.

Ah Guan Mee Pok Pte Ltd

Whatever it may be, we have to admit that the ‘creativity of producing unique food‘ also suffers since setting up of a food business can be as much a suffocating experience as it is a gruesome endurance test with the very high starting cost since no warung’s style setup is possible here. With setting up costs so high, it’s no wonder that food businesses are getting competitive to the point where food sellers have to be innovative, and come up with new ideas to stay ahead in the game. In Ah Guan Mee Pok Pte Ltd, I consider them one of the most innovative Mee Pok stalls in Singapore.

Ah Guan Mee Pok Pte Ltd Wall Menu

The highlight of the Mee Pok here is the additional ingredients like sliced fish, scallops and even crayfish in your bowl! That may sound like an expensive Mee Pok Tah experience but the prices are still hovering between $3 to $7 so forget about your vintage style of mee pok tah, this modern version wants to impress you with new tricks, so lets put it to the test and see whether are there any ecstatic shiokness to be found.

Things like fishcakes, prawns or bak chors are still quite utterly fundamental ingredients in a bowl of mee pok tah so it is good that here, you get loads of it no matter how much you’re paying for your bowl of mee pok. For your $3/4 bowl, you get an additional ingredient in the form of one scallop(you’ll get 2 for the $4 bowl) with shell. A $5 bowl gets you 2 scallops, some sliced fish, some pork liver and more prawns. For $7 bowl, you get everything you can find in a $5 bowl plus a crayfish. So if you find pleasure in eating seafood, there’s no doubt that Ah Guan Mee Pok Pte Ltd can be a good place for your mee pok tah fix.

Ah Guan Mee Pok Pte Ltd Mee Pok Tah $3

To some extent, I were having reservations about all these extra ingredients making a bowl of mee pok tah exceptionally shiok so I went for the cheapest bowl to see what is the maximum effect from a minimum damage.

The first thing that shioked me was the tik poh flavour. The chilli sauce here has that tik poh flavour! FWAH! The first mouthful just made me think that I’ve stepped into a mee pok tah gem! The second thing that shioked me was the noodles which was translucent, very thin, QQ, and absolutely good to chew and swallow. These are good mee pok tah indicators and I would even gladly pay $3 for it without the scallops and all. The generous amount of bak chor(minced pork) and fishcakes complete the shiokness in full cycle and as I’m typing this, I’m even drooling over it. Slurp!

Ah Guan Mee Pok Pte Ltd Bak Giao Soup $3

Happily, I proceeded to order a bowl of bak giao(pork dumpling) which came in a tall bowl that your herbal soup gets served in. Not sure what you’re thinking but it tells me that Ah Guan Mee Pok Pte Ltd is serious about bringing customers the maximum shiokness. For the uninitiated, this tall bowl can keep the soup warm for longer so it is of course better than the normal plastic bowl that’s served in any mee pok tah stall otherwise. Without scooping the bak gao from the bowl, one can already see the muscle and flex of it. These are humongous bak giaos with maximum fillings possible and the spoon was even a little intimidated by the size.

Ah Guan Mee Pok Pte Ltd Bak Giao

The bak giao is very pork-ish with only a subtle tik poh flavour unfortunately. It however has a good bite and would be very good for you if you like a good chew. I thought the skin of the gak giao was a little too thick but otherwise it’s really not that bad and for 6 of it with plenty of pak choi(chinese cabbage) in the soup, it is definitely something that’s worth the price of $3. And the best thing in this is the generous amount of bak chor(minced pork) which are also quite delicious.

This new variation of mee pok tak ingredients are definitely welcomed and the tastes and flavours of everything just also happen to be very muscular. To sum it up simply: The chilli sauce is the best I can possibly dream of. The texture of the noodles just makes the bite, chew and swallow much more palatable. The bak giaos can be improved but the admirable strength in the soup(bak chor and pak choi included), not forgetting the serving with a tall bowl, demands a bit of respect. With the shiokadodoness I received in this mee pok tah, I dream of the day they can have a stall at my doorstep and I hope that can be very soon.

The name of this mee pok tah stall may sound like a joke, but the food is certainly no tragedy and it in fact left a very lasting impression.

Price: $3 for mee pok tah and $3 for bak giao soup.

Recommendation: Mee Pok tah, bak giao. If you like crayfish, go for the $7 bowl! They have authentic items like scallop porridge, beancurd in some sweet sauce and stir fried vegetables which are all priced very reasonably from $3.

Conclusion: The mee pok tah here charmed me. The tik poh flavour in the chilli sauce is very strong and lingers in my mouth long after the meal. The noodles just happen to have very shiok texture for me. Skin of the bak giaos is a little thick but otherwise filled with very delicious minced pork. Tik poh flavour in the bak chor can be improved though. This is a subbranch, the original stall is at 69 Syed Alwi Road(8am to 8pm).

Likes: Chilli sauce, noodles. Good value.

Dislikes: Bak giao skin a little thick.

Address		Overall Rating
Ah Guan Mee Pok Pte Ltd 13A Aliwal Street 6am to 6pm Tel: 6296 0069		Food: 8/10   Authenticity: 8.5/10   Value: 8.5/10   Service: 8/10   Ambience: 7/10   Cleanliness: 7/10   Overall: 7.75/10

Truth be told, it’s not how good a product is but how you market it. Take for instance this thing called Shabu Shabu in Japan. The word Shabu is of course a translation of the word “Sapo” which means claypot in mandarin. Ok the Japanese somehow managed to get it to represent the hot pot in their culture but what is the difference between Chinese’s hot pot(steamboat) and Japanese’s hot pot? I see similar ingredients used like sliced meat and vegetables but trust the Japanese to know how to make you pay exorbitant price for their version and some will even swear that it is really more delicious. Other than the meat in a Shabu Shabu are sliced thinner which can also be done easily in a Chinese’s hot pot, there isn’t much going for it, isn’t it? Give me a chinese hot pot anytime, I still prefer my belacan dip to the Japanese sweet soya sauce dip which I can also produce for my Chinese’s hot pot easily. There are other things like Chawanmushi which can cost you anything between $3 to $5 in a Japanese eatery but yet can also be eaten from a chap chai peng stall for just 50 cent a portion. Satay is what we can buy from coffeeshop for just 40 cents each but try buying it in the shopping mall and it will be called Yakitori which will cost you anywhere between $1 to $2 each. So it is really all that social conditioning that is responsible for alternating our perceptions for the same thing.

Ah Ho Teochew Noodles Mee Pok Tah $3.50

I don’t know about you but I would prefer a bowl of mee pok tah over pasta anytime. And I’m just wondering what does it take for a mee pok tah with tik poh and tasty her giao to make it into the menu of an oriental eatery in Italy where it will not only cost them $20 each plate but can please them so much to the point where some companies will take the effort to produce bottled mee pok tah sauce for home use. Well I guess that day may never come unless we discard all our “D students” marketer!

Ah Ho Teochew Noodles at Verdun Road has been around for a long long time. For those who remember, they used to operate in the 90s at the back lane(somewhere between Short Street and Prinsep street ) of Sim Lim Square where now the Lasalle College of the Arts stands. In those days, it was one of my favourite mee pok tah stalls simply because the chili sauce is very very shiok. The chilli here is slightly darker which has a hint of the char tah(charred) flavour and it really could hit the spot hard for me though it’s not for everyone. Many people whom I have brought to Ah Ho to eat in the past can’t resonate with it.

They then moved to a shop at Kitchener road sometime back and then moved again to Verdun Road which is just a turn from it’s previous location. In the past, Ah Ho Teochew Noodles was famous for it’s chilli sauce and fishballs which used to have a very unique texture. Today, sadly only the chilli sauce manage to bring back the flavour of yesteryears but only sporadically. The fishballs, her giaos(fish dumplings) and other ingredients tasted very normal and though they bother to throw in a couple of tik poh now for the dry version, it is still a bit off the mark from what it used to be. It didn’t quite justify the travelling time and the distance for me though I guess, on a good day you might just get a bowl that is 1 or 2 notches above the average ones.

Ah Ho Teochew Noodles Her Giao 4 for $1

Price: $2.50 ($1 for fish dumplings)

Recommendation: Dry version.

Conclusion: Ingredients are very normal but very generous. It’s the chilli sauce that makes this a bowl of mee pok tah slightly above the average bowl. If you relish chilli sauce that has a bit of the chao tah flavour then this will do well for you.

Likes: Chilli sauce.

Dislikes: Ingredients tasted “factory” made.

Address		Overall Rating
Ah Ho Teochew Noodles 12 Verdun Road Kim San Lee Coffee Shop 8am to 3pm Off: Wednesday		Food: 7/10   Authenticity: 8/10   Value: 8/10   Service: 7/10   Ambience: 7/10   Cleanliness: 7/10   Overall: 7.75/10

Unfortunately there are no straight forward answers here. It seems that nowdays, as long you can order a Mee Pok in a Tah version from any kind of noodles stall, then it qualifies to be called Mee Pok Tah EXCEPT that if it’s a Hae Mee(prawn noodle soup) then people will call it Hae Mee Tah instead.

So theoritically speaking, it’s only the Bak Chor Mee and Fishball Noodles that people would call a dry mee pok a Mee Pok Tah. Bak Chor Mee as you all know is Bak Chor in the Mee and Fishball Noodles is Fishball in the noodles. But nowadays you also can get Bak Chor in your Fishball Noodles or fishballs/prawns in a Bak Chor Mee. Therefore, the two noodles seem to have become coalesced nowdays, especially when you also get vinegar in both of them in the dry version. So a lot of people must be saying, “Aiya, I don’t know what you selling but I want a Mee Pok and Tah”. So Mee Pok Tah, Mee Pok Tah Mee Pok Tah, repeat that a million times and the whole of Singapore recognise any dry mee pok as Mee Pok Tah…..

Fishball Noodle Soup $3.50: 7.75/10  

There are not many nice fishball noodles around nowadays. With mass produced food hitting the ground, it make all senses to outsource ingredients for many hawkers. Fishballs, chilli sauce, minced pork, you name it. Even items in some chap chai peng stalls nowadays are outsouced and the seller would just turn up to receive the cooked items and sell them.

So any fishball noodles stalls that still take pride in producing their own fishballs must be authentic right? And more so if it’s a one man show(or in this case, a woman). Teowchew Kway Tiao Mee at Whampoa Food Centre is one of my favourite places to have a bowl of noodles(soup or dry also shiok!) simply because the fishballs are handmade by a Teow Chew ah ma who run the stall alone(except weekends some friends will drop by to help) from 630 am in the morning. I’m just guessing that she needs to wake up at 3am every morning to make the fishballs though she could had easily get it from the market. However she still insists on giving customers the best satisfaction.

The fishball here is smaller than a gor lee(marble) and is seriously fresh. You just can tell that it’s handmade with that strong fish meat texture. The other thing I always come here for is the soup which exude a strong flavour that probably can be beaten only by Jalan Tua Kong Mee Pok soup.

That much said, all these things may mean nothing if the chilli sauce for the dry version is bad. But the chilli sauce here is made using a lot of hae bee(dried shimps) which I always ask for more and which just happen to be the most shiok chilli sauce for any Mee Pok Tah I have ever eaten.

It is very common for customers to order a bowl of Tah version and a liao(ingredients) soup to go along and I have always done that whenever I have another mouth with me.

A good fishball noodle is one that has good fishballs, soup and chilli and with Teowchew Kway Tiao Mee, it’s definitely ticks for all. The authenticity is there, shiokadodones is persistent with a lot of fresh flavours in the bowl. Will take a lot for this to be beaten. On a good day, maybe the one at Jalan Tua Kong can.

Fishball Noodle Soup $3.50: 7.75/10  

Price: $3.50($3 min)

Recommendation: $3.50 for extra liao(ingredients) or a $3 ingredients soup for your dry noodles.

Conclusion: My favourite fishball noodle place other than Jalan Tua Kong one. Authenticity is there with all the handmade ingredients. $3 may seem a little high for a small bowl but the quality is without doubt very outstanding.

Likes: Fishball has shiok texture. Soup has that nice fish sweetness which is seriously shiok! Chilli has full of hae bee which can be a good dip for anything!

Dislikes: Noodles sometimes too much which means there ain’t enough room for more soup!

Address		Overall Rating
Teowchew Kway Tiao Mee Blk 91 #01-07 Whampoa Drive Whampoa Drive Food Centre 630am to 10am Off: Monday		Food: 8/10   Value: 8/10   Authenticity: 9/10   Service: 8/10   Ambience: 7/10   Cleanliness: 7/10   Overall: 7.75/10

For food like Hk style French Toast, it makes absolute sense to pay $3.50 for it when you would need a lot of oil for the whole toast to be fried at home and then you have to crack your brain thinking how not to waste the oil afterwards.

Joo Chiat Chiap Kee’s Mee Pok Tah has been around for a long time in Bedok Blk 216 market. It is one of those stalls in the market that has super long queues during meal times and of course, like all stalls having long queues, there is a good reason. Chiap Kee do not believe in outsourcing their fishballs and so makes their own. A family run business since 1965(according to the signboard), not only their fishballs are fantastic, their chili is seriously good too. There is a lot of sambal taste in it and it can create this super delicious ‘chopstick’ licking good effect when mixed with all other ingredients(pork lards, onions etc) in your bowl of Mee Pok Tah.

Clearly this is one of those stalls that still prefers to stand out from the crowd by delivering authentic food. The fishballs here are small in size though big in flavour. It is full of that fresh fish taste and does not possess that ‘factory’ spongy texture. I am not a big fan of fishballs so I got them to change to meatballs and her giaos(fish dumpling) instead and it came in something like 5 meatballs and 5 her giao in the soup. I don’t know about you but for $2.50 I’ll grab that anytime!

Kuay Teow Tah Geh Hiam $4

Pure meatballs and her giao

Price: $2.50 onwards

Recommendation: Kuay Teow Tah

Conclusion: The special thing here is their non ‘factory’ made fishballs. Meat balls and Her Giaos to go too for $2.50 is an extremely good deal there. But the chili is power too so personally for me, it takes a lot to beat this stall interms of value. Go for pure meatballs or her giao version and I’m sure you’ll be left wondering why are they not charging you $4 for it!

Likes: Fishball is good. Not stingy with ‘liao’(ingredients) and of course the power chili!

Dislikes: Would be good if the soup can be that bit more ‘pang’. Maybe a bit of minced pork in it can do the trick!

Address		Overall Rating
Joo Chiat Chiap Kee Bedok North Blk 216 Hawker Centre #01-31 Closed on Wednesdays		Food: 8/10   Value: 9/10   Service: 7/10   Ambience: 7/10   Cleanliness: 7/10   Overall: 7.75/10

But the good thing is some mee pok sellers have far more imagination and fantasies with additional ingredients such as prawns, minced pork or meatballs. Wait, do I hear readers thumping away on their drums in protest? Well you are right that it’s uncommon but at least I know that this mee pok stall at Jalan Simpang Bedok does.

Now for those mee pok tah diehards, I’m sure you would have heard of the famous Jalan Tua Kong mee pok. Problem is there are so many branches so how do we know which one is original? Well of course we don’t need an albert einstein to check out Jalan Tua Kong at Eunos area which obviously is the origin of this brand of mee pok right?

I’ve tried 3 Jalan Tua Kong mee pok stalls(Jalan Tua Kong and 2 in Simpang Bedok) and the truth is they all have very different and distinct taste of their own.

For example, the one in Jalan Tua Kong is really good for it’s soup version. The soup has this fantastic taste of minced, garlic oil and pork lard, so well concocted that I think it’s really in it’s own class and no others I’ve tried had came close.

The other 2 in Simpang Bedok is only popular for it’s dried version as you can see it when you’re there that most customers go for the dried version simply because they’ve got a kickass chili sauce.

Now there are a few more stalls of the Jalan Tua Kong brand mee pok I heard and that all of them are infact relatives. Well the one I always frequent is the one at Simpang Bedok near to the carpark entry.

If you want to know how good is their business, at lunch time they have 4-5 helpers who collect bowls and take your order. They even have 1 just sitting there cutting the chili and nothing more! Well the longest waiting time for me there is almost an hour and the shortest is 5 mins(that’s a fluke).

Another good reason why this stall is special is because most of their ingredients used are really fresh and hence delicious. For example, the prawns they used are not really those kind that had been boiled in the soup until flavourless(if you know what i mean).

The minced pork isn’t exactly only pork minces but are actually quite well marinated. So there you go, that’s 2 items that you can hardly find in the normal mee pok stall. But I have a complain though, it is quite a small portion for $3 and often I have to get the $4 and if you were to sit near to the stall you would realise that $5 orders is a common sight.

Well I’ve only ever been there in peak hours like lunch on weekdays or breakfast on weekends so I’m not exactly sure the queue is due to the peak or people really loves eating their mee pok but from my mee pok experiences, it clearly can rub shoulders with the very best.

Price: $3 onwards

Recommendation: $4 version

Conclusion: Mee Pok Tah with very fresh ingredients and power chili sauce. The fact they’re willing to use fresh ingredients means they are one of my top 3 interms of authenticity.

Likes: Fresh ingredients.

Dislikes: Portion is very small even for $4 version.

Address		Overall Rating
Jalan Tua Kong Lau Lim Fish Ball Noodles 308 Bedok Road Bedok Shopping Centre Tel: 9678 1621		Food: 8/10   Value: 7/10   Service: 6/10   Ambience: 6/10   Cleanliness: 6/10   Overall: 7.5/10