Now I’m feeling very good lately as far my hae mee fix is concerned because I’ve finally found one hae mee that is worth a rave, finally!!!!

Let’s face it – Prawn Mee is all about the prawn soup. It’s not your fault that some stalls are using King Prawns to tempt you to part $10 for a bowl of Prawn Mee but seriously, if you and your partner want to have a good prawn mee time, $20 sound quite a ridiculous amount no matter how good the prawns or prawns’ soup are. For $20 I can safely say that you can prepare a good prawn mee time for your entire family at home.

So it’s this reason that I find it hard to sing praises for a $10 bowl prawn mee, I mean, heck, $10 prawn mee is not like the $10 Hor Fun or $10 Cze Char where a few person can share the portion.

Ok there are many many stories about Dai Dong Prawn Noodles and they apparently played hide and seek with their customers around the Jalan Besar area for a while until they lost a big chunk of their regulars. Well they finally settled in this little corner coffeeshop at the intersection of Rangoon Road and Starlight Road.

Dai Dong $4 Prawn Mee

You need to have $4 in your pocket before the owner will agree to serve you a prawn mee here. Now, eventhough Dai Dong is a prawn mee stall, they also specialise in other mee combinations with ingredients like pork ribs/tails/intestines/liver.

Dai Dong $4 Prawn Mee

Sometimes, buying any food other than what the stall is famous for can be risky because you are obviously paying for something that are not the most popular but I’m going to tell you that at Dai Dong, the spare rib mee is definitely a risk worth taking.

It was by a stroke of luck that the pork rib ended up in my bowl of prawn mee. I didn’t tell the owner that I only wanted a pure prawn noodle and the owner just assumed that I wanted a pork rib/prawn combination because apparently that’s how orders are done at Dai Dong – the default bowl is with pork ribs.

Dai Dong $4 Prawn/Pork Rib Mee dry

As you can guess, I wasn’t happy when I saw pork ribs in my bowl of prawn mee soup when served. Hell I’m coming here to eat prawn mee so why am I now needed to eat pork rib?

Ok ok, as with any other risks, you can win or lose and I’m glad to say that this pork rib delivers a FULL HOUSE! FWAHHHHHHHHHHH! I’m never a fan of pork ribs in soup. I mean no doubt it can easily fall off the bones and are quite soft to chew but otherwise, what’s so shiok about a piece of ‘overboiled’ pork?

Dai Dong $8 Prawn Mee

Not at Dai Dong mate! Their pork ribs are cooked(braised perhaps?) in some kind of delicious marinate and by the time it ended in your bowl of prawn soup, it is such a fine piece of delicious rib. Well it is so good that I’ve visited them many many times in the past few weeks and every single time I need to get a $2 portion of pork ribs to go with my prawn mee, and mind you it’s just 3 little pieces but shiok enough to make me willingly part $2 for it.

While it may have been true that their pork ribs excelled for me, their prawn soup is what that can really make me have an ‘orgasm’! This is a real prawn soup, no gimmick, no dried scallops, no tik poh or hae bee(dried shrimps) thrown into the pot. Pure prawn flavour providing that excitement that is so sorely lacking in many of the Big Prawn Mees because they apparently use more ‘ho liao’ for the soup base which is suppose to give you more bang for your buck but au contraire, it often deviates from the original prawn flavour, so much so that the prawn flavour is diluted already.

Dai Dong $8 Prawn Mee + $2 Spare Rib (Prawn mee bowl very big!)

Ok to be fair, the soup does have a hint of that bakuteh herby flavour which pushes the oomph a little more north for me.

Dai Dong is where you get a bowl of prawn mee soup with very shiok prawn flavoured soup. Seriously real PRAWN FLAVOURED and not other strange flavours that you get when eating those Big Prawn Mee from elsewhere. It is shiok enough for me to rate it better than most of the Big Prawn Mees I’ve eaten.

If there’s ever one Prawn Mee that I would be happy to pay for just the noodle and the soup without any ingredients, then Dai Dong Prawn Noodles is what it takes.

Price: $4+

Recommendation: $4 prawn mee pork rib + $2 pork rib!

Conclusion: My champion hae mee soup. However since taste is all but subjective, I’ll just say that I relish a real prawn stock instead instead of other chapalang flavours you can get in some hae mee soup. Pork rib is a must try but don’t expect good prawns here. For the $8 bowl, you only get peeled prawns(banana) so it is definitely not in the league of those Big Prawn Mee stalls like Wah Kee or Hoe Nam as far prawns are concerned.

Likes: Soup, pork ribs.

Dislikes: A little expensive.

Address		Overall Rating
Dai Dong Prawn Noodles 97 Rangoon Road 8am – 3pm Off: Monday		Food: 9/10   Authentic: 9/10   Value: 8/10   Service: 8/10   Ambience: 8/10   Cleanliness: 8/10   Overall: 8.25/10

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

However, recently I was told that Swee Heng Wanton Noodle is one of the ‘Die Die Must Queue’ stalls in Chomp Chomp so here I am to see why is that so.

I arrived at 6+ to avoid the evening queue and was pleasantly surprised to find that there is only one thing you can buy from this stall and that is the wanton mee. They don’t even have any chicken feet mee or shredded chicken mee which you can get from most wanton mee stalls in the market nowadays. Don’t know about you but that surely sounds like they are a ‘Master of Wanton Mee’ for me.

Spinach Noodles Wanton Mee $3

They do have something a little special on their menu though and that is the spinach noodles. I’m not sure this is really made of spinach or it’s just the coloring at work but the texture is very unique in that it is lesser QQ(al dente) but yet very smooth to bite.

Spinach Noodles Wanton Mee $3

The star of the plate has got to be the sauce which I thought was really good. It’s the oily sweet type which can always do very well for me. The char siew was a little lean but nonetheless quite shiok. Where it didn’t hit home for me are the wanton and the soup. But if you are an ikan bilis’ flavour lover, it might do better for you.

I guess very little work is needed to turn this wanton mee into a really really outstanding plate. A fattier cut of the pork can do some wonders to the char siew and if you relish QQ noodles, don’t choose the spinach noodles. I had returned to try out it’s normal noodles which was very very very QQ. Not sure if that is the reason why people are joining the queue but at least for me, I will gladly do so next time.

Spinach Noodles Wanton Mee $3

Price: $3

Conclusion: A very good plate of wanton mee. Not the best around but not too far off either. It’s the sauce and QQ noodles that shioked me. If you like green color maybe the spinach noodles can shiok you more. For those who don’t know, the owner Mr Kang bought over the stall from his father for $133,000 in 1997.

Likes: Sauce is shiok.

Dislikes: Wanton and soup too much ikan bilis flavour.

Address		Overall Rating
Swee Heng Wanton Noodle 20 Kensington Park Road #01-12 Serangoon Garden Food Centre Daily 5pm-1am		Food: 8/10   Authenticity: 8/10   Value: 7.5/10   Service: 7/10   Ambience: 7/10   Cleanliness: 7/10   Overall: 8/10

You see, food businesses are becoming very competitive due to the higher operating cost therefore it makes all senses for hawkers to diversify their ‘portfolio’. So outsourcing becomes a reality because there are simply too much to handle and that’s how commercialisation began. The authenticities of the food go down a bit and these entrepreneurs hawkers have to think of other ways to make themselves ’special’ to stay ahead in the game. So gone are the days when they can depend on just one niche to attract the queues because it just doesn’t pay to specialise anymore, lest you have a smaller targetted pool of audience which of course can limit your earnings.

But the good thing out of all these is that we can get more creative food because now food sellers have to think out of the box and break away from the norm. And it’s exactly this reason that food stalls like Jia Xiang Sliced Fish Soup & Noodles exist.

At the corner of Rangoon Road and Dorset Road at Farrer Park sits a noodle stall that has menu with lists so long that it might just put some Cze Char stall’s menus to shame. They have many different types of soup items like sliced fish, fish head, seafood, dumpling soup to different types of noodles like bak chor mee, fish ball noodles, abalone noodles to all different types of appetizer items like guo tie, fried prawn roll and so on.

Seafood Bak Chor Mee $6

Now all these are proof that they are a ‘Master of None’ type of hawker stall but yet after passing by the coffeeshop a few times, I was just ‘feeling itchy’ on this occasion to try one of the items on the menu which is the Seafood Bak Chor Mee.

For $6, you get a bowl of Bak Chor Mee which has the common Bak Chor Mee ingredients like bak chor(minced pork), pork slices, sliced fish cakes, braised mushrooms and with additional ingredients like 2 king prawns, a scallop with shell and several fish dumplings.

Seafood Bak Chor Mee $6

Compared to Ah Guan Mee Pok Pte Ltd, this one loses a bit on the chilli shiokness but it is doused with a type of black sauce(tasted like a mix of lor bak gravy and sesame oil) which is quite shiok nonetheless. Won’t call this outstanding but I guess the extra ingredients are what you’re paying the other $3 for.

This bowl of Seafood Bak Chor Mee is proof that we have a new breed of hawkers who wouldn’t mind to introduce contemporary ideas to food they sell which is very a welcomed move for our local food scene. I guess these new ideas more than make up for the lack of authenticities in the food otherwise.

Seafood Bak Chor Mee $6

Price: $6

Conclusion: Not the shiokest bowl of Bak Chor Mee around but you will get fulfilled if you are a seafood lover who just happens to want a bowl of Bak Chor Mee.

Likes: Getting seafood in bak chor mee.

Dislikes: Chilli shiokness no enough.

Address		Overall Rating
Jia Xiang Sliced Fish Soup & Noodles 137 Rangoon Road 8am – 8pm Daily		Food: 8/10   Authentic: 7.5/10   Value: 7.5/10   Service: 7/10   Ambience: 7/10   Cleanliness: 7/10   Overall: 8/10

After eating so many big prawn noodles recently, I am missing a bit of the sliced fish cakes and sliced pork. I mean no doubt we want a hearty bowl of hae mee that can triumph in shiokness but the basic balance of the overall taste shouldn’t be overlooked too right? I for one would really cherish things like a few stems of kangkong or sliced pork(even if it’s tasteless) in a bowl of noodle soup because these ingredients can always balance off the otherwise rich flavours of the stock pleasantly.

榮發 YONG HUAT at 125/127 East Coast Road – 70 years old stall!

Yong Huat which is on the East Coast Road(a few steps away from Aston Specialties) comes across as a jack of all trades but master of none kind of hawker stall because they have almost all the popular hawker items such as fishball noodles, minced pork noodles, prawn noodles, char kway teow, hokkien mee, and all other types of fried noodles like tong fen, mee sua and even mee tai mak on their menu! Now though they looked like one of those chapalang hawker stall but they have a 70 years old history ok, so don’t play play!

Not knowing what to eat, I asked for their top selling item and the boss made me a bowl of prawn noodle dry kway teow. Ok, I was half expecting to be served a hokkein mee because many tables there had a plate of hokkien mee on their table.

榮發 YONG HUAT prawn noodle $3

It will only cost you $3 for a bowl of hae mee here so don’t expect fancy ingredients. The prawns were pretty flavorless which is a sign of it spending too much time in the water. What can hit home here for pork lovers is the tor bak aka pork belly. These pork belly slices are what the owner uses for frying his hokkien mee but you get it in your hae mee soup here too, somehow. I don’t eat boiled pork belly so it didn’t score any points for me but I am sure pork belly lovers will die for it.

榮發 YONG HUAT prawn noodle $3

What however shioked me to no ends is the tik poh!! FWAHHHHHH! You get generous amount of grounded tik poh on your noodles. Tik poh powered kway teow is just something that I can love very much but the chilli just happened to be also one of the best hae mee chilli I’ve eaten!

The soup has a faint hint of tik poh flavour but is clearly a hae bee(dried shrimped) soup base which was quite outstanding nonetheless. Ingredients are quite generous while I can never forget how the chilli sauce blew me away. For $3, I don’t think it is easy to get a better hae mee deal and for pork belly and tik poh lovers, Yong Huat is nothing but good news.

榮發 YONG HUAT prawn noodle $3

Price: $3

Recommendation: I heard their fishballs, hokkien mee and mee suah are good.

Conclusion: Shiok hae mee with a lot of tik poh on your noodles. Everything is quite good except that the the prawns are quite tasteless but then again it’s only $3 you need to part so this is quite affordable bowl of prawn noodles. The chilli sauce is what that will make me come back again and again!

Likes: Grounded tik poh on your noodles. Chilli sauce very shiok. Soup is shiok too! Ingredients aplenty!

Dislikes: Ingredients a bit tasteless.

Address		Overall Rating
榮發 YONG HUAT 125/127 East Coast Road Time: 0800 – 2000 Daily Owner: Mr. Pang Weng Hong Tel: 96301370 http://www.sbestfood.com/yonghuat.htm		Food: 8.5/10   Authenticity: 9/10   Value: 9/10   Service: 7/10   Ambience: 7/10   Cleanliness: 7/10   Overall: 8/10

To the prawn noodles aficionado, I guess they know where to go for a good fix around that area but unfortunately for me, I’m still waiting for the elusive one to beckon. I guess if I’m willing to pay $8 or $10, many stalls can provide me with a good fix but honestly speaking for $10, the bar then has to be raised right? The real good ones are not just those that can give me a king prawn just because I paid $10 for it but able to hit all the shiok points for me outstandingly. So far I have found none able to do that and of course I am more keen to discover one that doesn’t require me to part $10.

So when I was told about this good hae mee(prawn noodles) stall called Lam’s Prawn Noodles which has a purportedly long history, I can’t resist not checking them out and see how much the prawn noodles there can thrill me.

Lam’s Prawn Noodle has many different types of prawn noodles combination with ingredients like ribs, intestines, pig’s tail, scallop and even crab.

The cheapest bowl of prawn noodles here will set you back $4 while other combination like large prawns, scallop or crab will cost you between $7 to $12.

Lam’s Prawn Noodles $4

My $4 bowl came with 4 fresh mid-sized prawns but they are not the tiger prawns or banana prawns. It tasted like one of those you can buy for $7/kilo from any seafood stall in the market so it was slightly disappointing there.

The soup however was quite shiok. It didn’t have that hae bee(dried shrimp) flavour overdrive which is the case with several other big prawn noodles I’ve eaten. If you relish the pure prawn flavour in the hae mee soup then this might be what you’re looking for.

Price: $0.80

Conclusion: I guess this should be considered relatively affordable at $4 with 4 middle sized head-on prawns in quite shiok soup. The score however just stopped at good and a bit more to go to be great. The soup is old school kind which is what I liked.

Likes: Soup.

Dislikes: Prawns disappointing.

Address		Overall Rating
Lam’s Prawn Noodles 137 Rangoon Road 9am – 9pm Off: Tuesday		Food: 8/10   Authenticity: 8/10   Value: 7/10   Service: 7/10   Ambience: 7/10   Cleanliness: 7/10   Overall: 7.75/10

Now it’s true that some hor fun with eggs thrown in can still taste fractionally shiok but yet most of the time, that ‘eggy’ flavor can be a little ‘disturbing’ because it masked away all those essential shiok flavors like the wok hei(if any) or flavours of any other ingredients like seafood or meat.

So if you are like me, someone who has always looked for nothing but the best quality hor fun available, you will be delighted to hear that I have found a really really shiok hor fun for just $3.50.

Thiam Seng Seafood is a cze char stall at Old Airport Road Food Centre and most of the items on the menu here are priced reasonable from $6. I have eaten at this stall a few times and some of the must try items are Oyster Omelette, Spare Ribs King and Cuttlefish Kangkong but that’s another story for another day. Today I’m going to tell you about the Hor Fun by Thiam Seng Seafood which in my opinion, is one of the finest plate one can find in Singapore for $3+.

If you are really particular about eating hor fun that is freshly fried from scratch, no use of dark soya sauce, no eggs thrown into the gravy, then this will surely hit your umami very very hard.

Seafood Hor Fun $3

For $3.50, this should be considered very good value with generous portion of ingredients but the thing that sets itself miles and miles apart from the rest of the $3 pack is the wok hei. FWAH! The wok hei is so strong that I was even burping with it a few hours after eating it. It just taste like one of those things I need to pay $10 for and the gravy just happen to be very shiok too. As a matter of fact, the whole plate just resembles Fei Lao Seafood’s opeh leaf version. I would really have trouble differentiating the 2 if this were to have bigger prawns/sea cucumbers and served on the opeh leaf.

I don’t know how much better a pack of $3 hor fun can get but for $3.50 at Thiam Seng Seafood, one can truly reap that kind of flavours that only exist when you have $10 in your pocket. If you have not been tempted to eat an Opeh Leaf Hor Fun because it will make you $10 poorer, then this is something you must try because it has all the characteristics of what a shiok $10 Opeh Leaf Hor Fun should be yet the damage is only $3.50.

Seafood Hor Fun $3

Price: $3.50

Recommendation: Hor fun and other cze char dishes like oyster omelette, cuttlefish kangkong and spare ribs king(all only $6 each!).

Conclusion: This is no doubt the best $3.50 I have spent for a plate of hor fun. No eggs used, translucent gravy, strong wok hei, plenty of seafood and pork liver used just mean that it is technically Fei Lao’s type of hor fun but with no-frills ingredients(no king prawns or sea cucumbers).

Likes: Strong wok hei, delicious gravy and generous amount of ingredients.

Dislikes: Portion a little small.

Address		Overall Rating
Thiam Seng Seafood Old Airport Road Food Centre Blk 51 #01-152 4pm – 11pm Daily		Food: 9/10   Authenticity: 9/10   Value: 9/10   Service: 7/10   Ambience: 7/10   Cleanliness: 7/10   Overall: 7.75/10

Unfortunately, when I came back, I realised that authentic Hong Kong flavors are something one will be really hard-pressed to find in Singapore. Apparently, the best Hong Kong chefs have gone to places like Toronto, London, Sydney etcetera. So these top chefs provide the shapes for HK food in those places while Singapore’s market gets all the twisted version from the rampant Hokkien or Teochew influence.

In those places, Cantonese restaurants are run by Cantonese, Italian restaurants are run by Italians and Japanese restaurants are run by Japanese. You won’t find Chinese selling Japanese food or Russians selling Spanish food. In short, there are no ethnic food turf wars and you definitely can’t get away with selling food you know nothing about. The authenticities of food in such places are undeniably authentic.

Salt & Pepper Spare Rib (image via)

One of the best Cantonese dishes I’ve discovered outside of Singapore is the Salt & Pepper Spare Ribs. This is essentially nothing more than ribs marinated in wine and some flour, deep fried and then stir fried with spiced pepper salt and garnished with cut red chillies, scallions and garlic but I’m actually quite surprised by how difficult it is to find this dish in Singapore, or rather the really good ones. Even the good restaurants which are highly regarded for their authentic HK food in Singapore can’t seems to produce a good plate of Salt & Pepper Spare Ribs for me.

I’m sure most of you don’t know that Crystal Jade can do a Salt & Pepper Spare Ribs because it is not on the menu. I was told by a friend that they do and so here I am to find out how authentic their Salt & Pepper Spare Ribs really is.

Salt & Pepper Spare Rib $10++

For $10++, it came beautifully with generous scallion and chilli garnish at the top. For those who have not eaten Salt & Pepper Spare Ribs(the most authentic kind), this is how it will look if you are to buy it in Hong Kong(or authentic Cantonese restaurants in the west). It’s those little garnish at the top that can make it look authentic but somehow very few restaurants in Singapore does it this way.

This came with that nice wine aroma that I’m familiar with and it has the right flavour, almost 90% there compared with the really good ones I’ve eaten. For taste and flavour, I’ve no doubt that this is the closest to the real thing I’ve eaten in Singapore.

Price: $10++(20% discount in the afternoon on weekdays)

Recommendation: Salt & Pepper Spare Ribs

Conclusion: Salt & Pepper Spare Ribs is an authentic Hong Kong food that is hard to find in Singapore. Those that I’ve eaten in Singapore are very unauthentic. At Crystal Jade, it is as close as what you can get without flying all the way to Hong Kong. Not on the menu but order it anyway and the chef will know what to do.

Likes: Authentic.

Dislikes: Slightly oily.

Address		Overall Rating
4 Tampines Central 5 Tampines Mall #B1-11 Tel: 67880633 Daily 11am to 10pm		Food: 8/10   Authenticity: 9/10   Value: 8/10   Service: 7/10   Ambience: 8/10   Cleanliness: 8/10   Overall: 7.75/10

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: 7.75/10

Ironically, Big Prawn Mee is rampant around Jalan Besar, Beach Road area. Further north a little, you can see a few others like Wah Kee at Farrer Road, and Hoe Nam at Bendemeer. I guess it ain’t rocket science that Big Prawn Mee must had been invented around that area but a surprising fact is that it still hasn’t ventured much into the eastern side of Singapore except for 1 stall.

If you’ve ever travelled on East Coast Road, I’m sure you would have came across Beach Road Prawn Mee Eating House near Siglap. This prawn mee stall hailed from Beach Road and from my observation, they seem to have mastered the art of pulling the crowd. Nevermind that the area has no decent parking facilities, people just can’t seem to stop appearing, even at non meal times like 3pm. And it’s not only the tables that are filled, the queue at the counter was even quite long.

The cheapest bowl here is $4.50 and you get 2 medium sized prawns sliced in half while several other combinations allow you to add pork ribs or other bigger sized prawns to your bowl. At $4.50 it should be considered as reasonable except that they seem to use tiger prawns instead of the banana prawns as in other stalls I’ve eaten at. Tiger prawns are of course cheaper so amongst all the big prawn mee that I’ve eaten, here provides the least shiokness as far prawns are concerned.

Prawn Mee $4.50

With the disappointing prawns, I was expecting the soup to be spoon-licking good but alas it didn’t. I think many $2.50 prawn noodles’ soup can even topple this. Though it looks quite good and as much as I want to show off the shiok factor of this prawn noodle, there really isn’t anything that’s worth a rave.

Prawn Mee $4.50

Beach Road Prawn Mee Eating House turned out to be one of those places I don’t understand. They are crowded and famous for reasons I don’t know and the fact that parking your car here is extremely difficult just makes the strong crowd almost spooky.

Prawn Mee $4.50

Price: $4.50

Conclusion: This is a very popular big prawn noodles stall and the crowd is forever strong but yet it it didn’t charm me. Since they are located at the heart of siglap/katong, I’m just guessing that this could be a rich man’s prawn mee.

Likes: Nothing.

Dislikes: Tiger prawns used instead of banana prawns. Soup no power.

Address		Overall Rating
Beach Road Prawn Noodle House 370 East Coast Road Tel: 63457196 8am-4pm daily Off: Tuesdays		Food: 6.5/10   Authenticity: 7/10   Value: 6.5/10   Service: 7/10   Ambience: 7/10   Cleanliness: 7/10   Overall: 7.75/10

The truth is as much as I love eating seafood, I don’t quite understand the business of fish as I find the smell of fish quite nonsense, especially those fish meat(or whole) that are not fresh being grilled or steamed with the ‘unfreshness’ masked by the whatever flavours of the condiments. I know for fish lovers, what I’m saying here makes no sense but I suppose I’m speaking for those who find fishy smell quite gibberish in a meal.

Though I’m not a fan of fish meat, I still visit a fish soup stall quite often. The secret? Fish roe.

A typical Lee Kwang Kee Seafood Stall

Lee Kwang Kee Seafood is a popular fish soup stall with many branches around the island in places like Chong Pang, Bedok, Maxwell and Clementi. However, you don’t get to see the name Lee Kwang Kee Seafood on the signboard. Instead you see a Teo Chew Fish Porridge and the distinct feature is the hanging of whole fish bone of the mackeral fish at the front of the stall, does it ring a bell? Lee Kwang Kee Seafood is popular for items like sliced fish soup or fish head soup but for me it is the pure fish roe soup that can hit my umami hard.

Lee Kwang Kee Seafood fish roe soup $4

Fish roe is hardly something that can make the meal of your life but yet it is something that is truly rare, so rare that sellers may have to build up a good rapport with their fishmongers to get theirs hands on it. For the kind of rarity it has, it is quite surprising for me to find that it is something that has lovers and loathers in equal numbers.

I guess fish roe is not for any faint-hearted for there is a distinct dotty texture which many of my friends have found to be a little adventurous to bite and chew, but I just love it.

Fish roe

For $4 at Lee Kwang Kee Seafood, you get clusters of roes(about 10 – 15 small pieces) cooked in tik poh(dried sole fish) flavoured soup. The laver and lettuce just add up to quite an exceptional bowl of soup.

This is something not easy to find in hawker centre and Lee Kwang Kee Seafood is the only place I know that can provide me with a cholesterol rush every time I turned up. So if you’ve been bored with all the random Singapore food like Char Kway Teow, Mee Pok or Chap Chai Peng, this may be the next best thing your umami needs. There are many stalls of Lee Kwang Kee Seafood around the island, just look for that huge mackeral fish bone hanged at the front of the stall and you are bound to be in for a rare shiok time.

Lee Kwang Kee Seafood fish roe soup $4

Price: $4

Recommendation: Fish roe soup though they are famous for their sliced fish/fish head soup.

Conclusion: One of those unique food you won’t find in many hawker centres. Fish roes are something not every fish soup seller can procure so this soup is extremely rare and it just happen to keep me shiok too.

Likes: Soup very shiok with all that tik poh flavour. Fish roe provides that much needed protein boost.

Dislikes: None.

Address		Overall Rating
Lee Kwang Kee Seafood Blk 105 #01-147 Yishun Ring Road Chong Pang Food Centre Daily 8am to 9pm		Food: 8.5/10   Authenticity: 8/10   Value: 9/10   Service: 7/10   Ambience: 7/10   Cleanliness: 7/10   Overall: 7.75/10

Vietnamese Pho Noodle (image via)

For the uninitiated, Pho aka beef noodle soup is widely regarded by Vietnamese as their national food and it has been around for more than 100 years. Pho(pronounced as ‘phir’) is actually a fusion food between the Chinese and the French with the flavour of the soup deriving from the way French cook their beef soup which is called ‘pot au feu’(pot on fire) or what others called the French Beef Stew. And of course it all happened when French was colonizing Vietnam from 1858 to 1954.

For those who have lived in countries like Australia, America, Canada or UK, one would have realised that Vietnamese food thrives in these places and one may wonder, why not in places like Singapore?

Vietnamese food hasn’t taken hold here because for any foreign food business to be viable, there need to be enough of their fellow countrymen to be around to ’support’ the business and Singapore just happen not to be the land of Vietnamese immigrants. That is also the reason why you will be hard-pressed to find really authentic Singaporean food outside of Singapore.

I am not a big fan of Vietnamese cuisine for the simple fact that a lot of their foods use raw herbs like mint leaf or different types of basil leaf(there are 3-4 types) which I dread and they don’t just use the leafy parts but the stems and in some cases, even the roots! Apart from Pho, the other food that is very a ‘national’ food to Vietnam is the Vietnamese Spring(Goi Cuon) Rolls while something that I personally liked a lot is the Vietnamese Pork Chop Rice(Com Suon).

Long Phung at 159 Joo Chiat

I was introduced to Long Phung, a Vietnamese cafe along Joo Chiat Road by my local Vietnamese friends as one of the few places in Singapore to serve really authentic Vietnamese food so I can’t resist not checking it out and see how authentic it really is.

My agenda is the Vietnamese Pork Chop Rice which I thought should be fairly easy to excel since most that I’ve eaten abroad tasted very good. In it’s most authentic form, broken rice are normally used. If you’re wondering, yes broken rice are lower grade rice and definitely cheaper but a lot of Vietnamese like it because it seems to be a little stickier. But no mistake there, broken rice didn’t look good hence are normally discarded therefore these cheaper rice are popular amongst the poorer folks back in Vietnam but today, Vietnamese pork chops serve with broken rice has become a tradition. I guess it’s just like how Indians or Malays will tell you that eating Nasi Lemak with hand is more shiok.

Com Suon(Vietnamese Pork Chop Rice) $5

My Com Suon(pork chop rice) arrives in style, nicely decorated on a big plate. What was missing though are pork fats thin strips which I thought are one of the essential ingredients in an authentic Com Suon, anyway this just looks like a healthier version.

om Suon(Vietnamese Pork Chop Rice) Chilli Sauce

One of the things I like about Vietnamese Pork Chop Rice is the chilli sauce. It taste like one of those sweet and sour Thai chilli sauce that you eat with Thai spring rolls, however the Vietnamese version is more watery and a little more sour. The chilli in Vietnamese Pork Chop Rice will come separate on another bowl and the correct way to eat it is to pour the sauce over the rice and mix it with the fats strips.

Vietnamese Pork Chop

If you have never eaten Vietnamese porkchops before, you’ll be glad to know that it is something Singaporeans can resonate with easily because it is technically satay flavoured grilled pork with a stronger tumeric thrust. I love Vietnamese porkchops a lot and at Long Phung, it’s got that familiar flavour and taste. Vietnamese food can be fairly expensive when eaten at other foreign cities, so $5 for a plate of Vietnamese Pork Chop here is worth every of your penny .

Goi Cuon(Spring Roll) $2.50

Vietnamese spring rolls cost $2.50 for 2 at Long Phung. These are wrapped using dried rice paper wrappers(slightly wetted to make it soft but very chewy) with raw herbs, some rice, bee hoon, some pork, prawns and nothing else. These spring rolls have very little shiok flavour by itself but if you dip it into the chilli sauce(which is the same as the pork chop rice chilli sauce), it can be very shiok(not something I like though).

Goi Cuon(Spring Roll) $2.50

Vietnamese Kopi $2.50

Of course if you are coming to a Vietnamese eatery, you can’t finish a meal without a cuppa of Vietnamese kopi. For $2.50, it was a little expensive but the flavour is strong and very unique.

Long Phung is a cafe that sells good Vietnamese food at affordable prices. Every other dishes go for something like $5-$6 and I guess the big crowd(mostly Singaporeans) at lunch time is a testament to the food here being quite acceptable to locals. Having not eaten at other Vietnamese eatery in Singapore , I don’t know how good this really is by local standard but compared to what I’ve eaten before in other countries, it is quite close to the standard I know. A strange fact is that this is one of the cheapest Vietnamese meals I’ve eaten and I’m just suspecting that one may have a hard time finding anything cheaper than this in Singapore. Vietnamese food is really scarce in Singapore but I’m glad to say that my virgin experience of eating Vietnamese food in Singapore is quite shiok and Long Phung is definitely a very good place to get my Com Suon(Pork Chop Rice) fix in the future.

Com Suon(Vietnamese Pork Chop Rice) $5

Price: $10

Recommendation: Vietnamese Pork Chop Rice

Conclusion: If you ever find yourself stuck at Joo Chiat pondering what to eat, Long Phung might just fill the gap for you. It is affordable and the quality comes really really close to what I know.

Likes: Pork chop.

Dislikes: Pork chop rice no pork fats strip.

Address		Overall Rating
Long Phung 159 Joo Chiat Road Tel: 6344 2005 11am – 2am Daily		Food: 7.5/10   Authenticity: 7.5/10   Value: 8/10   Service: 7/10   Ambience: 8/10   Cleanliness: 8/10   Overall: 7.75/10

Tai Shek Hei House Of Bamboo Noodles at Joo Chiat prides itself in creating bamboo noodles in the house. So, just what are bamboo noodles?

(image via)

Bamboo noodles are traditional noodles made the old-fashioned artisanal way which the noodle master will astride a bamboo pole to knead the noodle dough. The novelty of bamboo noodles is of course not only in the bamboo. There are ’special’ ingredients used and it is said that the really really good quality bamboo noodles are made using essential ingredients like top-grade flour and duck eggs. This bamboo pole method of producing noodles is supposed to give a more delicate and firmer texture to the noodles while other distinct feature is in the taste of the noodles which has an unique flavour as opposed to ‘non bamboo noodles’ which usually are bland and can(or need to) soak up foreign flavors.

This traditional method of making noodles hailed from Guangzhou and is today a dying art as machines have long but taken over the bamboo job. In Hong Kong or some parts of China, it is termed as the ‘real’ noodles and purportedly, the one good thing about it is that this special noodles cannot be mass produced for you need a man to astride the bamboo pole.

If you’re wondering, unlike bamboo rice or bamboo leaves dumpling(zongzi), there is no bamboo flavour to behold in the noodles and the reason for such production method to exist today is to rediscover the novelty of how people used to make their noodles back in the old days. Pretty much as retro as our opeh leaf used in hokkien mee or hor fun today if you get the drift and yes, this ‘bamboodles’ will do very well for ridiculously picky traditionally handmade noodles aficionados.

I have not heard anything about Tai Shek Hei House Of Bamboo Noodles before that day and it was by chance that I stopped at their door flipping through the menu when my destination was actually the Dunman Food Centre. A waitress quickly came out and introduced to me one of their ‘before you die you must try’ house specialities which is the Tobiko Dumpling Noodles. Fact is I ordered a dry version but she insisted I must take the soup version in order for her ‘die die must eat’ claim to be validated.

Tobiko Dumpling Noodles $6.80

For $6.80($7.10 with GST), 4 tobiko dumplings came in a bowl of noodles soup which looked like the common wanton mee you can find from any wanton mee stall in Hong Kong. The soup was a let down for me, with that absolute ikan bilis flavour. It just tasted like one of those you can create using Maggi Ikan Bilis(anchovy) stock cube if you know what I mean. It can be as delicious as whatever to anchovy lovers but it is just stinky to me. The noodles were well quite good but didn’t come with that fantastic springy texture I was expecting. There were some mysterious subtle black dots all over in the noodles which I thought could be what make this special, I’m not sure. The lack of springiness aside, it is fresh and definitely unique. Maybe I don’t know how to appreciate the intrinsic values or sentiments of this bamboo noodles but I was hoping for one that can have mind-blowing effect on me. I guess there is a beauty to it but it’s just me that don’t know how to apprehend the fine points of it all.

Tobiko Dumpling

Tobiko is the roe of the flying fish and though the dumplings looked great with that conspicuous orange feature, the taste was never going to beat one that have prawns instead. The dumpling’s parameters also included minced pork and prawns but which can hardly compensate for the lack of that cantonese ‘wanton paradise’ flavor.

Tobiko Dumpling Noodles at Tai Shek Hei House Of Bamboo Noodles is a pretentious Hong Kong wanton mee soup with fancy tobiko as ingredients in the wanton at best. If there’s indeed such a thing called Tobiko Dumpling, I’m just suspecting that there is a more ‘perfect’ one elsewhere.

Bamboo noodles culture may be dying at the hands of modern noodles machines but if this is what it should taste, I’m convinced that it’s nothing to shout about. I may be too greedy with my expectation of bamboo noodles to be of Crystal Jade’s noodles’ standard, or perhaps this isn’t the real thing – since the bamboo in the noodles making process here is actually controlled by machines instead of human, so that makes it half manual or unauthentic if you like to call it. And yes, I do know people who are skeptical about opeh leaf doing wonders to a plate of hokkien mee or hor fun, but unlike those foods, there are hardly anything in this bamboo noodles that can create an umami impact.

Tobiko Dumpling Noodles $6.80

Price: $6.80(30 for GST)

Conclusion: The bamboo noodles here didn’t quite hit the spot for me. Since there is no bamboo flavor to impart, I’m just thinking that it can also be done using any plastic or metal pole, as long it has the same solidity and texture as the bamboo. There were rumours that only 3 people in the entire Hong Kong knows how to make the ‘real’ bamboo noodles so you can go figure how scarce this really is. If you are coming here to eat, you may like to consume your noodle fast for apparently, another ’strange’ feature of the bamboo noodles is that it continues to be cooked in the soup while you eat. So lest you get a soggy overcooked soft noodles half way through, try to be quick. And yes, mine did turn a little soggy towards the end.

Likes: Noodles has an unique flavour.

Dislikes: Noodles not QQ enough. Dumplings not shiok enough. Tobiko only performed visual wonders.

Address		Overall Rating
Tai Shek Hei House of Traditional Bamboo Noodles 283/285 Joo Chiat Road Tel: 6345 5095 10.30am – 11.00pm		Food: 7/10   Authenticity: 8/10   Value: 7/10   Service: 7/10   Ambience: 8/10   Cleanliness: 8/10   Overall: 7.75/10

Alas even the soup of these 2 noodles are tasting very similar. I wonder when will prawn noodles aka hae mee join in the fun. Would be good if Singapore can have our own ‘Singapore Noodles Soup’ that are created with the best ingredients of all the noodles soup that are found in Singapore.

It is not difficult to see why those 2 can been sold from the same stall though. I mean, if all a bak chor mee seller needs are fishballs to target fishballs noodles suckers, then why not right? The pool of the target audiences gets bigger and your noodles suddenly have that national universal appeal.

Yan Kee Noodle House(炎记面家)

Yan Kee Noodle House made it’s name selling Bak Chor mee and Fishball Noodles at BK Eating House, Boat Quay. They went on to open a 24 hours branch at Tanjong Katong Road which boasts several top seller side items like Guo Tie, Fried Fishballs, Fried Fishcakes and many others.

Yan Kee Noodle House(炎记面家) Bak Chor Mee $3

Not sure if any of those rings a bell in your mind but Yan Kee reminds me very much of Eunos 1A Seng Kee Mushroom Minced Pork Noodles at Eunos. In case, you’re wondering what’s the price like for those side dishes, they are going for $5 to $6 a plate. Not sure what you’re thinking but I’m just thinking that if they can put up that kind of prices for such simple food, the quality must be fairly good. However I wasn’t feeling rich on this particular day so I just went for a bak chor mee pok tah.

Ikan Bilis on the Bak Chor Mee

Just like any of our domestic teochew bak chor mee pok tah, it came with all the usual ingredients you find in a bowl of bak chor mee but with ikan bilis. I guess they are replacing the tik poh with ikan bilis, I’m not sure but those ikan bilis(es) made the bowl of bak chor mee taste damn good okay!

Every mouthful of the noodles with crispy ikan bilis were exceedingly shiok. Naturally the overall taste is saltier but the sweetness of the sauce(and chilli) and the generous amount of vinegar balanced it off. In short, the flavours are slightly richer. If you love rich flavoured food, this bak chor mee can be very pleasant for you, albeit the chilli sauce wasn’t really spicy enough.

Yan Kee Noodle House(炎记面家) Bak Chor Mee $3

Price: $3

Recommendation: Mee Pok tah + more chilli + more ikan bilis

Conclusion: Something quite innovative. If you like the fried ikan bilis, this is something you might be very fond of. The ingredients are normal but the tastes of the sauce, chilli and ikan bilis are something to behold for me. Not the best but it is special enough to be a little shiok for me.

Likes: Combination of tastes. Ikan Bilis

Dislikes: Noodles too much, not QQ(al dente) enough. Not spicy enough

Address		Overall Rating
YAN KEE NOODLE HOUSE(炎记面家) 244 Tanjong Katong Road Singapore 437032 24 hours		Food: 7.5/10   Authenticity: 8/10   Value: 7.5/10   Service: 7/10   Ambience: 7/10   Cleanliness: 7/10   Overall: 7.75/10

As such, I can hardly qualify as a prawn noodles cognoscente so it is quite pointless for me to judge prawn noodles stalls like the legendary Wah Kee or Hoe Nam. I mean what do I really know, right? Though there are substantial claims that they are some of the better big prawn noodles stalls in town, I somehow feel that I must at the very least, have eaten at least once at the other famous stalls to see how good Wah Kee and Hoe Nam really are.

Ren Ren Big Prawn Noodles at Joo Chiat

I was told that Ren Ren Da Xia Mian is a popular big prawn noodles stall with several branches around the island in places like Joo Chiat, Victoria Street and Jalan Besar. No matter how impressive a prawn noodle is or can be, one thing has to be kept simple: that is to be affordable. I mean there is no point of being impressive if I need to pay $10 to be impressed right?

Ren Ren Big Prawn Noodles $5

The first thing that registered a tick here is the prawns. These are fresh Banana Prawns or Red Leg Prawns. You get 4 prawns sliced into half(total 8 halves) and they all came with the right succulency. For $5, it sure provided me with a ‘good prawn time’, at the very least, better than at Whitley Road Prawn Noodles or Adam Road Prawn Noodles. If you come here with a prawn agenda, it will do more than a pass for you. The soup tasted absolutely yummy with the kind of flavour that seems to suggest a lot of hae bee(fried shrimps) were thrown into the soup. However my thirst later suggest that I might had been drinking MSG-infused liquid. The prawns were value for money but the soup seemed a little too ‘thick’ for my liking and it just doesn’t taste like something that’s been boiled fresh and I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s been boiling for a few days.

– If you asked me, how much shiokness this prawn noodle can ride, I will say the prawns’ quality and quantity cannot be denied.

– If you asked me, did the flavour and taste of the soup blended okay, I will say the ‘thickness’ of it gets in the way. But all of it for $5, there is nothing to deride, for the genuine value surely cannot hide.

– It has at the very least, brought some smile, with the excessive ‘prawny’ pile. Against the best, this may not be a reply but it is no doubt a little special in my eyes….

Ren Ren Big Prawn Noodles $5

Price: $5

Conclusion: The prawns are generous, fresh and tasted like only lightly boiled – delicious. Cheap for $5. Would do well for you if you come with a prawn agenda. The soup were good but left a slightly bad aftertaste.

Likes: Prawns.

Dislikes: Soup seems to have MSG.

Address		Overall Rating
Ren Ren Big Prawn 354 Joo Chiat Road At the corner of Joo Chiat Road & Crane Road 6am to 3am		Food: 8/10   Authenticity: 8/10   Value: 9/10   Service: 8/10   Ambience: 7/10   Cleanliness: 7/10   Overall: 7.75/10

Braised duck should be a symbol of teochew’s cuisine but the simple fact is that the non-teochew version(lor is thicken) can do better for me. If you’re thinking that I’m buying a plate of duck rice from Cheok Kee for it’s lor and not it’s duck, then you have guessed it right! The only palpable reason for me to think about a plate of lor ark peng is really only the lor and I’m just wondering whether anyone out there sharing that same philosophy as me?

Hin Hollywood Canteen at Haig Road

Although I don’t quite understand about the braised duck business but I still know my lor(gravy). So at Hin Hollywood Canteen recently, when I came across Lian Kee(a braised duck rice stall), I couldn’t resist paying a couple of dimes to test the ‘lor’ after witnessing how, almost all the tables having a plate of duck which were doused with gravy that seems to express itself very well with that flat out gooeyness.

Lian Kee Braised Duck Rice $3.50

The sweetness in the gravy was only very subtle which is to my liking while the herby smell was only moderate and everything was just mellifluous. For me, this type of gravy is very delicate as opposed to the teochew version which usually has that sweetness and ‘herbiness’ overdrive. The duck meat was well not bad. It’s hard to describe how good duck meat can be but I guess this wasn’t too hard so it’s quite good, unlike those utterly tough ones which needs some jaw work. The soya colored rice is also quite good which is very puffy and soft.

My golden rule of a braised duck rice is the gooey, harmanious gravy with subtle but aromatic flavours and at Lian Kee it has done remarkably well for me. For the duck meat, rice or some other things, I guess there can be endless debates or discussions over it. If you have the same lor ark peng(braised duck rice) philosophy as me, then Lian Kee may be your kind of bliss.

Price: $3.50

Conclusion: This duck rice has the right elements for me. The gooey appearance can make me drool while the overall flavour and taste were pleasantly aromatic. They are also a kway chap stall so I am eager to return to test the kway chap soup.

Likes: Gravy and rice.

Dislikes: None.

Address		Overall Rating
Lian Kee Braised Duck Rice Hin Hollywood Canteen 57 Tanjong Katong Road 11am to 6pm Off: Irregular		Food: 8/10   Authenticity: 8/10   Value: 7.5/10   Service: 7/10   Ambience: 7/10   Cleanliness: 7/10   Overall: 7.75/10

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

But to Singaporeans, the chilli sauce in a plate of Wanton mee is as crucial as chilli in a plate of Nasi Lemak. Alamak, no chilli how to eat? Unless you are not a chilli person then it will just leave you with whatever sauce that comes with it or ketchup in some cases. Unlike Malaysia’s Wanton Mee, Singapore’s version has no ‘national wanton mee sauce’ that’s been recognized by the entire nation.

So what’s the current exchange rate for Singapore’s Wanton Mee? I think one area in our Wanton Mee that is seemingly been underdeveloped is the char siew. Very few stalls actually put much effort into producing very tok kong(outstanding) char siew while the pivotal point of most shiokness in a plate of wanton mee is capped by the shiokness of the chilli which means in most cases, it’s really only the chilli that is defining the shiokness. The only wanton mee that has convincing reasons for me to eat without the chilli was at Crystal Jade and lately, I found out that Da Jie Famous Wanton Mee is on par with Crystal Jade as far the noodles is concerned.

While at Old Airport Road Food Centre recently, I was succumbed to the temptation to try out Hua Kee Hougang Famous Wan Ton Mee to see what exactly they are famous for. I mean other than the self-declared famous claim in the signboard aside, pasted all over the stall are also a lot of write-ups from many food reviews’ guides like U Viewers(Channel U), food columns in local tabloids like Lian He Wan bao and TNP, so I was thinking that the quality here won’t go too far south.

Wanton Mee $3

For my $3 bowl, it came quite shiok. Like many other good wanton mees, the chilli sauce here ruled once again. It has that uncanny similarity to Fei Fei Wanton Mee’s chilli sauce but there is some kind of dark colored sauce below the noodles that makes this bowl of wanton mee a little more shiok. The char siews are, well very common and probably not the reason why they are famous I suppose.

Wanton

But, you know what? The shiokness didn’t end there. A moment later, I was to experience one of the best wantons I ever tasted. It is not easy to describe a good wanton but when you come across one, you know it. I guess this is one wanton that just cruised through my mouth, teeth and throat. Ok why I dubbed this one of the best is because everything about it is just lovely. Every single wanton was nicely wrapped and that muscular cum shining appearance is one good sign of its freshness. Once you put it into your mouth, you can distinctly feel the flavours of the fillings inside which pack some kind of tik poh or giam her taste and is quite simply mouth-chewing good. What I’m trying to say here is that it ain’t some kind of random minced pork you find in your common wanton but one with texture, juice, flavour and taste that is so enjoyable that I have to order a bowl of it.

Wanton Soup $3

Now I see why they are famous. Here is my undisputed wanton champion and I didn’t jump to that conclusion fast for I ordered a bowl of it and finished it up in record time.

So the chilli sauce and wanton is what that can make me come back here. The char siews are not bad and the only short fall for me here is the noodles which is not QQ at all. But until I come across a better wanton, the lack of QQness in the noodles won’t be enough to prevent me from buying a bowl of wanton mee from Hua Kee Hougang Famous Wan Ton Mee the next time I’m near Kallang.

Price: $3

Recommendation: Wanton and chilli sauce.

Conclusion: There isn’t much to talk about this wanton mee except that the chilli is shiok and the wanton super shiok. Not exactly sure what they are famous for but for just $6 I already found reasons valid enough for me to buy from them again if I happen to be near Old Airport Road.

Likes: Wanton is very shiok. Chilli is shiok.

Dislikes: Noodles don’t have QQness(not al dente).

Address		Overall Rating
Hua Kee Hougang Famous Wan Ton Mee Blk 51 Old Airport Road #01-113B Old Airport Road Food Centre 12pm – 12am Off: Monday		Food: 8/10   Authenticity: 8/10   Value: 8/10   Service: 7/10   Ambience: 7/10   Cleanliness: 7/10   Overall: 7.5/10

The first time I ate Fei fei Wanton Mee was when I was in secondary one. Those days, they were housed further up near to 80 Joo Chiat Place and one of my classmates’ father just happened to operate a motor repair shop opposite Fei Fei Wanton Mee. And it was during one day, we got back from the library and my mum gave him a lift back to his father’s shop and that was when he recommended it to us. My parents liked it a lot though I was quite taken aback, pondering how people would even consider it a gem because I used to think that wanton mee must have a slight sweetness in the sauce but yet a bowl at Fei Fei is all about the saltiness in the chilli and the oil.

The original Fei Fei Wanton Mee at 62 Joo Chiat Place

Fei Fei Wanton Mee can be eaten conveniently nowadays with joints all over the island. But like many other franchised food, the ‘quality drop effect’ is blatant. There may be an exception to the stall(no 72) that is 50 metres from the original stall(no 62) along Joo Chiat Place, I’m not sure. I remember the first time I had a bowl from their Bedok branch at Bedok Blk 16, it was similarly decorated with the thick noodles, red char siew and chilli sauce in the spoon but it was not the same quality for 1 reason: They don’t have long queues. You see, for stalls selling noodles, you really need the consistent flow of customers for sellers to justify turning on full fire under the pot. When it’s only the odd customer coming in to eat sporadically, it obviously doesn’t make much economical sense to boil the water/soup at maximum temperature right? You can be sure that’s how your noodles or dumplings taste only 50% of it’s potential shiokness.

Fei Fei Wanton Mee $2.50

The small bowl here will cost you $2.50 though I was told that most people go for the bigger bowl. From the way they react to my order, I might just be the first customer on that day to get the smaller bowl! Don’t be fooled by the 2 slices of char siew in the picture for there were a lot more(5-6 pieces) underneath the noodles though I must admit that I didn’t feel surprised when greeted by the 2 pathetic pieces of char siew because for $2.50, I can’t expect a lot from a ‘celebrity wanton mee stall’ right?.

My bowl of wanton mee was as oily good as before. I guess the distinct point of a Fei Fei’s wanton mee is all that oil/sauce below the noodles which has a subtle saltiness and when mixed with the chilli sauce and the noodles, can be quite delicious. It might be no coincidence that Hong Mao Wanton Mee which is just about 200 metres down the road also has quite oily wanton mee, I’m just guessing that they are learning from each other as the chilli sauce at Hong Mao also has that distinct similiar flavour and taste. The noodles are not translucent but fat here and has that floury texture. Some said it is QQ(al dente) but I consider it just a slight bouncier than normal ones. I guess the wantons are an essential part of Fei Fei wanton mee with the unique taste. Surprisingly, the wantons are wrapped using wanton skins which are a little bit translucent and the fillings have flavours that can boost the performance of any food you put them in.

The enchanting tale of Fei Fei Wanton mee had been told many times over but really and truly, it will be the one for you only if you dislike the sweetness in a plate of wanton mee. Of course the chilli sauce is quite shiok and the wanton quite good but alternatively, I think there are many out there with better char siew, dumplings, soup, noodles or chilli sauce that can thrash it hands down. Otherwise, for those who like your wanton mee to come in all that saltiness, then this would be a prized bowl.

Fei Fei Wanton Mee $2.50

Price: $2.50

Conclusion: Fei Fei Wanton Mee is a big wanton mee player around Joo Chiat area. Many aspiring stalls have opened since at places like Toa Payoh, Bedok and elsewhere. Those stalls are opened by brothers, sisters and relatives of the original owner of this stall. It was almost tragedy at other stalls for me as far my experiences are concerned. This is still the place to go for an authentic bowl of Fei Fei’s wanton mee. $2.50 bowl doesn’t come with soup though the soup has those porkish and ‘noodles’ flavour’ so it isn’t exactly something to die for. Though it might cost you $3.50 to have a decent bowl, don’t expect it to look like it is ‘meant for the king’ okay? The authenticity is in the sauce at the bottom of the noodles. If you like the oiliness and saltiness in your food, this will do very well for you.

Likes: Chilli sauce is good. Dumplings are flavoursome.

Dislikes: Noodles too floury and thick.

Address		Overall Rating
Fei Fei Wanton Mee 62 Joo Chiat Place Sin Wah Coffeeshop 7am to 10pm Tel: 6345 7515		Food: 7.5/10   Authenticty: 8/10   Value: 7/10   Service: 7/10   Ambience: 7/10   Cleanliness: 7/10   Overall: 7.5/10