I just hope this has no connection to the fact that I keep running back to my favourite Laksa stall.

But have you wondered why people can love chee hum(raw cockles) for it’s bloodiness(which is quite disgusting actually) but not bloodie earthworm(with same level of disgustingness no less)?

The day comes when a Laksa seller swaps the chee hum sauce for earthworm sauce, do you think you can tell the difference? If it taste exactly the same, will you be able to accept? All these just point to one thing, it’s all in our mind.

For Singaporeans, good food means good food, therefore we are going to join the queue, dirty tricks or not!

I was first brought to the attention of this Kok Kee Wanton Mee few months back by my friend, Boon Tiong. He was seriously raving about this stall to no ends and was very adamant about the fact that $3.50 version always cannot fix his Wan Ton Mee needs and he always needs the $5 version!

But yet what I didn’t tell him is that the photos he took of his Kok Kee’s wanton mee meal is not appetising to me and so I was really in two minds about travelling all the way there to join the queue. Moreover after reading many reviews, it’s clear to me that this stall is really one of those stalls that has supporters and haters in equal numbers. It was a 50-50 chance there.

So I finally found the time to find it out myself.

The verdict?

Kok Kee Wan Ton Mee

Kok Kee Wan Ton Mee

Kok Kee Wan Ton Mee’s sauce

I quite like it. This flavour is mysteriously authentic but yet it is simple. It is pretty straightforward to understand why I like this. It has a strong hint of that sweetness(tick!), it is very wet(tick!), it has the right balance as all the different flavours complement each other well and it was quite effortless for me to finish the plate(tick!), they have a good flow of customers which means their ingredients are kept fresh(tick!).

A lot of good Wanton Mees(dry version) rely on the flavours of the chilli to score points. The thing is that in those situations, it is quite easy for me to get a chilli overdose which can produce a bad aftertaste. I mean, I really love chilli and everytime I eat those dry noodles, I would ask for more more more chilli but if it goes to the point where it’s really only the chilli that matters, then you’re going to keep asking for a lot right? And when it’s only the chilli that shiok me to no ends in a plate of Wanton Mee, the love story can only be a very short one.

Kok Kee Wan Ton Mee’s wanton

Kok Kee Wan Ton Mee’s char siu

Kok Kee Wan Ton Noodle is selling a Singapore style of Wanton mee. The Char Siu is really one of those red color meat and the Wanton is made of those things that you can find in the fillings of Siu Mai. So if judging by these 2 ingredients alone, Kok Kee Wan Ton Noodle would be an EPIC PHAIL.

Fortunately Kok Kee Wanton Noodle has another trick up it’s sleeve. They have this special sauce(where the sweetness comes from) that will be poured on your plate of Wanton Mee in big quantity as if you’re ordering a soup Wanton Mee. For those who haven’t noticed, this plate of Wanton Mee actually has so much of the sauce(or soup, or gravy) that if you were to pour it into a bowl, it seriously can consume half the bowl’s volume.

Not sure what’s exactly in the sauce but it tasted very much like nothing more than sesame oil and oyster sauce mixed with sugar. The end result is quite impressive for me. It found the right balance and I slurped it away quite effortlessly and I seriously can’t remember the last time I slurped away a plate of Wanton Mee away that easily.

This reminds me of those Bak Chor Mee at Bedok Blk 85 especially at Xing Ji Rou Cuo Mian where it was also as slurping good without much effort. I guess I can also imagine Bak Chor Mee noodles on this plate with a bit of the Bak Chor Mee soup and some sambal chilli sauce with the a few Bak Giaos(dumplings), fwah! Also can be slurping good for me!

This plate of Wanton Mee from Kok Kee Wan Ton Noodles may suffer from an image problem, but it is not a problem for me. A lot of food are very ‘handsome’ when you look at it but couldn’t justify it’s ‘handsomeness’ with it’s taste.

For me, give me shiokadodo food anytime, for no amount of sexiness in a food’s appearance can make me full.

Price: $3.50

Recommendation: $5 if you are a wanton mee lover!

Conclusion: This is one wanton mee that many people like and many people don’t like. If you like your wanton mee to be sweet and wet, you will like this. The noodles are not very QQ, wanton is very normal and char siu is pretty tasteless. The chilli by itself may be nothing to rave too. But the whole thing put together is a piece of satisfaction for me. This reminds me of Toyota cars. Not the best looking but what a smooth and quiet piece of engineering! The soup is quite shiok, won’t be long before I will be back to try the $5 version or the soup version.

Likes: Outstanding balance. Sweet and wet.

Dislikes: Could be better if the noodles had that bit more QQness. Definitely better if the char siew are those fatty cum chao tah ones. Would be the best Wanton Mee is the entire galaxy if they can master the art of producing shiokadodo dumplings too! If that day ever comes, then it would be a Lexus instead of a Toyota!

Finally I tried the Kok Kee Wanton Mee
Now I know why it’s as addictive as coffee
It may not be the best for the eye to see
But it more than worth my Wanton Mee’s fee

It is sweet and wet enough for me
Just how I like my wanton mee to be
The sauce aplenty – like dunno what pee
But for shiokness, there was more than wee

In honour of this newfound Wanton Mee matrix
I decided it’ll be the place for my Wanton Mee fix
Got addicted to this mysterious ingredients mix
Now I see why long queues are permanently affix

Address		Overall Rating
Kok Kee Wan Ton Noodle 380 Jalan Besar #01-06 Lavender Food Square 12pm to 2am Off: Wed and Thurs(3 weeks once)		Food: 8.5/10   Value: 7/10   Authenticity: 9/10   Service: 8/10   Ambience: 7/10   Cleanliness: 7/10   Overall: 7.75/10

For those who wondered why Hainanese cuisine has such limited food variety, it’s because Hainan was not active agriculturally. It was actually meant to be an exile island where the Emperor exiled all the hardcore political dissidents and other elements. These officials were banished to that little island mainly because they did not agree with the right people and too dangerous to have around court but yet too precious to kill. The place became a province only in 1988.

The fact is no emperor had visited Hainan island and none of them looked to develop Hainan and so it was, in general, culturally backward and poor. The men spent most of their days at teahouses talking about everything and anything under the sky. As such Hainam nang in Singapore are more political conscious or socially conscious. If you go around Singapore, those ah beih who sit in coffeeshops and comment about politics or current affairs, more than half of them are Hainam nang.

Now eventhough Hainan had a lack of agricultural activities, it is quite surprising to know that the Hainanese community still excels in the culinary field. They make the best chicken rice and kaya spread in this part of the world and that’s because a lot of them came here during the age of empire tagging along as servants on the tail coats of their colonial masters. Most of them picked up culinary skills onboard ships and it’s no wonder the Hainanese make fantastic toast or western food such as pork chop.

Being a Hainanese, I was often asked the question “Do you know how to cook Hainanese Chicken Rice?”. The matter of the fact is I don’t know what’s so difficult about boiling some chicken and cook some rice that have that garlic, sesame oil and pandan leaf flavour. But yet the truth is I find no pleasure in eating boiled chicken skin so Hainanese Chicken Rice is really one of those food that I this Hainanese cannot resonate with.

Thien Kee Hainanese Steamboat at Golden Mile Complex has come a long way. I remembered they used to operate from a coffeeshop inside this perimeter of an area near to Middle Road where there were cinemas, some shops and basically have what looked like pasar malam street kind of environment if you know what I mean. Those were the days and my father used to fetch us all the way to that place just to have this famous Thien Kee Hainanese steamboat.

Thien Kee is one of those eating place where a lot of Hainanese goes to because the flavour of the food there can provide that Hainanese nostalgia. Me and my family included. I’ve been eating this thing since very young so that ‘Hainanese’ flavour in the food here is actually something that I had acquired for a long time.

The food served here are very old school kind with ingredients like seafood, pork and vegetables. The price for steamboat starts from $20. Now this place can get so busy that in the evening that you may need to wait for a while to get seats. Infact they’ve even rented something like 3 or 4 shops beside their shop to house those chairs and tables for customers and yet the queues just can’t seem to get any shorter whenever I was there.

Now I’m going to tell you that the steamboat ingredients used here are pretty oridinary and it’s something that you probably can get from the market for a fraction of what it may cost you here. The thing that makes this the only surviving Hainanese steamboat in Singapore is it’s kickass oily rice and chili sauce.

Other than those things, the soup here is pretty good. If you were to pour all your ingredients into the soup and let it boil for a while, it will have what I will call a ‘Hainanese’ addictive flavour which is something I’ve tried but yet cannot be duplicated at home using the same selection of ingredients. I’m suspecting there are some secret ingredients used in preparing the stock, I ain’t sure but it definitely wasn’t the excessive use of msg.

Another highlight of Thien Kee is it’s beef stir fried in ginger and onion. Well it’s very different from the cantonese version where you get lots of wok hei flavour, here you get a dose of what I would call the ‘Hainanese beef flavour’. I’m a hardcore fan of stir fried beef and yet I’ve never seen this flavour been duplicated anywhere else so if you’re coming here I tell you now that you really really must try this dish if you’re seriously keen to explore this Hainanese eating experience right to the max.

I’ve heard many things about Hainanese pork satay here but yet on this occasion when we ordered, we found it to be pretty ordinary with what seem like it was grilled on anything but charcoal. So that charcoal flavour was so dearly missing and so satay unfortunately is something I can’t see myself eating here again. The satay gravy has that run of the mill kind of satay sauce taste which was seriously lacking that peanut flavour.

The stir fried beef costed us $10 while the selection of ingredients was $25. $35 for 3 person to embrace an authentic Hainanese affair is a pretty reasonable price I guess. If you’re going, good luck in finding the place as people often get confused with Golden Mile Tower and Golden Mile Complex. But if you really can’t find it, then just stroll along the basement of both buildings and you will surely soon be met by this most authentic Hainanese steamboat in town.

Price: $20 and above

Recommendation: Stir Fried Ginger Beef

Conclusion: Simple food that did not cost us an arm and a leg but yet authentic. Dining here always make me wonder why I can’t duplicate the flavour using the same selection of ingredients at home.

Likes: Authentic Hainanese flavour and cheap.

Dislikes: Ingredients used can be that bit fresher.

Address		Overall Rating
Golden Mile Thien Kee B1-20 Beach Road Golden Mile Tower Singapore 199589 Tel: 6298 5891 /6293 5910		Food: 8/10   Value: 8/10   Service: 7/10   Ambience: 7/10   Cleanliness: 6/10   Overall: 7.5/10