Best eats: Our Hokkien mee picks in Singapore – with crunchy lard, fiery sambal
Our celebration of the top local eats equally voted by Gold 905 listeners continues with that quintessential noodle dish – fried Hokkien prawn mee.
A rich stock made from prawns and pork is the key to the making of a great plate of Hokkien mee, wok-fried with a mix of seafood, meat, and yellowish and rice noodles.
Personal preferences run the gamut – some prefer a wetter consistency, some expect lots of wok hei (breath of the wok), while others think a skilful chilli sauce is essential. But everything pivots around that delicious saucy stew the noodles are sauteed in.
While there are several Southeast Asian versions, this variety has its roots firmly in China's Fujian (Hokkien) cuisine, before reaching its evolutionary acme in Singapore, thanks to the culinary resourcefulness of early settlers.
Before it got its electric current name, it was known as Rochor mee for the stretch of road where the dish was first created and sold by Chinese immigrants from the Fujian province.
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1 origin story mentions Chinese sailors who congregated along Rochor Road and thriftily used backlog noodles from factories in the area to create the dish using flavours from home.
Though this romantic historical account can't be verified, almost won't dispute that Rochor Road was synonymous with the early days of Hokkien mee.
Such noodle stalls are now institute all across the island, though only a few really stand out. Cheers to recommendations from Golden 905 listeners, I checked out ii pop stalls. 1 brought the fatty, one brought the fire, but both admittedly brought the flavour.
Come up DAILY FRIED HOKKIEN PRAWN MEE
A literal translation of its Mandarin proper name (Tian Tian Lai), this famous Toa Payoh stall unabashedly ups the fat factor of their signature Hokkien mee with lashings of lard – crispy, crunchy cubes of pure pork fat.
Loyal customers also rave about the exceptional gravy, which engulfs the noodles in a deluge of deliciousness.
If yous like your Hokkien mee on the wetter side, you'll honey Come Daily'southward, which was a delightfully sloppy mess, swimming in a runny, glutinous puddle of gravy that was thick with egg and other tasty little morsels.
Ane gustation and I understood why customers return in droves. It was all in that sleeky, deeply umami sauce. Time had been taken to allow pork bones, prawn heads, shells and other secret goodies to stew together, for maximum extraction of sweet, briny, meaty flavour.
Indeed, Come Daily's main stock and Hokkien mee has been more v decades in the making. I met Jason Huang, the third generation chef in this family concern, who explained that their stall was showtime set up in 1968 by his grandfather, who then passed his skills on to Jason'south father, Steven Ng.
Ng is currently the principal chef, lording over his hot wok with his mad mee-frying skills. Jason'southward female parent Jessie Teo helps with taking and serving orders. Loyal Toa Payoh-ians, they've always plied their trade in this beloved part of Singapore.
"You can still see where my grandpa'due south stall used to be," Jason told me, pointing to the field downstairs, clearly visible from their stall on the second floor of Toa Payoh Westward Market place and Nutrient Middle.
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It struck me that the Ng family literally had a clear vision of where they had come up from, which fuels what they're doing now, and with Jason'south contributions, where they're headed in the future.
"Really, my dad and I take turns to fry the Hokkien mee, but during the circuit breaker I had to focus more on organising all the deliveries, as he'due south not equally familiar with that side of the business," Jason added.
Certainly, his agility with online orders and deliveries kept their customers well-fed fifty-fifty through Singapore's phase of stay-home measures. He's the digital-and-tech chef who will continue to take Come Daily into the next generation.
Facebook? Check. Instagram? Check. To acme off their impressive performance, they even accept a pager arrangement for oversupply control. And believe me, they demand it.
At 8am, several customers were already patiently waiting for their orders to exist prepared. I grabbed a buzzer that looked like a hockey puck emblazoned with their branding and settled downward for the expect.
Xx minutes later, olfactory senses buzzing as vigorously as the pager, I finally collected my freshly-fried plate of Hokkien mee.
At Southward$8 for a medium-sized club (also available in Due south$5, S$x and South$18 portions), the large oval platter was almost overflowing with saucy yellowish noodles and thick rice vermicelli, which had completely drunk in all those lip-smacking flavours, without becoming mushy.
The gravy was robust and rich, with the flavours of prawn and pork playing prominently on the palate. Immune plenty of time to naturally thicken and develop in the wok, at that place was lots of texture in the sauce, including beansprouts and tiny, tender gobbets of pork disintegrating into the eggy voluptuousness.
A handful of boisterous squid, pork slivers and fresh prawns echoed the gravy's glorious surf-and-turf essence. The prawns were particularly surprising – they looked small and ordinary, simply turned out to be really juicy and crunchy, with practiced snap and natural sugariness. Usually overcooked and chalky, these tail-on, de-shelled crustaceans were a reflection of Mr Ng's proficient wok-treatment skills.
Their deep cherry chilli paste – spicy with the salty-sweet funk of hae bee (stale shrimp) – and a squeeze of zingy calamansi lime, piled on even more layers of flavour.
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But the piece de resistance came in the form of an eye-popping, eye-stopping pile of crispy lard chunks. These were clearly bootleg, rustic little jewels of pork fatty that had been lovingly deep-fried to the very border of being burnt, though non quite.
Their charred crispiness was a masterstroke in calculation fume to the gentle wok hei of the Hokkien mee. Each aureate-brownish lard bit had a crunchy-sparse shell that melted in the mouth, releasing a luxurious blitz of porky flavour to the sauce-slicked noodles.
Honestly though, Come Daily'due south Hokkien mee was so well-counterbalanced, that it could have been eaten entirely on its ain, without those extra condiments. And that is the true mark of a really superior sauce.
Paler than my usual preference, I had idea it might plough out to be banal. But i spoonful and the surge of flavor completely flooded my senses.
And so don't be fooled by its appearance. The proof was in the eating and this was one Hokkien mee that lived upwards to its name. With their heaped servings of crispy lard and flavor-packed gravy, Come Daily Fried Hokkien Prawn Mee will brand you desire to practise just that. 3 slurps to a decadent noodle treat you'll crave to swallow every mean solar day.
Located at Blk 127, Lorong 1 Toa Payoh, #02-27, Singapore 310127 . Opening hours from 8am to ii.30pm (closed on Mondays). To pre-lodge take- away, telephone call 9671 7071.
SINGAPORE FRIED HOKKIEN MEE
For a different simply no less delicious Hokkien mee experience, this Whampoa institution brings the fire, in both their superb sambal chilli and their feisty cook, who wasn't too pleased I had stuck my caput in her kitchen to brand my order.
Unusually, orders are taken past someone perched on a stepped platform round the corner from the storefront. I had unwittingly jumped the (unseen) queue by ordering from the wrong side of the stall. Another client had to talk me through their system before I realised there already were several people ahead of me.
Order finally restored, I sheepishly slunk abroad to expect for my noodles, observing that there always seemed to be a steady stream of three to four customers placing their orders. And the stall had only been open up for 15 minutes!
I could just imagine what the crowds would be like at dinner and supper time. Tardily-night eaters, rejoice: Singapore Fried Hokkien Mee opens till 1.30am.
A huge platter of fragrant noodles, enough for 4 to share, cost only S$8 (as well available in S$4, Due south$v, S$vi, S$ten and S$xv portions). This Hokkien mee looked to be of a less soupy, more than creamy consistency.
As time ticked on, the sauce and noodles started to meld seamlessly into one cohesive mass. Small prawns, squid tentacles and bean sprouts swam in the saturated ooze that seemed to hover in a state between wet and dry.
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In this state, chopsticks were completely redundant. The absorbent noodles, having reached critical sauce capacity, were tender and moist enough to be eaten with just a spoon.
Dotted by tiny bits of char from the wok, the Hokkien mee had an attractively deep hue, most as if it had been branded past a screamingly hot wok.
In fact, I had smelled it fifty-fifty before I located the stall. Wafting through the air was the thick, almost palpable aroma of smoky frying, mingled with the enticing pungency of treasures from the bounding main. Was it fish sauce? Was information technology belachan (fermented, toasted shrimp paste)? Any it was, my mouth was watering.
As they say, where in that location's smoke, there's likewise fire. This was perfectly encapsulated by their natural language-tingling chilli sauce. It looked really appetising – a bright vermillion sambal, loose and chunky with belachan, crimson chillies and calamansi lime. It tasted every bit expert as information technology looked, flavour afterwards season pinging through my mouth.
Pungent, salty belachan brought a boatload of umami, chilli padi brought a powerful burn down, calamansi limes brought a refreshing effulgence.
The searing stuff was addictive and had me diving back in for more. Each spoonful of Hokkien mee got more than and more intense, more than and more flavourful when slathered with that killer sambal belachan.
Singapore Fried Hokkien Mee started off as simply another plate of tasty noodles, until paired with dollops of their chilli sauce. The dish was admittedly transformed from decent to extraordinary past its star condiment. That sambal belachan alone is worth paying this stall a visit.
Located at Whampoa Makan Place, 90 Whampoa Bulldoze, #01-32, Singapore 320090 . Opening hours from 3.30pm to 1.30am (Mondays to Fridays, closed on Thursdays) and 2pm to ane.30am (Saturdays and Sundays).
Catch Makan Kakis with Denise Tan every Thursday from 11am on GOLD 905.
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Source: https://cnalifestyle.channelnewsasia.com/dining/best-local-food-singapore-hokkien-mee-toa-payoh-whampoa-259056
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