Showing posts with label Bak Chor Mee. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bak Chor Mee. Show all posts

Yam Mee Teochew Fishball Mee, Singapore

Address:
#01-35, Kovan Hougang Market and Food Centre, 209 Hougang Street 21, Singapore 530209

Opening times:
Everyday from 7am to 3pm

Website: -

Our honest opinions:
It is probably a 5 minutes or less walk from Kovan MRT. During peak hours, especially on weekends mornings, it will be pretty hard to find a seat in this hawker centre. Queue may be pretty long, however it is good to know that they have 2 persons working simultaneously to move the queue pretty fast.

Meepok noodles BCM
BCM noodles with Teo Chew dumplings
The noodles have really good bounce to it. Its texture is cook to perfection. The vingar taste, which is a must-have in Teochew noodles, is there without being overpowering though you can hardly see the sauce. Their special vegetarian fishball was were really really juicy and soft. Probably the best I had so far. The mushrooms were sliced thickly and braised so well. It was soft, tender and really juicy. The mushrooms were really awesome, the best! The minced meat could have been softer, but it is overly chewy. The fishballs and meatballs were rather average. It was really spicy despite asking for little chilli, but it was still good.

We also ordered a side bowl of Teochew dumplings which were just average and had some glass noodles in them too.

Price: $3.50 per bowl of noodles and $4 for the bowl of Teochew dumplings. Rather decent pricing considering how Singapore is going through inflation over the past few years.

Hill Street Tai Hwa Pork Noodles, Singapore

Address:
Block 466, Crawford Lane, #01-12, Singapore 190466

Opening times: 
Everyday from 9.30am to 9pm
Closed on every 1st and 3rd Mondays of the month

Website:

Our honest review:
It is definitely not an easy place to get to without a car. Parking there is horrendous. We happened to be around the neighbourhood so we chanced to try it out. We reached around 10am on a Sunday morning and I guess we were pretty lucky to get a parking lot instantaneously. There was already a queue piling up and I would say it was about 10-15 people ahead of me. The coffee shop itself is pretty empty. Finding a table was therefore easy as ABC.

But the waiting game began .. 30 minutes.. 1 hour.. 1.5 hours.. Before it got to my turn. Honestly, it isn't because there was many people ahead of me, or that there were many orders ahead of me. It is definitely the pace the store owner was going at. The boss really wants to do everything, from cooking the noodles, cutting ingredients to collecting money. It was such an inefficient way and if so, why does he even bother hiring workers?!

3 bowls of $5 noodles and 1 bowl of $5 meatballs
The noodles indeed had a decently semi-cooked springy texture to it. The minced meat itself was soft as could and the pork chunks were chewy in a nice way. The meatballs though, it wasn't very fantastic. Thought it was pretty soft in a really weird way and that the taste of the meat was not even that strong. They also had this extra piece of wanton which wasn't too bad. Teochew noodles are famous for their liver and I thought they were pretty authentic when they added the dried fish (tipou). More importantly was the vinegar base, it was pretty good but just felt that the noodles were basically drowning in them. It was kind of hard trying to save the noodles and my taste bud.

Price: Starting bowl price from $5, up to $10. I realised most customers order a $6 bowl, and maybe it is because it is the price most worth for the portion and ingredients? I felt $5 for a bowl of noodles is indeed way too expensive, taking into consideration that the portion sizes were fairly small too.

After having my meal, I realise why it will never be a problem to find a table to eat. Because people eat the noodles way faster than his efficiency level.

Were the noodles good? Yes. Was it the best? Definitely not. Will I come back here again? Definitely no. Nothing is ever worth when the queue is more than 45 minutes long, unless it is free. Weighing both the price, wait and quality, I would never recommend this place to anyone. Unless you have time to kill off, and if you do, maybe you take some idle time to reflect on life too.