Outram Park Fried Kway Teow & Other Noodles at Hong Lim Food Centre

Outram Park Fried Kway Teow Mee is always a contender for best char kway teow in Singapore. But there are many other good stalls at Hong Lim Food Centre. In addition to the Outram Park CKT, we also had Tai Wah Pork Noodles and Ah Heng Curry Chicken Bee Hoon Mee. It was a double Michelin Bib Gourmand lunch.

At lunch time, there is always a queue for the famous char kway teow at Outram Park Fried Kway Teow Mee. The only question is how long is the queue. It is common to see a few queues snaking around the Hong Lim Food Centre. There are a couple of other super star stalls that also attract a strong following – do check that you are joining the right queue.

Outram Park Fried Kway Teow

We considered ourselves lucky that the Outram Park Fried Kway Teow queue had only about 20 people in front of us that day (around 11.20am on a weekday). They have an efficient system and someone comes around to take orders and collect payments while customers stand in the queue. For a 20-man queue we waited around 30 minutes. The price of a standard Outram Park char kway teow is $4. Extra cockles or eggs will require additional payments. Their opening hours are from 6am to 3pm, closed on Sundays and public holidays.

The Outram Park Fried Kway Teow was as good as we expected it to be. It is hard to say why it is so good. I believe the secret lies in the cockles used. They were small and sweet and the chef was very generous with them – there were lots of them in each place, each cooked perfectly. There was noticeable wok hei but this is not a fried kway teow which grabs you by the wok hei. The moderate taste as well as the balance in the seasonings blended all the ingredients very well. This is one dish I am happy to eat again any time.

This is a picture of what we at that day. As you can see the star attraction of our lunch at Hong Lim Food Centre was the Outram Park char kway teow. We designated the first person to arrive to start queuing for this.

Outram Park Fried Kway Teow Mee
Blk 531A, Upper Cross Street
#02-17 Hong Lim Market & Food Centre

Tai Wah Pork Noodle @ Hong Lim Food Centre

Another noodle stall that we tried that day was Tai Wah Pork Noodle. Like Outram char kway teow, Tai Wah is also a famous stall and has a Singapore Michelin Bib Gourmand recognition. It shares some history with another popular bak chor mee stall – Hill Street Tai Wah Pork Noodles which was one of first two street food sellers in the world to be awarded a Michelin star. They are run by brothers whose father started selling the minced pork noodles from a street cart in Hill Street in the 1930s.  You can read more about their story at the Singapore Michelin Guide website

We had both the mee pok and mee kia versions ($6 each) for sharing. They taste roughly the same, but my preference is the mee pok. The look and texture of mee pok somehow seems more suitable for bak chor mee, or minced pork noodles. The meat balls, liver slices, sauce and crunchy noodles were all very good.

Tai Wah Pork Noodle
Blk 531A, Upper Cross Street
#02-16 Hong Lim Market & Food Centre

Ah Heng Curry Chicken Bee Hoon Mee

For a change of taste we also tried noodles from Ah Heng Curry Chicken Bee Hoon Mee. This was my first time trying it and I must say I was very impressed by this stall which also has an entry in the Singapore Michelin Guide. We shared this bowl of bee hoon and noodles ($6). What was immediately apparent was that the curry was the magic ingredient. It looks like a red hot and spicy curry, but was actually rather mild. And very tasty as well. You can cook anything with the curry and it will taste wonderful. The other ingredients – noodles, fish cake and tau pok were quite usual but the chicken deserves special mention for being tender and flavourful.

Ah Heng Curry Chicken Bee Hoon Mee
Blk 531A, Upper Cross Street
#02-59 Hong Lim Market & Food Centre

Why did we choose these three stalls at Hong Lim to try? The main consideration was to buy food from the same level as the food centre is spread over two floors. All these three stalls are on the upper level (level 2). The length of queue was also important so that we could get the food by around the same time.

For dessert we had some bee chang kueh (picture below) from Granny’s Pancake (Stall #02-39).

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The Ordinary Patrons | Real Dining Experience of Ordinary People
an independent Singapore food blog