Ah Yi Handmade Noodle - Manually Hand-Pinched Mee Hoon Kueh @ Marsiling Mall Hawker Centre

This is my first ever visit to Marsiling Mall Hawker Centre at 4 Woodlands Street 12. Opened in 2018, it houses 70 cooked food stalls with 80% of the hawkers coming from the Old Woodlands Town Centre Hawker Centre.

While researching for food recommendations here, Ah Yi Handmade Noodle & Fish Soup caught my eye. Maybe I am bias but that is because I love handmade noodle.

Among the types of noodles available, my favorite is the mee hoon kueh. However, most of the time, I would order either the ban mian or u-mian instead.

The reason for doing so is because not all mee hoon kueh are created equal.

Cheongfun Noodle @ Chinatown Complex Market & Food Centre

Update: Cheongfun Noodle has permanently closed.

Located at the yellow section of Chinatown Complex Market & Food Centre, Cheongfun Noodle is one of the newly opened stalls offering Hong Kong-style rice rolls (cheong fun) and ban mian (handmade noodle).

If my intel is correct, the six-months old stall is run by a Mr and Mrs Wong. The husband, a Hong Konger handmade the cheong fun while the wife, a Malaysian, prepares the noodle.

I chanced upon a photo of their chili ban mian dry ($5.30) on social media when they had just opened. It looked so darn good that I decided it is what I will have but you know what they say procrastination did to men?

So, I finally got my ass off the couch and head down to Chinatown. The stall is not hard to find in the maze-liked food centre if you come up by the myCK Department store escalator.

It is the first stall on your left which used to be Lao Ren Jia Roasted.

Jiak Song Mee Hoon Kway @ Blk 177 Bukit Batok West Ave 8

Another stall that I so desperately wanted to patronize from Get Together Coffee Shop at block 177 Bukit Batok West Ave 8 is Jiak Song Mee Hoon Kway.

The person behind the stall needs no further introduction. He is non other than Aaron Wong of MasterChef Singapore fame.

A professional photographer and diver, Aaron decided to venture into the hawker scene by selling his favorite hawker food - mee hoon kway!

Since opening his flagship stall at Telok Blangah two years ago, you can now find more outlets at Bedok, Toa Payoh, Tampines, Queen Street (Bugis), Jurong West, and now, Bukit Batok.

216 Mee Hoon Kueh @ 216 Choa Chu Kang Ave 1

This is a continuation from my previous post, where I visited 216 Coffee Shop along 216 Choa Chu Kang Ave 1 for its chee cheong fun.

As mentioned previously, the coffee shop was a stone's throw away from my house. I arrived at around 7am to place an order for the chee cheong fun. I anticipated that the rice rolls would not keep me satiate for long hence, I also ordered a bowl of dry mee hoon kueh ($4) for good measure.

Just like the chee cheong fun stall, the mee hoon kueh stall does not have a signboard as well therefore, allow me to call it 216 Mee Hoon Kueh.

I was given a number tag and told to take a seat.

Top 1 Handmade Noodle @ Beauty World Food Centre

Top 1 Handmade Noodle at Beauty World Food Centre is highly raved among ban mian fans. I had wanted to give them a try since a long time ago but have always been turned off by the never-ending queue in front of the stall.

Perhaps due to the pandemic, there were a lot less people than usual when I visited the food centre today. What better time to join the queue than now?

But joining the queue is just the first hurdle. I stood in line for about twenty minutes before I finally get to place my order with the female stall helper. After making payment, I was told to wait at one side.

If you are dining in, you will be given a ticket number. It is then another round of waiting for your number to flash on the screen to collect your order (I waited for about another ten odd minutes). If you are taking away, she will call out to you therefore, wait where she could see you.

While waiting, I noticed her accepting phone orders so there may be invisible orders before yours. Manage your expectations regarding the waiting time. Do not join the queue if you are rushing for time. They do not entertain refunds unless the waiting time exceeds thirty minutes.

L32 Handmade Noodle @ Tampines 1

I have heard about this very famous handmade noodle stall at Geylang Road for a while now. The stall had a rather strange name called L32 which actually stands for Lorong 32, with reference to its location at Geylang.

Geylang is rather out of the way for me so when I found out that they had a branch at Tampines, I was overjoyed.

Tampines is not that near to me either but it is much more accessible than Geylang. The branch in question is located at Tampines 1, inside the food court on the fifth level. I finally found the opportunity to make my way here after sending my parents off at the airport earlier this week.

I took the MRT from Changi Airport to Tanah Merah and transferred to Tampines. Upon reaching, I realized the food court is Kapitans by Kopitiam.

Kin Kin Chilli Pan Mee @ 534 Macpherson Road

Update: Kin Kin Chilli Pan Mee has permanently closed.

I have never tasted dried ban mian (or pan mee, as they are known in Malaysia) before and have always been intrigued by its taste whenever I see Malaysian bloggers blogging about it.

Thus, when Kin Kin Chilli Pan Mee from KL set up a branch here in Singapore two months ago, it got me excited.

I had wanted to go pay them a visit then but was upset to learn that the queue is two hours long!

Disgruntled, I decided to wait until the hype is gone before going down.

秋莲板面 Qiu Lian Ban Mian @ Jurong East Westgate

Qiu Lian Ban Mian at Westgate

I remember I had my very first bowl of Ban Mian from Qiu Lian Ban Mian (秋莲板面) some twenty years ago during my schooling days in the 90s.

Ban Mian is a traditional noodle dish with Hakka origins (some say Hokkien) and it is Qiu Lian who introduces it to the masses in Singapore.

Well, I could be wrong though but I do not recall seeing any other Ban Mian stalls around prior my first bowl at Qiu Lian.

It was only after sometime that other Ban Mian stalls began sprouting all over the island when the dish became popular and gained a foothold in the local food scene.

At that time, the novelty of seeing your noodle being handmade (with the pasta machine) in front of you was something new to me and the chewy texture of the noodles was a refreshing change from the usual mee pok, mee kia, kway teow, etc...

手工面 Hand-made Noodle

Mian Fen Guo (面粉粿)

U-Mian (幼面), Ban Mian (板面) and Mian Fen Guo (面粉粿) are three varieties of noodles classified as hand-made noodles (手工面) and is popularly served in the food courts and hawker centres of Singapore and Malaysia. 

In Malaysia, however, they call it the "Pan Mee".

The dough, which is a blend of flour, egg and water are first kneaded and left to rise. It is then flattened and rolled into the pasta maker; and depending on the kind of pasta you are making, it is then sliced into the desired width.