Hill Street Tai Hwa Pork Noodle – Great Bak Chor Mee in Singapore

Bak chor mee (rou cuo mian 肉挫面) is a great dish that was one of my “must have” dishes on my latest trip to Singapore as I remember it very fondly from when I studied abroad in Singapore.  It is a chiu chow (chao zhou / teo chew) dish that consists of flat yellow noodles called mee pok (mian bao 麪薄) that is garnished with minced pork, pork slices, pork liver slices, sliced mushrooms, bean sprouts, bits of deep-fried lard and a piece of sliced fried fish.  It’s usually served “dry” meaning the soup is on the side and you can get it with or without chili sauce.  There is also a really good vinegar on it.  It’s a pretty popular dish in Singapore.

Tai Hwa is a really old vendor that I think started in 1932 according to their website.  It’s very famous and I decided that I would try this place as my one place to get bak chor mee (unfortunately, I was only in Singapore for 3 days, so I had to pick wisely).  The restaurant is located in a hawker center that is sort of in an apartment building, it’s not really close to anything so we took a taxi there.  The place seemed pretty local and is totally jammed, I had to wait around 20 minutes to get to the front of the line.  A guy comes and takes your order in line, they don’t really speak English from what I can tell, but you could definitely just point if you don’t speak any Chinese.  It’s quite an interesting scene once you get close enough to watch them as there are four guys going at a break neck speed preparing the ingredients and cooking the food (you can see it around 2:20 of this video).

Bak Chor Mee (Rou Cuo Mian):

The noodles here are awesome; they were perfectly al dente and springy.  The version here is a bit different than other versions as it’s not sweet whatsoever; other versions that I’ve had were slightly sweet.  You really just taste the vinegar and the chili oil, both of which are excellent (the chili sauce is particularly good).  The pork slices, minced pork and pork liver slices were good although they were a bit drier than I like.  The soup on the side is quite good as well, a pork stock soup that is sort of cloudy, goes really well with the noodles.  My gf didn’t like it that much as she was turned off by the liver, but I like liver so it suited me well.  Overall, I thought this place was very good. 8.75/10

Address:
Blk 466 Crawford Lane
#01-12
www.taihwa.com.sg
phone: 62927477