Tai Hua Bak Chor Mee: Everybody Queue up!
This is perhaps one of the most famous Bak Chor Mee in Singapore. The name Tai Hwa is almost synoymous with Bak Chor Mee.
Now whenever I meet Teochew Stallowners, our conversation would invariably be in Teochew, and when asked why they are so popular, the standard answer is always: "Chngee, Everyting is Chngee" (Fresh). The Teochew emphasis on freshness is cultural since the Teochew live near the river in Guandong Province. So unlike, say, SzeChuan cuisine, where emphasis is on the spices, Teochew cuisine is quite bland by comparison, emphazing instead on the freshness of the ingredients.
This is perhaps as good as a Bak Chor Mee can get! Its tasty, its fresh, its satisfying. The noodles are real QQ, the chilli shiok, the lard fresh and the black vinegar just gets your salivary glands working overtime. 4.5/5
I love the soup here. My usual fare is a big bowl of Keow Soup (Dumpling Soup) with sliced pork, minced pork and pork balls. Very satisfying and easy to digest so that you get hungry again by dinner! Just look at the density of pork protein in the soup!
Conclusion
The best Bak Chor Mee in Singapore? I have not heard many protest against that claim yet!
Hill Steet Tai Hua Pork Noodle
Blk 466 Crawford Lane
#01-12
www.taihwa.com.sg
62927477
9.30am to 9pm
Closed 1st and 3rd Monday
11 comments:
Yes this is the best Bak Chor Mee in Spore but then you must consider the other goody BCM @ $2 to $3-. Tai Hua charge $4' but the ingredients are fresh because they have a good following. He adds Ti Por (Salted Fish), Very Fresh liver and his soup is from stock, which made his BCM No.1.He made his own Keok (Teochew version of wanton) which is also fresh and savoury.
When I was a kid, my entire extended family - parents, uncles, aunties, cousins - would visit Tai Hwa at Hill Street and patiently wait for our mee pok tar for adults and kway teow tng for us kids. I love love love the Tai Hwa BCM...its the best.
Ya, its quite hard to dispute the claim of being best BCM in S'pore. The Q was even more ridiculous when they were in Marina Sq. Best BCM soup too!
Hv tried Seng Kee BC mee and also Tai Hwa, would say that Tai Hwa is still better. The texture of the mee-pok & chilli are better than Seng kee Bak Chor mee.
tai hwa is the best! love their BCM!
I remember the days when I patronized Tai Hwa Pork Noodles for their Bak Chor Mee since they were at the very first and old Marina Square outdoor foodcourt.
After more than 10 years or close to 20, they've moved out and have since operated in this coffeeshop at Crawford Lane. Practically 80% of all patrons would be slurping down on a bowl of BCM while the other 20% would be eating from the Western food stall right beside it.
I've always fancied their Kway Teow over their You Mian (thin yellow noodles) or Mee Pok, this is because I think the Kway Teow does not absorb the sauces - chilli, oil, vinegar. I simply somehow imagine that the Kway Teow, tho mixed with the sauces still remain 2 seperate entities w/o combining into 1 soggy noodle.
Anyways, I always take it dry with extra vinegar. At one time I went to Tai Hwa so frequently with diff friends that Junior Tai Hwa (the son) could remember my order with extra vinegar. Haha!
$6 is the way to go, being served in a bigger bowl with what I call an emperor's bowl. Thats cos they serve it to you in this bowl that is bigger than the other $4 and $5 portions, eventho the $6 serving isnt a whole lot more. I guess washing the bigger bowl costs 50cents more. hahahaha
With the added ingredients and extra bit of noodles in the $6 serving, you also get seaweed in your seperate bowl of soup. Its not featured in this article's picture, I think thats bcos its a $4 portion, they dont add in seaweed.
I admit $4, $5 and $6 are ridiculous amounts to pay for a bowl of BCM. But I suppose they've reached that level of superiority and reputation to be able to charge an exorbidant price, and yet still able to draw a big crowd every day. Just try queuing up on a weekday lunch hour. You'd be lucky if you waited for less than 30mins. My usual queue time is 45 minutes.
The long queue is mostly attributed to their long and tedious method of preparing the whole BCM. Just stand behind the counter to observe and you'd drop your jaw. (remember to count the number of bowls he uses to prepare 1 bowl of BCM)
They used to have pig kidney together with the rest of the ingredients, liver, pork meat, minced meat, dried cuttlefish, meatballs, dumpling & seaweed. But because of the problem with the tainted pork meat that we had from Malaysia a few years ago, they've stopping including it already. Just like its almost impossible to find pork blood now.
Nonetheless, I would still say this is the number 1 BCM in Sg.
They've added a new outlet at the Vivocity foodcourt. Oddly, when I mentioned that to Jr. Tai Hwa, he said "dont go there lah, eat here better!"
Salivating oredi, think Im going down tmr.... however feeling guilty to pay $6 for a bowl of noodles.
Food for thought -> I wonder if they were the ones that got mentioned in the newspaper that 'a particular hawker in a coffeeshop selling a speciality' that under-declared their revenue and under paid their taxes while earning $4,000,000 in 6 years?
i think they have another store at hong lim food center, opp outram park fried kway teow.vivo city cannot find leh.
I went there on 10 Aug 2.30pm. The noodles were soggy. =( We had ordered the ketchup version and it fell short to my expectations. The only comfort for the wait was that the soup was really tasty.
My all time favourite BCM is the traditional soup kind sold at Blk511 Market Bedok North St3. They were recently interviewed on tv. The best part? It's only at $2!
This is really the best BCM you can find. I was brought here by my spiritual director.
A bowl of noodles with dumpling soup..
its heaven on earth
Hi Neko,
Their specialty is the noodles with chilli and vinegar, not the ketchup version.
My personal favourite BCM.
Being a fanatic of BCM, i used to whack a bowl of Tai Hwa BCM at the outdoor foodcourt at Marina Square and then another bowl of Chai Chee Abalone BCM at the indoor foodcourt :)
Those were the salad days where I could pile on extra calories... Nowadays, it's a totally different story :)
have been reading this blog since weeks ago, and visited Tai hua last sunday. I queued for around 40mins before i can get to taste it. Maybe because of the owner's age had been catching up, the cooking speed is quite slow compared to those in bedok market. Guess they really cook it with TLC? I think the BCM had been over-rated but no doubt it had been a favorite amongst public. I find that the vinegar taste has over-powered the taste of the chilli, and the noodle very "Q" as I expected, and i felt thirsty after eating the noodles, dunnoe if they put msg in it? the only good thing is, their soup is quite tasty, but I won't go there and queue again unless necessary as there are alot of tasty BCM elsewhere.
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