Hajjah Sadiah Othman Muslim Food: Best Malay-style Mee Goreng!

This stall which began in the 1960s was started by the grandfather in the family and is now run by the third-generation — two brothers and three sisters.

While halal yong tau foo dominates the frontage of their stall, they are actually most popular for their Malay-style wok-fried staple dishes like mee bandung (meat and seafood noodles in a spicy red gravy) and their many varieties of mee goreng and bihun goreng.

The reason why is because dishes like mee goreng done in a Malay-style is quite hard to find.

The stalls that do serve it don’t fry it as robust as Hajjah Sadiah Othman.

In Singapore, the Indian muslim style — which comes drier and with red colouring — is the norm.

At Hajjah Saidah Othman, their wok-fried staples are served in a few different ways: dry, more gravy-ish, with seafood or with cockles and they are also priced lower than what is usual ($4).

Look past the stall frontage and into the kitchen and you’ll see up to three woks furiously burning away to serve the many orders they get.

The main base dish is one that has a beautifully thick reduced gravy with a strong, bold umami flavour — spicy, sweet, savoury and rich and there are other flavours that add variety to the taste — chopped coriander, tomatoes, fried onions.

There are also a variety of textures at play — vegetable crunch, soft egg-iness, crisp fried onions, meaty minced mutton bits and soft but firm noodle bite.

You can choose to have it dry or a bit more watered down and the version with bee hoon (Bee Hoon Basah, $3.50) is incredibly popular with the crowd as is Mee Goreng Kerang ($4) which uses yellow noodles and adds cockles for a little bit more intense seafood flavour.

The other dish which gets plenty of orders is their Mee Bandung ($4) which can also be ordered with gravy or more soup-ish.

A variety of ingredients — minced mutton, fishballs, poached egg, prawns, chopped chye sim — are served in a spicy thick soup that has chilli, onion, shrimp paste and dried shrimp flavours and the taste is wonderfully bold and umami-like.

One downside is the freshness of the ingredients is not always spot on — we’ve encountered sour fishballs on the rare occasion, a sign that raw ingredients have not been kept properly, likely due to improper refrigeration.

Do feedback to them if you do encounter it.