Lai Heng Mushroom Minced Meat Noodle: a Bak Chor Mee institution in Toa Payoh!

By HungryGoWhere July 11, 2021
Lai Heng Mushroom Minced Meat Noodle: a Bak Chor Mee institution in Toa Payoh!
Table of Contents

Located in a tucked-away coffeeshop off Lorong 4 is arguably the most famous bak chor mee stall in Toa Payoh with queues of over 40 minutes if you come here on a weekend ($4/5/6).

Founded by “Ah Peng”, now 61, Lai Heng Mushroom Minced Meat Noodle has been operating in the Toa Payoh area since 1985.

Its original location was at Toa Payoh Lorong 4, Block 85c before shifting to Toa Payoh Lorong 7, Block 51 in 2008, then to its current location at block 73 Toa Payoh Lorong four in 2018.

Run by Ah Peng and various family members — four brothers, sister and two nieces — the stall has a strange queuing system where they give you a number when you order and you collect it when your number is displayed on an LCD panel.

Minced pork, pork slices and liver come nicely soft and the reasonably softly al dente noodles are dressed in a generous sauce that has a big shrimp-based chilli sambal and lard flavour.
There is a little sweetness in it and almost no sour vinegar notes at all, though there is some Chinese black vinegar on the side if you’d like some in the mix.
What is for certain is that the sliced chilli in soya sauce on the side is not needed as there is so much flavour in the sauce.
Be warned that the chilli dry option for their bak chor mee comes properly spicy as compared to other bak chor mee stalls so ask them to hold back on the chilli if you don’t take alot of it.
The other highlight are the generous amounts of sliced braised mushrooms and pork lard pieces they throw on top.

The pork lard used to be free-flow in the past but they’ve since stopped that practice.
They also used to put some large tee po (dried sole fish) pieces which gave the dish more of a fishy flavour and a nice crunch but they’ve omitted that in current times. A pity.
What they still retain are their cheap abalone slices in every bowl.
It comes reasonably soft and upps the seafood flavour a bit.
The clear soup on the side comes nicely rounded and peppery.


HungryGoWhere

Author

Read More
Scroll to top