Thye Hong Handmade Fishball Noodle: Excellent Old School Taste!

This fishball noodle stall with an unassuming frontage was started by the two eldest brothers of five and the business has been in existence for more than 40 years (1975 or earlier).

They started out as street hawkers at Alexandra Road before shifting into Ghim Moh Food Centre in 1977 which is where they have been ever since.

The eldest brother has since retired and the stall is now run by the second brother.

The name — Thye Hong — was taken from the Thye Hong biscuit factory that also existed at Alexandra Road at that time.

As hawker stalls go, they have one of the shortest opening times — only four hours a day and perhaps even earlier if food is sold out (6am to 10am on average).

Fishballs and fishcakes are the star of the show here.

They are salted, handmade daily and have an irregular shape as compared to factory supplied ones.

They have a lovely middle ground soft but firm texture and special note goes to the fish cakes which are generously cut and are not fried — a rather unusual practise for fishball noodle stalls these days.

If you concentrate on the flavour of the fishcake alone, you’ll notice a hint of sweetness as compared to the fishballs.

The dressing in their noodles is sometimes inconsistent but when it is spot on, it is wonderfully robust with a hint of sour vinegar, lots of savoury dried prawn chilli sambal flavour and a generous amount of lard oil and large crunchy lard pieces.

The noodle texture is on the softer side but there is still some bite to them ($3/4/5).

Also remarkable is that — as they’ve been doing this for many decades —they’ve managed to carefully balance the flavour such that the dressed noodles, fish cakes and fishballs taste good on their own and even better when eaten together.

The saltiness of the fishball boosts the overall flavour of the dish but never gets overly salty.

There are also several fishball noodle stalls in Singapore that are run by the extended family: another Thye Hong fishball noodle stall at Bukit Batok, Fishii Tales at Amoy Street Food Centre and the Ru Ji Kitchen chain of fishball noodle stalls.

Aside from the very similar handmade fishballs, each stall has their own individual style for fishball noodles and the sauce used to dress them are all different.