At Hong Lim food centre, there are 3 chicken curry bee hoon mee stalls. Besides the famous Ah Heng and Heng Kee where there are always long queues, there is another stall, Ping Ping, which is somewhat under the radar.
And, Ping Ping is no also-ran either - the stall has been around at the then Ellenborough Market (also known as Teochew Market) since 60 years ago. Ping Ping is my friends Benny and Peter's favourite, and I could only get to taste this old school curry chicken bee hoon mee after missing it a few times because it was sold out.
Mr Goh and his wife are the second generation owners. Ping Ping was founded by Mr Goh's father.
I picked the SGD5 one, which is the largest serving.
The bowl of bee hoon mee come flooded with orangey hued curry and topped with large chunks of poached chicken and fish cake slices. No potatoes.
The curry was watery, wasn't overloaded with coconut milk. It's quite sweet, with discernible chicken flavour. The spice flavour was also very mild. There was little, or hardly any spicy sting at all.
The chicken was fresh, tender, cooked through (except for a bit of marrow) and the meat was moist. There was some firmness to the bite. The was also a nice chicky flavour, especially in the soft skin and fat. Ping Ping's chicken is more or less the same as that at good Hainanese chicken rice stalls.
The fish cake slices were generic but they have a likeable floppy softness and slight savoury sweetness.
The taupok sponges up the curry broth and adds to it it's own savoury taste.
The generic bee hoon and yellow mee were done to a slight firmness to the bite. I like this texture.
The pulpy house made chili paste was salty and just very mildly spicy. It will do a good job spicing up the curry, but I prefer the curry as it is.
Ping Ping's curry chicken at Hong Lim food centre is a little too mildly flavoured for my taste buds but it is very well liked by people who appreciate it's subtleness and clean taste. You may like it, if you enjoy milder, gentler, lighter curries too. Ping Ping has stood the test of time and has a loyal following, which speaks for itself about the stall's curry chicken.
Restaurant name: Ping Ping Curry Chicken Bee Hoon Mee潮州街平平咖喱米粉面
Address: 531A Upper Cross Street, #02-27 Hong Lim Market & Food Centre
Map: http://goo.gl/maps/cG7HO
GPS: 1.285509,103.845734
Hours: 7:00am to 2:00pm (forgot to ask the boss about their off day 😂)
Non Halal
Date visited: 11 Oct 2016
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I had been a regular customer for this curry chicken stall for past 30+ years almost closed to 40 years...this is ligher or milder compared to other big names of similar dishes in this food centre...Used to be at the Teochew Street before the Clark Quay area was developed and now is the The Central...my grandparents used to stay there and usually gathering of Teochews tat is y it is called Teochew Street. I always had the 粗米粉 although the helper at the stall says it is better served with 米粉和面.
ReplyDeleteFor info, this stall always on and off closed for holidays and weekends mostly operate till around 11am plus finished...they had their own pool of fans too and usually Sunday had the most crowd.
Thank you for the insight and perspective of a loyal Ping Ping fan :-D Appreciate much! Happy eating :-D
ReplyDeletei have try many curry mee, i think hong lim market got the most curry mee stall..ping curry mee is the best of the best ,with their home made chili,it bring the curry mee into cloud 9....don't understand why the other stall eg heng kee q is so long ,their curry is so sweet, OMG can u imagine curry is sweet ,maybe or perhaps Singaporean love sweet sweet lahhhhh
ReplyDeleteI went there this morning and it's permanently closed. Anyone know where the stall went? I love their curry noodles
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