So many of my makan kakis ate and shared about Chef Kang's wanton mee at Jackson Square Cafe, I couldn't wait to check it out myself. (Chef Kang as you know is the chef behind the Singapore One Michelin Star Chef Kang Kitchen.)
Jackson Square Cafe is a small food court between Block A and Block B of Jackson Square. It is located at the street level. It is easy to find - once you are in Jackson Square, walk straight ahead along the large building until the end of Block A. Turn left and walk ahead until you see this outdoor food court - tadaa..... .
Reading about the 1 - 2 hour queues, I got here slightly after 9am to save myself the wait. At this early hour, I got my noodles in about 10 minutes.
The staff were very polite and professional. An auntie just ordered like 30 packs 😱
I ordered the $5 wanton mee set. It comes beautifully plated with a bowl of soup. There's only the dry version (no noodle soup version).
There's the $10 luxury edition with abalone. They also have $10 plates of char siew. You know me - I went just for the basics.
Let's cover the soup first. It was excellent. Actually, the best thing about Chef Kang's wanton mee.
It's a pork soup, not a dried sole fish soup 大地魚 (Hong Kong style), nor a dried anchovy soup (Malaysian style).
The whitish milky soup was very smooth and round bodied. It had a very nice well balanced savoury sweet pork bone flavour. It's the kind of soup you get at fine Chinese restaurants.
Buddy Aaron is right that this soup alone is worth $5. (P.S. I just found out that they oblige requests for soup refills 😉 )
There were 2 good size wantons inside the soup. The silky slippery smooth wanton skin wrapped minced pork, shrimp and chopped mushroom. The fresh pork tasted sweet, the soft spongy crunch of the mushroom added texture to the soft minced pork and shrimp. There was no sesame seed oil taste in the wanton.
The wanton mee came beautifully plated inside a deep oval shaped soup bowl. On the mound of egg noodles were char siew slices, choy sum greens and pork lard crackling at the side.
The egg noodles sat in a pool of heavy dark sauce.
The egg noodles were light and slender almost like mee hoon. The bamboo pole kneaded egg noodles were imported from Hong Kong. Tossed and well coated with dark soy sauce blend, it tasted caramelly sweet savoury with subtle hints of lard flavour.
There was no lye water taste at all. Neither was there any egg taste (but honestly, I can't remember when was the last time I tasted egg in wanton mee anymore).
I ordered the $5 wanton mee set. It comes beautifully plated with a bowl of soup. There's only the dry version (no noodle soup version).
There's the $10 luxury edition with abalone. They also have $10 plates of char siew. You know me - I went just for the basics.
Let's cover the soup first. It was excellent. Actually, the best thing about Chef Kang's wanton mee.
It's a pork soup, not a dried sole fish soup 大地魚 (Hong Kong style), nor a dried anchovy soup (Malaysian style).
The whitish milky soup was very smooth and round bodied. It had a very nice well balanced savoury sweet pork bone flavour. It's the kind of soup you get at fine Chinese restaurants.
Buddy Aaron is right that this soup alone is worth $5. (P.S. I just found out that they oblige requests for soup refills 😉 )
There were 2 good size wantons inside the soup. The silky slippery smooth wanton skin wrapped minced pork, shrimp and chopped mushroom. The fresh pork tasted sweet, the soft spongy crunch of the mushroom added texture to the soft minced pork and shrimp. There was no sesame seed oil taste in the wanton.
The wanton mee came beautifully plated inside a deep oval shaped soup bowl. On the mound of egg noodles were char siew slices, choy sum greens and pork lard crackling at the side.
The egg noodles sat in a pool of heavy dark sauce.
The egg noodles were light and slender almost like mee hoon. The bamboo pole kneaded egg noodles were imported from Hong Kong. Tossed and well coated with dark soy sauce blend, it tasted caramelly sweet savoury with subtle hints of lard flavour.
There was no lye water taste at all. Neither was there any egg taste (but honestly, I can't remember when was the last time I tasted egg in wanton mee anymore).
The egg noodles had a light stringy springy crunch to the bite (which differs from the heavier soft firm more tactile crunch which I prefer).
Lard cracklings added crunch and old school touch to the wanton mee.
The char siew was nicely arranged. Good balance of fat and lean meat. It was tender and juicy. Tasted mainly caramel sweet with underlying savouriness and a bit of toastiness from the charred fringes.
Nice sambal chili with lots of hae bee (dried shrimps) in the savoury spicy blend. I didn't mix this in my noodles as I couldn't bear to throw the finely balanced sweet savoury tossing sauce off kilter.
👉 Nice wanton mee with good springy noodles in caramelly sweet savoury sauce. Good sweet savoury char siew. The most memorable part was the pork soup which was fine restaurant quality.
Quite generous portion for $5 (damn worth it, as we say in Singapore). How generous? I wanted to pop over to Lik Ming for my laksa fix since it was just across the road. But, I decided against it as I was quite full already and wanted to save my stomach for lunch.
Oh... I didn't let any of that sweet savoury dark soy sauce blend go to waste - slurped it up to the last drop. I love that smooth well balanced blend of flavours.
Lard cracklings added crunch and old school touch to the wanton mee.
The char siew was nicely arranged. Good balance of fat and lean meat. It was tender and juicy. Tasted mainly caramel sweet with underlying savouriness and a bit of toastiness from the charred fringes.
Nice sambal chili with lots of hae bee (dried shrimps) in the savoury spicy blend. I didn't mix this in my noodles as I couldn't bear to throw the finely balanced sweet savoury tossing sauce off kilter.
👉 Nice wanton mee with good springy noodles in caramelly sweet savoury sauce. Good sweet savoury char siew. The most memorable part was the pork soup which was fine restaurant quality.
Quite generous portion for $5 (damn worth it, as we say in Singapore). How generous? I wanted to pop over to Lik Ming for my laksa fix since it was just across the road. But, I decided against it as I was quite full already and wanted to save my stomach for lunch.
Oh... I didn't let any of that sweet savoury dark soy sauce blend go to waste - slurped it up to the last drop. I love that smooth well balanced blend of flavours.
Today's Jackson Square was Fairchild Semiconductors in its past life. I know this view of Fairchild very well as I passed this way literally > 1,000 times. When I was in First Toa Payoh Secondary School, I walked to school and back from home in Lorong 5 every school day. I remember the ladies in their light blue mini skirt uniforms 😝 Both my old school and home have been demolished.
Restaurant name: Chef Kang's Noodle House
Address: Jackson Square Cafe, 11 Lor 3 Toa Payoh, Singapore 319579
GPS: 1°20'15.7"N 103°50'53.5"E 🌐 1.337701, 103.848202
Nearest MRT station: Braddell (10 minutes walk)
Hours: 8:00am - 4:00pm | close at 2pm on Sat & Sun (Monday off)
Non Halal
Date visited: 21 Nov 2018
Disappointed. Thought you are only food blog left that actually talks sense. But now .... this review. Sad for you.
ReplyDeleteI've tried this and this is below average.
I'm not the only one who thinks so about this store, just look at the comments on this blog, nobody recognised that its good.
http://danielfooddiary.com/2018/11/04/chefkangsnoodlehouse/feed/
Did you noticed that I didn't recommend this (i.e. no stars)? I am just giving readers an accurate description of my personal experience (as far as possible). My rating system below:
Delete★★★★ → Recommended for you
★★★ → Food I have eaten, blogged for reference only
Only ★★★★ and ★★★★★ eateries have their ★ ratings displayed in the blog post.
Read more: http://johorkaki.blogspot.com/p/star-ratings.html
Dear Anon (I would have loved a name to go with the strong opinion posted)
ReplyDeleteEveryone has their own personal preferences when it comes to food. And when it comes to food that has a few variants, this is even more pronounced. Every blogger is influenced by their own experiences and this comes to the fore when they eat. Tony blogs for interest, there is no monetary incentive to it. Hence if his views differs from yours (or from other people), then it's really a matter of taste differences. I love this wtm because it has my favorite kind of wanton noodles (I don't like the normal ones in SG). But mainly because as I was queuing, I could smell that fragrant soup and that was the first thing i tackled. I drank half the soup before I ate anything else. And that probably swayed my views on this. Maybe if I had started on the charsiew or noodles I wouldn't have loved it so much.
So agree or disagree on the review as you may, personal attacks on the author's taste buds are really not so cultured.
You seem to think that your tastes matter a lot (and is more 'accurate' than Tony's and if so, you might want to consider starting a blog and see if 100% of your readers agree with your reviews.
Dear anon,
ReplyDeletePlease do not post here ever again if you have nothing to contribute but hate and complaints. Tony has done us a wonderful service by taking time to document his food adventures which I’m really thankful for.
Keep up the good work Tony! Don’t let the haters get to you!
Dear Anon,
ReplyDeleteTaste/Preference/Likes are very personal and it can be a reflection of ones background (place/time you grow up), upbringing (home's economic status in your youth) and exposure (tasted Arroceria's paella? or Sungsimdang's twigim soboro?). Hence, judgmental comment should remains as private opinion.
Hat off to you Tony and an extended appreciation for your effort in get the story behind the food. Bravo my good man.
Taste is indeed very subjective and we should not get carried away by 1 simple remark or comment, especially our everyday local kopi tiam or hawker stall food. I don't think for a moment that Tony thinks he is some Michelin star food critics. He may not always get the 'right' taste and comments but we can always agree to disagree.
ReplyDeleteI have been to Chef kangs and in my opinion, the sauce from this #51 at kovan is so much better than Chef Kangs. The Q is non stop and I can never get a good chance unless I purposely go and Q 40 mins..
ReplyDeleteHowever as a TOTAL MEAL #51 Value for money is very very poor.
#51 sauce is better than Chef Kangs
Noodle texture is comparable
Ingredients VERY VERY LOUSY, Char Siew is very thin and tastless
Wontons are horrible..
The horrible ingredients are covered by the great sauce .
Chef Kang- Good quality ingredients, All have bite to it, Wontons have crunch, charsiew is same quantity same quality, you can ask for your favourite cuts..
Only his sauce compared to #51 , loses somewhat.
So looking at somethig of value, I still will go to Chef Kang as I only compromise on his Sauce.. If I want to buy from #51, I know only that all the ingredients are crap and I have to wait a long time only for a great sauce then its not worth it for me
I too think that this stall is below average. If it's not recommended, why do a post on it with no clear negative opinions? And I thought you wanted to put good hawkers on the world wide web? I have always appreciated your work, hopefully you won't start putting not so good hawkers on the world wide web
ReplyDeleteTo me, it's the best wanton mee in singapore. I think the taste is more liked by Malaysians compared to singaporeans though. If u r the sort who chuck in chilli mix into the noodles, then u might spoil the taste. It's great, dunno why so many people here dislike it?
ReplyDelete