Stopped over at Bishan MRT Station while running errands today. Went to the food centre above the bus interchange to look for lunch. It is a small hawker centre with just 10 food stalls. The two stalls with queues were the la mian / shaved noodle stall and the Cantonese roasts stall. This time we opted for Shi Xiang Ge La Mian / Shaved Noodle stall because shaved noodles are rarely found in Singapore hawker centres.
Shi Xiang Ge is very busy but they have an efficient, if somewhat cold queuing system. Order your food from the menu, pay up, and you will be given a queue number. Go and wait at your seat. When your number is flashed on the LED display, go back to the stall to collect your food.
The menu is overhead and has twelve items. All items have pictures and are number tagged, so ordering is as easy as 1, 2, 3... .
Founder of Shi Xiang Ge, chef Liu Yi Zhong started making noodles since he was a teen and was last La Mian Director of the Crystal Jade chain of restaurants before opening his own hawker stall. So the knife shaved noodles 刀削面 here have the essence of over 30 years of noodle making expertise.
I didn't have the chance to see the chef make knife shaved noodle at Shi Xiang Ge but here is how it would look like. This technique of making noodles was created during the Yuan dynasty (1271 to 1368) in Shanxi province and is now found throughout China and the world.
We had three dishes, all with shaved noodles - beef soup, you po (dry spicy), tomato and egg. We started with the Beef Shaved Noodle soup (#1).
The soup tasted savoury with underlying tangy flavour from preserved cabbage.
The beef slices were okay. Tender, beefy but lacked sweetness as it was frozen meat.
But, we didn't mind all these once we tasted the shaved noodles. The shaved noodles were freshly handmade at the stall. The strands were broad, relatively thick, tapper to a thin edge at the side, and had serrated edges as they were hand shaved.
The noodles wet with soup were very slurpy smooth. They were between slightly stiff-chewy to stiff-crunchy to the bite. Each strand was slightly different which is part of the fun - unlike perfectly uniform factory made noodles. We enjoyed the knife shaved noodles so much.
The You Po Shaved Noodles' (#6) greasy spicy savoury sauce was okay too.
But again, the highlight of the dish was the texture and mouth feel of the shaved noodles. It was excellent.
By now we had gone shaved noodle crazy.
We ordered this Tomato & Egg Shaved Noodles (#5) just so that we can eat more shaved noodles 🤣
Again, the tomato & egg were just okay but it was the shaved noodles that made us enjoy this dish.
Give this shaved noodles stall a try if you are at Bishan MRT station. Not many hawker stalls in Singapore serve this.
Update 25 Apr 2021. Passing by Bishan again today, I dropped by to try the pork intestines with knife shaved noodles. They have changed the ordering system. Now it is a fast food type self check system. Go to the screen, tap on your choice(s), collect a ticket, pay at the counter and wait for your number to be flashed.
Alamak, pressed wrongly 🤦
Got the la mian (pulled noodle) instead of the knife shaved noodle I wanted. My own fault for pressing wrongly. No issue lah, since I have not tried their la mian before.
The la mian didn't disappoint. The thick heavy noodles were tender crunchy to the bite with a firm core.
The pig intestine was soft-tender and tasted savoury salty spicy with porcine savoury-sweet in the aftertaste. The porcine taste was stronger than at our typical kway chap stalls. I am ambivalent about it, but some may find it a tad too pronounced.
All were OK for me except for the watery soup (if you can call it that). It was salty spicy and numbing to the lips and tongue from the first spoonful. It wasn't that spicy hot - it was more salty than spicy but it was numbing.
The "soup" tasted and felt like it was made from water and seasoning powder like those instant noodles from China. Don't think I will try this again with the knife shaved noodles, if it is with the same "soup".
Written by Tony Boey on 23 Nov 2020 | Updated 25 Apr 2021
For me, the highlight is their Hot and Spicy Intestine Shaved Noodles ($6).
ReplyDeleteIs the Mei Zhen Hakka stall selling abacus yam balls still there?
OK i shall try that next time. I didn't notice the abacus seed stall. Will look out for it next time. Thanks for the tip off!
Delete