A tasty new rendition of Singapore food icon bak chor mee, that I hope will take root, grow and spread.
Lao Gu Ban is a stall located inside this quaint, cosy little kopitiam (coffee shop) at the intersection of Cantonment Road and Yan Kit Road at the fringe of Singapore's Central Business District. (Note: Car park accessible only via Yan Kit Road which is a one way street.)
The picture menu is at the front of the little stall - there are six options of dry / soup with prawn, prawn ball, fish dumpling or everything.
Breakfast for two of us. Everything here for $16.
The noodles are handmade, slightly curly, relatively thick and heavy. They are done el dente - tender and chewy but without much spring or crunch. I enjoyed these tenderly chewy thick heavy noodles which reminded me of a ramen shop in Taipei.
The savoury spicy sauce is robust - the way I like strong flavours on bak chor mee noodles. But, this sauce does not come with black vinegar by default. If you must have vinegar in your bak chor mee, they provide it in squeeze bottles as an option.
At the moment, Lao Gu Ban serve only this curly "ramen" type noodle. Other noodles like mee pok, mee kia, kway teow shall be added later.
The noodle portion is rather small but they provide free noodle top up. Remember to ask for more noodles, if you need.
The soup was cloudy but watery. Yet it packed rich depth of savoury and sweet flavours from boiling pork bones, old hen and la la clams.
The prawn balls (yeah... they are not very round) are made with 100% prawn mince. In the mouth, the prawn balls are soft and its juices release a slight prawn type of sweetness with every bite. Nice.
Lao Gu Ban make their own her kiao or fish dumpling. They look like little under stuffed pillows rather than the traditional triangular ingots or 元宝.
The fish paste skin is a little floury but the minced pork filling is well seasoned and spiked with tee poh (dried sole fish) umami. Lao Gu Ban's her kiao fillings are one of the best I have tasted so far.
Lao Gu Ban boss Mdm Ah Kei is the wife of Eric Chia Seo Hoe of the legendary Ah Hoe Mee Pok (flagship now located at BLK 501, West Coast Drive, Food Loft coffee shop). Hence, you will see some of the Ah Hoe Mee Pok DNA in Lao Gu Ban noodle dishes. That explains the double take when I first saw the dishes at Lao Gu Ban.
Come and check Lao Gu Ban out 😄
Ah Hoe has many disciples including this popular stall by his Japanese student 👈 click
Written by Tony Boey on 14 Jan 2021
Was at their West Coast Drive stall this week and was surprised to see Eric there. His wife was helming it after he left to set up the new AMK stall, which has since closed down. I was told she has moved to the new Cantonment Rd stall.
ReplyDeleteThe her kiao at West Coast Dr has also changed to this rectangular shape. Dun quite like it, the skin of the older version tasted better. Besides this, everything else is still good.
Two famous BCM stalls (Ah Li and Hosay, disciples of Eric i believe) were previously operating at that kopitiam in Cantonment Rd but they also couldn't sustain the business.
ReplyDelete