Got up at the crack of dawn for Toa Payoh's famous Li Xin Fishball Noodle. The fishballs, though machine made, were quite tasty. The noodles come with a nice robustly savoury, tangy, spicy, lardy sauce.
The queue at 8am ranges from 10 to 20 people deep but clears pretty fast. Wait is about 30 minutes.
Li Xin has several outlets across Singapore but I come here because founder Lim Lee Seng is still cooking here. Hailing from Malaysia, Lim started a push cart stall in 1968. When the government moved street hawkers into hawker centres in the 1970s, Lim moved Li Xin into Bendemeer hawker centre. Li Xin moved to their present location in 1987 and have become an institution to Toa Payoh residents.
Still sold at $3.50 for a set of noodles and fishballs, Li Xin's Toa Payoh stall is reminiscent of 1990s Singapore.
I had mee pok dry - blanched broad flat noodles with sauce.
They are generous with the greasy sauce, slathering it over noodles like a thick fiery red jam.
The noodles were done tender, slightly soft. The sauce was robust but well balanced savoury, tangy, spicy with a layer of lardiness. I like my noodle sauce robust, so yeah, this is good for me 👍
Since Li Xin do noodles tender soft, next time I shall opt for round yellow noodles.
The $3.50 set come with a bowl of soup and five fishballs which I thought is good value.
The fishballs were relatively large. Light, lightly springy, and released a mildly savoury flavour when it bursts. There was a pleasant fish flavour in the aftertaste. Though machine made, I like these fishballs.
The clear soup was nice with fish and savoury taste. Excellent.
My buddy had mee pok with soup but the noodles changed the taste of the soup. Meaning, if I want more nice soup, I would order a bowl of fishball soup. Noodles and soup together taste different.
Good value for money, nice sauce, and I also like the fishballs (machine made notwithstanding). I think this is the best fishball noodle $3.50 can buy in Singapore.
🤔… There was a stall somewhere in TP years ago, noodle stall and they fry their fishball products fresh on site, though. Must be a hard to find scene nowadays, no offence #iykyk
ReplyDeleteDon’t know where exactly and if it still operates today. Hope they are still around. Anyone has any idea, please? 1 man operational stall perhaps within the last decade or so
☝️Lixin i have yet to explore as i may have my preferred factory produced fish ball stall of choice for now 🤔
thank you very much for sharing about them as an option to consider, too! Appreciate 👍
I stumbled on the same franchise at Canberra hawker. No queue. Helm by grandson.
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