Hey Hive!
Even though there are still people getting covid, it's basically being treated like a cold these days so thankfully almost everything is back to normal now! There are no more restrictions on dining these days and you don't even have to wear a mask anymore if you don't want to! It's a huge relief and this allows us to try out different food places again!
While most days I would cook dinner for us at home, we got really busy the other day so we decided to go out to our neighbourhood hawker center for a quick and easy meal. The only problem about eating out is both the price and the health since most dishes you find outside are not as healthy. But of course, eating in moderation is fine.
Anyway, we went to the hawker center across the road and they had a different stall there since one of the previous stalls moved away so we thought we'd give it a try!
It was pretty late so there weren't that many people around at the time since the dinner rush was over thankfully. So we decided to eat there for once instead of getting takeaway.
The hawker center isn't very big but they did have a pretty good variety of stalls ranging from Malay and Indian dishes, to Japanese, Chinese, Hokkien, Teochew cuisines.
The stall we wanted to try was this one called ĺ°ĺŚšćżé˘ (xiao mei ban mian), or little sister pan mee? I'm not sure if there's a direct translation for ban mian but it is a popular Chinese noodle dish, consisting of handmade noodles served in soup. The name apparently comes from the Hakka method of cutting the noodles into straight strands on a wooden block (called ban). The base of the soup is commonly anchovy stock and various ingredients are added to provide more flavour. It's also topped with mushrooms and fried anchovies on top. (Source: Wiki)
I'd say in Singapore it commonly looks like this, with minced pork on top along with dried anchovies:
Source: andreas digestive clinic
Xiao Mei Ban Mian has the classic ban mian but they add Pork Belly to it as well, and they also have fish soup, bee hoon, tom yum soup some dry noodle dishes too. There are also a number of different side dishes you can order as well.
I don't typically order ban mian a lot since Singapore is hot enough in general that I rather not have hot noodle soup so I was quite intrigued by their dry noodles. Turns out dry chili pan mee is a variant invented in Kuala Lumpur! I don't think I've tried a noodle dish like that before so I decided why not.
After a few minutes, or order was ready! I got the Pork Belly Dry You Mian which looks just like their Original Pork Belly Ban Mian Soup but in a black sauce. It also comes with a side of soup though which I assume is the same soup.
Sean got their Original Mee Hoon Kueh Soup, which is the Hokkien version of Ban Mian where the noodles are more like squares than strips.
The bowls they came in were the same as takeaway bowls though which I wasn't expecting but they did have the cute branding on them.
The noodles were nice and a little chewy but they were a little sweeter than I thought they were going to be. I thought they would come with some chili sauce mixed with the black sweet sauce but I guess not. I did add some chili after that and it was a lot more to my taste though. But the anchovies were nice and crispy, the pork belly was good and unique since I haven't really seen pork belly with ban mian.
I'm not really a fan of mee hoon kueh though but it tasted pretty good too, and is what I expect their normal soup noodles to taste like. The soup was nice and light and complemented the saucy noodles nicely. The dry noodles are not as filling as what I imagined the soup one to be like though but it was still a good meal nonetheless.
Turns out the owner is Xiao Mei herself, and she's from Myanmar and these dishes are actually a Myanmar fusion! I guess that explains the unique menu and ingredients. She started the business hoping to introduce more Myanmar cuisine to Singaporeans and I think this is definitely a good starting point.
Source: 8days
We've eaten here quite a few times since then and our go-to is now always the dried pan mee because it's so good! If you're ever in the area be sure to check it out!
Thanks so much for reading!
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