I have never seen anyone cook a plate of Sang Mee (crispy noodles) like they do. Neither have they.

I am talking about a plate of this very crispy from strand to strand, corner to corner, lightly crunchy and airy fried egg noodle dish topped with bean paste sauce and very fresh and firm textured slices of sang yue (snakehead fish) with greens. The noodles literally stand on the plate as the fish sits atop and the sauce drips through. The whole dish can come up to six inches high. They sauce at the bottom soaked the noodles as I crush and depressed the dish. The texture and taste was sensational.

So under the cloud of journalistic curiosity, I pushed the thick-skinned question through. And with their very polite and sickeningly diplomatic jibberish, they guarded their family jewel and I ended with still no idea how they fry the noodles. They did not adapt this style from anywhere else nor did they see anyone serving it this style before. They simply felt that Sang Mee should be like this and rightly perfected the recipe.

So I applied the photo-journalistic license and asked for a plate to be shot. And lo and behold, there it was, as I was fiddling with my CF card and spied through the corner of my eyes, a plate of clean and dry bowl of noodles lowered into a hot wok of oil. And instinctively, Mr Chin Hoong Seng began to flip, toss, fold and shape the noodles with a huge strainer before they burned. They let this crispy, golden and stringy edible sculpture stand on a plate topped with chye sim and fresh white slices of sang yue as he doused it with a thick black bean sauce.

Seemingly effortless, it definitely was not.

I learnt from elder brother Hoong Cheong that it was his father’s words of advise “…if you don’t like what you cook and is not confident about it, don’t expect your customers to do so.” , that stirred them and piqued their interest in this business. And it took all of six months before they dared serve the first customer. Now twenty odd years on, these brothers, in their forties, confidently dish out their forte of twenty plus dishes in their Chinatown stall where the most discerning and unforgiving foodies in Singapore are found. They are still childishly thrilled that customers actually pay them to cook.

Their culinary legacy goes way back to the 1940s when their grandmother hawked dai-pai-dong (street side eateries) Cantonese favourites along Sago Street. Their father later moved to the old bustling Temple Street in the 1960s. Then, the menu was small and humble, fish head noodles, sang mee, fried hor fun, fried rice, beef, chicken and some seafood dishes. Today their repertoire includes exotic Cantonese street fare like fish intestine with bittergourd, fried thick bee hoon with fish head and even eggplant fried with sambal.

But when they served the steamed Song He (carp fish) Head in spicy sauce, it was delightfully obvious why it is so popular that at least two other stalls nearby were also doing brisk business with their version of this dish. I knew instantly why I liked the Chin brother’s version. Their perfectly steamed fish head had a sauce with a sweet and very sour zeal and it came with two calamansi limes to dry up that salivating tingle in the palate. It also equalized the fishy-ness of the song he head. It tasted like a thick and punched up version of a very tangy mee siam sauce laced with cut chilli padi whose reputation is guarded by the little limes. It was refreshingly appetizing.

I washed it down with their robust fish head soup. Their snake head fish soup has that mouthfeel and taste I adore…thick with a light and roasty burnt taste. I could not tell that they used milk in the stock as the well sliced slivers of fresh fish head parts hopelessly distracted me.

Finally they sent me the last of their four signature favorites as dictated by customers, the Beef Hor Fun. Immediately, I whipped out the Geylang Lor 9 competitor’s yardstick. And just like the Geylang version, their thin slices of rump beef was tender, the hor fun was clean and smooth and the fermented bean sauce was thick, dark and bold. But the version here has an edge, it was a sensation in the sauce that made the beefy dish felt lighter. I cajoled and arm wrestled them into revealing the secret in return for a promise them that I keep it to myself. So this much I’ll reveal, it is the same secret ingredient that helps make that perfect bowl of red bean soup...happy eating.

An Ji Canton Seafood Cuisine
Blk 335 Smith Street, 01-131/132
Chinatown Complex Food Centre
11.30am to 9.30pm daily
Closed on Wednesdays.