Hill Street Fried Kway Teow

Address Bk 16, Bedok South Rd #01-187 Bedok New Town Food Centre

Opening Hours 10.30am-7.30pm close on Mondays

I forgot how a good plate of cha kway teow should be.

So I headed, aimlessly, down to one of those bright, shiny, faceless and nameless cha kway teow stalls in a busy HDB town food centre to reconcile the situation. The stall displayed fresh looking kway teow, yellow Hokkien noodles, trays of eggs, green vegetables and had a shiny black wok flanked by pots of oil, garlic, sweet soy sauce, fish sauce, Chinese sausage slices and cockles on a bed of ice.

Under the food for eyes column…a tick, for pass. So I ordered a plate, took one bite and it all came back.

It should taste nothing like that.

It was not well fried. Strands of the Hokkien noodles tasted like it fell into the wok unannounced, unnoticed and un-fried. It tasted like something between breakfast kway teow mee and a lousy fried Hokkien prawn noodles that was dark brown in colour. Yukkk!

But I have to thank this pathetic stall in Ang Mo Kio, as they prepped me well for my visit to Mr Ng Chang Siang’s Hill Street Fried Kway Teow stall in Bedok. His version has all the qualities of a winner. One bite and I remembered that it has to have a smooth texture throughout with a distinct taste…that sweet, savoury, spicy and well fried noodle sensation, speckled with sprouts, lap cheong, cockles and chives.

“The trick is to fry till the raw smell and taste of these factory made noodles disappear.”, Mr Ng tells me, adding “ the frying method and heat should penetrate and soften the kway teow.” Watching him fry is like child’s play…oil, garlic zzzhaaaaa, then noodles, sauce, zzzzhaaaa, texture it with sprouts, eggs and more sauce, zzzhaaaa, toss in Chinese sausages, cockles and serve! Easy peasy you say.

Not quite. Because this cha kway teow master has been at it for four decades and tossing the noodles over his custom made (slightly flatter, less deep) wok is an art you can’t quite learn from any fancy recipe books or makan academy.

Three minutes to cook, seven minutes to wolf it down and forty years to master it. Which is why he is acknowledged by the Singpapore Tourism Board, the National Environment Agency and Makansutra as a “hawker legend” in the food festival campaign last year.

His accidental success came about when late father chanced upon a vacated stall space at the old Wayang Street hawkers in Chinatown in the 60’s. They hired a cook to sell cha kway teow and Mr Ng assisted him. He patiently watched, learned and practiced and two years later, he was calling tossing the wok and calling the shots. He was also sifu to an assistant who now operates another iconic cha kway teow stall at Zion Rd.

The dish has a negative reputation with a positive response, “Customers shy away when there are scares about using lard and associating cockles with hepatitis”, and Mr Ng admits that he gets affected too but reveals that “ when the official talk on it stops, they all return as they have short term memory.”

To me, it is simply about the cult appeal of the dish and the love-hate relation Singaporeans have with this national dish. We hate its reputation but love to eat it. Can’t ban it and can’t live without it.

The classic flavour of this iconic Teochew dish is sweet, savoury, rich and spiced with chili paste. It has a smooth and lightly damp texture. But there are seafood stock-fried versions that come with prawns and sotong and Mr Ng admits he has no idea how that came about and knows of bad versions that tastes like a disgrace.

So, the next time you want to experience this higher level of cha kway teow appreciation and enlightenment, go try a really bad one first.