In bahasa, the name simply mean boiled noodles. You boil the yellow wheat flour noodles or Hokkien mee, smother it with sauce, texturise it with towgay, plonk a hard boiled egg on and top it with taukua, spring onions and fried shallots, then stick half a lime on the side.

So simple, but the appeal is not. The dish is too heavy for snacking and doesn’t fill you up as a meal. I figured the unrelenting queues at two popular stalls enjoy them for one reason…it’s a great dish to past time. And everyone will swear that the hallmark of a fab mee rebus is of course, the sauce or kuah.

The two stalls I feature here have distinctly different styles yet has that same popular appeal. One has a sauce that is clean, has a clear taste, smooth texture and very light on the way in. The other, is robust, bold, rich, darker in colour and uses ingredients I never thought mee rebus peddlers would.

Mee rebus has it origins in Java (Jawa), Indonesia. In Malaysia, they call it Mee Jawa. But the similarity ends there, it’s like another noodle dish altogether when you try it there. There are thousands of mee rebus stalls here and if yours doesn’t stand out, you’re just like a passing cloud in the sky.

Fandi Mona & Family

Address Blk 14, Haig Rd 01-21

Opening Hours 10.30am to 8.30 pm daily closed two Wednesdays a month

Mr Affandi bin Amat helped his late Javanese father peddle mee rebus since he was eight years old. “I don’t know how others make it but our family’s version has always been like that” adding that he boosts his sauce with, besides the usual dried shrimps (grago), mutton, prawns, ikan bilis and, when I stuck the ladle into his giant drum of sauce, I saw flower crabs in it…mmmmmpph!

His version here at Fandi Mona &Family is the heavyweight class champion. The sauce is so rich and thick that if you let it sit for more than ten minutes, the kuah slowly begin to evaporate in to a thick brown seafood cream. But then, any silly soul would wolf it down the minute it lands on the table, especially when it comes staring at you with prawns, mutton bits and an egg at two bucks a go.

Although their operation hours end at about eight in the evening, I do recommend that you go early, as Affandi and his wife Mdm Hawa Asaad, cleans out that drum of sauce before eight most days.

Selera Kita

Address Blk 58 New Upp Changi Rd 01-217

Opening Hours mon-thu 9am to 5pm sat-sun 9am to 2pm closed on fri

But the Selera Kita version is so light it floats like a butterfly and stings like a bee, when you devour it. Mdm Zahara bte Abu Bakar uses the classic cookbook style technique for the sauce…dried shrimps, flour, sugar, salt, lemon grass, ginger and shallots. It is this simplicity executed to perfection that attracts a constant queue at her neat little stall in Changi. “This is my auntie’s recipe. She say make like that means like that, very strict. But it’s a very simple recipe”, this half Peranakan bibik offered.

At a minimum S$1.20 a plate, it is also light on the wallet. “Sometimes my regular customers ask if I can share my recipe with them so they can sell. They `are so poor already, so I say ok lor!” she enlightens.

One bite into her mee rebus and I could understand why some of her customers eat it daily. It is so easy in and light and some carbo shy customers order it only with towgay, sans noodles.

Either way, a good mee rebus is about a reliable sauce, however you price or cook it.

Anyone with a lobster bisque mee rebus out there?