Mee Siam | Ziggy

Mee Siam, a flavourful and delicious dish that is very likely to originate from the northern regions of Malaysia. As the name suggests, it is a noodle with Thai (Siam being the olden name of Thailand) influence. As all things Thai, it is spicy and sour with a hint of sweet. Most mee siam found in Singapore is more sweet and sour and less spicy, with a dash of chilli paste on the "side", even the chilli is more savoury than spicy for a localised taste bud.

It is a dish made of bee hoon (vermicelli) instead of mee (yellow noodles). With a soup or gravy using shrimps or shrimp paste, tamarind, sugar and soy bean paste. My friend's mom does a fantastic mee siam and she complained it is tough work as she also used ground peanut, some would also have coconut milk added.

Most are retailed in the soupy form, there are some that offers a dried version. As the soup is delicious, my preference is for the soup version, but my office used to have an outsourced canteen that did a brilliant dried version which I still crave for now and then, especially now as I type... my afore mentioned friend's mom is the dried version too. Hey Gav.... are you free tonight? Haven't seen you and the kids in a while.....

Lao Chao Zhou

Grandma Mee Siam

Delicious

Jia Xiang

153 Traditional Cuisine

Mee Siam, Satay Bee Hoon

Jul 2020

Delicious Mee Siam, with a great Satay Bee Hoon sidekick.

I asked the nice lady owner, which sells better, the satay bee hoon or the mee siam, she said it’s about the same… but probably the mee siam as it’s more conducive than the satay bh for take away.

So I ordered both, despite trying out this stall alone… til now, I still can’t decide which is better! They were both excellent!

The Mee Siam was delightful, a right mix of sour in the sweet peanut based sauce. There was a delicious full bodied creamy taste that gave you great satisfaction. Served with bits of sambal chilli at the side, the chilli gave this dish an added boost and excitement in taste.

Moving on to the Satay Bee Hoon, it too had a good full bodied peanut base with a good amount of ingredients. The peanut sauce was a little bit like peanut butter in a soup, almost just as smooth! Full of cockles, pork liver, vegetables and pork slices. I asked for less liver and they gave me only one piece, replacing it with quite a bit of pork slices, how lovely of them!

Do note, they don't serve satay bee hoon on Fridays to give themselves a break as it is tedious to prepare this dish. Give themselves a rest to prepare for the busy weekend.

The plan was to try both of these at one go, just do a taste test, avoid the carbo, leaving out at least half a portion from each to keep within the carbo count, right? Yeah… the only piece of bee hoon left after the "tasting" this was the one that I regretfully dropped onto the table. As for the sauce, I would have licked off every drop of everything if that act wasn’t that embarrassing in public. Some days I wish I was Ziggy….

Notice from the gif below, the lady boss gives a good amount of lime to each mee siam order, I can look at it over and over again, adds to the perfection in taste.

If I’m honest, I have tasted better satay bee hoon, even if this is really good. The mee siam though, is top notch. It’s one of the better ones I’ve tasted, if not the best. The satay bee hoon is still top 2-3!

Lao CaoZhou (Old TeoChew) 老潮州

20 Ghim Moh Road, #01-18 Ghim Moh Hawker & Market, s270020

630/7am – 2pm (or when sold out), closed Tue and Wed (open if they fall on PH, to be replaced “another day”, prob Thu…)

https://www.facebook.com/oldteochew/

Mee Siam, Chee Cheong Fun, Fried Bee Hoon

Jul 2020

This place serves an excellent plate of mee siam!

153

Hong Lim has many famous and popular stalls, most with daunting queues especially during lunch! Tucked at a corner facing the market, this unassuming stall has a good flow of customers but never a queue. They serve fried noodles (breakfast), chee cheong fun (rice rolls), and mee siam, with a small variety of fried stuff like fish fillet, luncheon meat, chicken chop, cabbage and ngo hiang to go with your order if you wish. They also have an interesting fried peanut on batter, the one I had was half soft half crunchy, it would be a lot better if it was all crunchy! I was informed that the crunchier ones have been sold out earlier.

The lady boss comes in at 3am daily to prepare her food, and is ready to serve at around 6am. This is the life of a hawker, it seems easy if you think they work just the 7 hours from 6am to about 1pm, but the food needs hours of preparation, adding time for cleaning, that’s more than 12 hours' work a day. Serving customers since the opening of Hong Lim, she has been here since day 1, she “gave my entire youth to this business”!

The mee siam was not too spicy, was creamy with a good coconut milk taste. Add a bit of their chilli sauce and you’ll get a exciting kick out of it. I’d usually eat this with the fish fillet which is flatter than the usual ones I see, not as crunchy but it had a nice layer of batter that is soft yet with a good texture that went well with the mee siam. I might sound lacklustre but I love the fish fillet! There were also some big chunky chicken fillets, they go pretty well with the mee siam too. I’m now torn between the fish and chicken fillet!

I have bought the mee siam here as a takeaway a few times, and found out that it tastes better as a takeaway! Seems that dwelling in the plastic container an hour or two helps thicken the gravy, making it creamier, the coconut flavour stronger, it is "deliciouser"! Quite unbelievable, maybe you guys can give it a try, then let me know if you feel the same too?

Mee siam with the fish fillet

Mee siam with the chicken chop

The CCF here is ordinary, pretty good but with the mee siam exceedingly delicious, there is little motivation to go there. Knowing that they serve a good fish fillet, and chicken chop, it is not too difficult to imagine that the fried bee hoon is good too.

It may not be as popular as the other more famous stalls here but I often come back here for the tasty mee siam, which I find is one of the better ones in town, top 2 in fact!

Decent chee cheong fun too

The original owner has retired, the business has now been taken over by a soft speaking, shy but friendly middle aged couple. Everything remains the same, not change in quality, still one of the best mee siams!　👍

153 Traditional Cuisine

531A Upper Cross Street, #01-153 Hong Lim Market & Food Centre, s051531

6am – 1pm, Mon – Fri

Grandma

Mee Siam, Ngo Hiang

Dec 2023

Delicious mee siam and deliciouser ngo hiang

This grandma, who doesn’t look a day older than 52, has been plying her trade for 60 years. Since the age of 8, she has been a hawker, and quite proud of it too. Justifiably so! One thing I wondered, was this place called Little Girl Mee Siam 60 years ago? Then Young Lady, then Mom etc...? 😂😂

I think if you speak to her in English, she’d sell you mee siam; and if in Chinese she’d sell you ngo hiang. Her stall’s English name says mee siam but Chinese says ngo hiang!

An honest and chatty lady, if you don’t know what to pick, just ask her. My suggestion is to pick those that she made, these were fresh and tasty.

She makes some of the ngo hiang items, and honestly declares which she didn’t. Coming in at 3am every day to prepare. Grandma-made items are ngo hiang (only the dark brown one), water chestnut egg (yellow block), fried fish and octopus (top left corner), and prawn cakes.

The ngo hiang was the tastiest of the lot, slightly sweet minced meat wrapped in a skin, freshly prepared and obviously so by the looks, they were my favourite. Followed by her water chestnut egg, which were not deep fried to a crisp like everyone else's, but felt more like they were steamed or boiled. Taste of water chestnut and egg prominent, with some lard pieces adding taste, it was fresh and delicious.

The pastry of the fried fish tasted crisply fresh with a nice soft crunch. Just a gentle crisp, then the gentle soft shark meat within. This seemed to be her favourite recommendation so even if you don’t ask her, she might recommend it!

The prawn cakes had a fluffy dough, like a doughnut without a hole but with prawns and no sugar. I struggled to like it due to my disinterest in prawns and it had a good prawn based taste. It was otherwise quite pleasant.

Mee siam was frustratingly marvelous. Why frustrating? It tasted very very nice, but I needed to get the gravy into my mouth correctly to capture its brilliance. Maybe a bit like wine where you have different glasses for different wines. To enjoy the mee siam most, chuck a spoonful into your mouth sideways, making sure to gulp the entire spoonful in one go as the spoon enters the vicinity of your mouth. Voila! 🤪

Otherwise, the gravy could taste a little too mild, you can still get its wonderful creamy coconut-y taste, mixed with a brilliant sour, with slight sweetness and plenty of savoury, but may feel it a bit diluted, the taste not intense enough.

It was quite a good morning to have met grandma, who was engaging and friendly. Still cannot believe she is 70!

Grandma Mee Siam

665 Buffalo Road, #01-311, s210665

8am – 3pm, closed on Sun and Tue

https://www.facebook.com/grandmameesiam/

Delicious

Mee Siam, Mee Rebus

Dec 2023

Delicious indeed!

Run by a middle aged couple, the aunty there was quite friendly and loved to chat, someone in front of me asked if they have stopped selling lontong and she explained why they were forced by circumstances to stop, continuing on to a monologue to talking to me, in Hokkien, a dialect I struggle with, I (and the uncle behind the stall) just smiled and nodded in agreement… had something to do with having not enough space as they couldn’t keep some food stuff outside the stall, I think…

Anyway, they now sell only mee rebus snd mee siam, stopped selling lontong since September 2023.

Both my mee siam and mee rebus had lime squeezed into it just before serving, and after Aunty asking if I wanted, but pretty much before I said anything… it was a continuation of her monologue so I may have nodded. Likewise for the chilli sauce.

The mee siam was soupy and delicious, living up to its name. Sour, savoury and mildly sweet. The chilli was not spicy but added some savoury punch to the mee siam, which had some tiny pieces of bean curds and an egg. The soup was not very thick but creamy and nice.

The mee rebus was more intense and its gravy thick and robust with the nice taste of prawn paste very prominent. Served with some cut green chilli, fried shallots and an egg. It was more than delicious and I noticed many other patrons were enjoying that too.

Probably due to the presence of the cut chilli, when the chilli sauce that was given were added, it became spicy, otherwise it wasn’t.

Very nice and robust, despite not being a fan of this dish, I may develop craving for this every now and then, with the now acting up as I type.

If you like mee rebus, you got to try this, added bonus if you love a chat too…

Delicious Mee Rebus, Mee Siam, Lontong

6 Tanjong Pagar Plaza, #02-02, s081006

8am – 2pm, closed on Wed and Thu

https://www.facebook.com/TGPDelicious/

Mee Siam, Lontong

Sept 2023

Interesting mee siam and lontong, marvellous omelettes

This stall at bukit merah sells mee siam and lontong; and 3-4 items for nasi lemak. A mother and son team runs it and they open everyday! 1130 til 630/7pm.

Jia Xiang

The mee siam here had a unique taste, a deep robust sweetness flavoured by the inclusion of pandan. Unlike normal mee siam, it was not creamy, just deep and robust. It was something different and interesting.

I would always add some omelette to my mee siam, which only had an egg, 2 pieces of doufu, and a good chunk of crispy delicious croutons.

The croutons were marvellous, fresh and crispy, I will have to remember to ask for more next time! The omelette on offer was quite tasty too, they looked good on display and tasted just as nice.

When I had the lontong, I added the other item they had on display, the ngo hiang roll. This was not as good as the omelette so I’d probably go vegetarian here and just add omelette to either the mee siam or lontong.

The lontong had the same deep robust taste and similarly lacked cream. Interesting way of producing gravies in this stall.

The omelettes here are quite extraordinary, fluffy and tasty, you would do well to top anything up with this! In fact, I think this is the best item from this stall, and probably the best omelette in Redhill, even the whole Singapore!

Jia Xiang Mee Siam

85 Redhill Lane, #01-35, s150085

Daily 11am – 6pm

https://www.facebook.com/p/%E4%BD%B3%E9%A6%99-Jia-Xiang-Mee-Siam-Lontong-and-Nasi-Lemak-100063570727584/