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.....

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 dish 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