Fried Hokkien Mee is a hawker food classic that seems to be slowly going the way of dinosaurs. Sure, there are a lot of hokkien mee hawkers, but finding a really delicious plate is rather rare. So I was rather surprised when a fast casual restaurant like @tunxianghokkiendelights stepped up and made Hokkien mee their signature dish, and I finally tried their version one evening.⠀
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At $8.90++ a plate, it isn’t that much more expensive than the standard hawker version. The portion of noodles and fried lard on the plate are quite charitable, but the amount of chopped squid, pork slices and the three shrimp in the dish could be described as…slightly strict. It’s pretty laden with egg however, so you get a lot of fluffy scrambled egg bits here and there.⠀
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Unfortunately, the Hokkien mee was annoyingly bland. The gravy was devoid of most of the umami I was expecting from a prawn broth, and only showed glimpses of salinity here and there. This plate desperately required the intervention of a heaping helping of chili, and luckily enough Tun Xiang managed to bail themselves out on their self made sambal chili. The spicy, salty chili paste added everything that was sorely lacking from the base plate of Hokkien Mee.⠀
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When you make a dish your pride & your signature, you best make sure it’s one of the best around town. Otherwise you’re gonna end up with egg on your face.