Hup Heng Noodle House (West Coast Market Square)

Hup Heng Noodles in West Coast Market Square has been around for as long as I have lived in the west but I have never tried it. Felt like eating Wantan mee today and since this was the only stall serving Wantan mee within a 1 km radius, I thought why not, especially since there were only 4 persons in front of me in the queue. And yet it took me 20 plus mins to get my noodles, even though the patrons in front of me only bought 2 portions at most.

Finally I saw what was the hold up. The lady cooking must be more than 70 years old. Her frail and bent body toiled away in front of the pot, blanching noodles, mixing sauces while her able bodied son took orders and packed/plated the finished noodles. All was forgiven immediately and I felt sorry for being impatient.

For Wantan noodles, I always order dry with chilli. The noodles must be al dente, the sauce savoury and spicy, the char siew must be consist fatty meat, it must be moist and sweet. Last but not least, the Wantans must be intact with well marinated meat imparting flavours to a moist wantan wrapping.

In this case, this stall managed to not meet any of my requirements, which I think are very basic for Wantan mee. Noodles was soggy with strong taste of alkaline. The char Siew had zero fatty meat and was dry as tree bark. The chilli sauce did nothing to the noodles, being a blend of watered down soya sauce and tasteless chilli sauce. Most importantly, the wantan was tasteless due to the very bland meat fillings inside.

The only saving grace was its portion. For $4, you get a decent portion of noodles, quite a few pieces of char siew and 5 wantans.