Lucky Her Kiao

Have hearing quite a fair bit about Lucky Her Kiao even before these folks had decided to open an entire dine-in establishment — Lucky Her Kiao has been in operation for quite a while retailing their frozen products for quite some time within a shop unit at One Dusun Residences along Jalan Dusun in Balestier. They had finally decided to expand the Lucky Her Kiao brand into a dine-in eatery — these folks had recently made their move into the ground floor shophouse unit that is located at 88 Horne Road; this would be the address formerly belonging to the now-defunct Two Bakers there. Lucky Her Kiao had stripped out the entire space completely and changed the layout of the store to suit their operations; the entire space now looks decked to be more for function than for form — the interior now looks more canteen-like with the use of wooden dining tables and chairs with one row of platform seats that lines the walls on the right, with the furniture being matched with white walls and concrete-esque flooring. Lucky Her Kiao does still retail their frozen products at their Horne Road premises, though it’s worth noting that the availability of dine-in seating also means that Lucky Her Kiao does offer a variety of noodle dishes such as that of the Yong Tau Foo Noodle, Signature Bak Chor Mee, Meatball Mushrooms Minced Meat Noodle and Her Kiao Mushrooms Minced Meat Noodle for patrons to choose from. Beverages available at Lucky Her Kiao would include a variety of soft drinks.

Lucky Her Kiao does allow some form of customisation for their noodle offerings through their online POS system that one would be using when making an order — options available for patrons to choose from would include the choice of noodles (which one can opt between Yellow Noodles, Bee Hoon, Kuay Teow and Mee Kia), Dry / Soup variant of the dish, to include vinegar or not, as well as a the level of spiciness of the dish. For our order of the Signature Bak Chor Mee, we have went for the Mee Kia with the Dry variant; we have also went with the inclusion of vinegar, as well as for the item to come with regular level of spiciness. Other elements that are included with the dish would include the dried sole fish, minced meat and braised mushrooms that came with the bowl of noodles, while the bowl of soup featured elements such as black fungus, fish cake, pork slices, fish maw, fish maw ring, meatball and their signature Pork Her Kiao.

Lucky Her Kiao’s Signature Bak Chor Mee does seem to come a little different from the standard Teochew-style Bak Chor Mee that we are used to seeing out there that seems to suggest that they have made some inputs to the dish — one very stark difference would be the Mee Kia that come slightly thicker than that of the Mee Kia that is served up elsewhere. To be really frank; we really are not too sure if this helped the dish in any way considering how the noodles come with a more rubbery texture than bent springy — we are also not a fan of the sauce base which seemed to have lacked a tang of vinegar despite us specifying for vinegar to be included for our order, while the sauce base does also come a little too greasy for our liking. We did also notice the use of ketchup in the sauce base considering that there is a slight hint of tanginess and a light touch of sweetness from the sauce that wasn’t quite something that aligned with us either. Whilst the addition of dried sole fish might come as a plus for some, we felt that the pieces that came with the noodles were a little too thick and chewy — not quite ideal for our preferences.

The soup that came with the other elements seemed to also come with its own touch that makes it slightly different from the one that other stalls serving up Bak Chor Mee / Minced Meat Noodles would serve up — the addition of fried garlic bits being the main differentiator here that makes the soup come with a garlicky touch. The highlight here would definitely be the signature Pork Her Kiao (i.e. fish dumpling) that features springy fish paste with savoury pork filling wrapped within — the fish dumpling being one of the most well-sized ones that we had come across thus far. Other notable pieces that came with the soup would be the maw ring; essentially a meatball wrapped with fish maw on the outside which comes with a bouncy bite from the meatball and a bit of chew from the fish maw itself.