Li Yuan Mee Pok (Clementi)

I forgot the exact price but it’s definitely more expensive than your regular BCM. I really like this Japanese adaptation of BCM. The sauce is savoury and it felt like I’m having a mix between mazesoba and bcm!

Had the mushroom minced meat noodles with mee kia. Was disappointed as I was craving for a good bak chor mee, but this was more like a watered-down version of their Jap mee pok (which I’ve tried in previous visits). No vinegar or tomato sauce, instead the noodles tasted like lard and mushrooms. Even though I ordered dry there was a noticeable amount of soup in the bowl. The mee kia also seemed thicker than normal mee kia. Noodle texture could be more springy, was slightly too soft for my liking. $4 came with 2 pieces abalone, 2 meat balls (very firm which I liked, otherwise nothing special), sliced pork, a good amount of sliced mushrooms (sweet but also nothing special) and a bowl of soup (sweet and tasted like tau geh). Would only recommend this if you don’t like their Jap flavours but want to try something similar, or if you like lard-y mee pok.
Tried some from my friend’s Jap miso dry mee pok. The noodles were firm and the miso-garlic taste was good. The char siew wasn’t as good as previous visits though. It was a thick chewy slab of pork (size was good) but a bit tough and plain, didn’t taste any marinade. Don’t recall if it tasted different previously but I also don’t remember feeling so unimpressed by the char siew before.

It’s been some time since I ate at this stall, so I thought I should check it out during this P2HA period and see how their takeaway mee pok fares.

Ordered the standard mee pok with chilli and one without. Both with added vinegar. And another mee kia with chilli and added vinegar.

First of all, I wish to comment on their process of packing your takeaways. Say you wanted to add chopped scallion or chillies into the container. Well you can’t do that easily because you’d have to bring the plastic carriers to the side table, reopen the tied plastic carriers, open the containers one by one and then add them in. The default mode does not have an option for chopped scallions. Or chillies.

Also the plastic containers for chilli sauce (which is one of their biggest draw) the covers don’t fit very well. One actually leaked on my way back and nothing was left.

And finally, the ubiquitous soup that accompanies dry noodles, you must request for it. Instead of individual packet, a big bag is used and you apportion the soup yourself. About half a bowl for each serving of noodles.

The noodles themselves were not al dente, closer to soft. Clumps were found in the Mee Kia because it was not properly dispersed before blanching. The chilli sauce in noodles was not very spicy. Soup tasted sweeter than what I remembered. So does the braised mushrooms, very sweet. Overall, without the added vinegar, it would have been a very sweet bowl of soft noodles.

I’ll come back for a tasting after this soft lockdown, just to reconfirm if the standards have really dropped.

Quite satisfying. Mee pok is done just nice and the pork lard used taste fresh. Great portion at $4. Other variations available. Long queue but fast moving.