Orh Huat Noodles 烏發 肉脞面 (Chinatown)

It has been quite some time since we have been to Chinatown Complex Food Centre, and there certainly has been quite a number of changes in the tenancies of the stalls in the food centre of the late. Amongst our more recent discoveries within the said hawker centre would be stalls like Zhu Zhu Zai 猪猪仔 and Sandakan Food 山打根美食 which have seemed to move into the green zone of the food centre not too long ago. Apart from some stalls that specialises in claypot rice having opened in the blue zone around the same period of time, the yellow zone has also seen some changes — this would include a stall named Orh Huat 烏發 肉脞面 that had recently moved into the stall unit that is beside the stall that houses Hill Street Fried Kway Teow within Chinatown Complex Food Centre. From afar, the signboard of Orh Huat does capture quite a bit of attention; the signboard has a black background and white font — the signboard does seem to look similar to that of most new coffeeshops stalls are using as well. There is an interesting detail in the stall — a photo hung from the ceiling just above the fire sprinkler that depicts the scene of an old tze-char stall, with the words 亞烏海鮮樓 on the top; probably suggesting some form of affiliation or relationship to Arh Orh Seafood Restaurant at one point of time. Being a stall that focuses on mined meat noodles, one can expect the usual items to be found at such stalls being served up here — this includes items like Pig’s Liver Noodle and Fishball Noodles as well.

It was needless to say that the item that made us head down to Orh Huat to give them a try would be the Minced Meat Noodles. It is noted that the Minced Meat Noodles at Orh Huat comes in two sizes — there is the smaller portion priced at $5, while there is also the larger portion one that is listed at $6; our order made was for the variant that is priced at $5. It is not being described on what elements are included in the Minced Meat Noodle at Orh Huat, though Orh Huat does have an illustration of the item on the menu that shows the elements included that is pretty consistent to the one actually served up — the Minced Meat Noodle that came with our order features a bowl of noodles that also comes with few chunks of fried pork lard and a single fried wanton that is served alongside with it (rather interesting, since most minced meat noodle-centric stalls would not serve up Wanton Noodles and thus wouldn’t really have included fried wantons); the remaining elements like the minced pork, pork slices, pork liver and fishball would come in the bowl of soup on the side instead. Patrons are allowed to pick between the choice of Mee Pok and Mee Kia; our order was for the former, and with chili added.

Giving the noodles a good toss, it does seem that the flavours of the sauce mix that goes into the noodles are generally on the milder side here; this isn’t quite a bad thing, and makes their minced meat noodles one that would suit lighter palates in general — there isn’t an overwhelming hint of saltishness or tanginess that makes it jelat after a while, with the chili also being rather light and should be manageable even for those whom do not have much of a tolerance to spiciness. The fried pork lard pieces are decently-sized and crisp, while they have also included fried shallots to introduce a little bit of crispness to the Mee Pok that is done to a springy texture. The Fried Wanton that accompanies the bowl of noodles was a good-to-have, though was not necessary for the Minced Meat Noodle here. It does come crisp without being greasy from oil that might have been trapped in there since these were fried in batches and plated on whenever an order is made; that being said, some may comments on how the wantons don’t exactly come with enough meat filling within — not that it matters anyway for us since this seems to be something extra that Orh Huat is doing that is unlike most minced meat noodle-centric stalls out there. Moving to the soup, we did find that the soup wasn’t particularly impressive; for one, there wasn’t much minced meat that has seemed to be broken down here to give the soup a savoury note; the pork slices were decent — not entirely free of a porky stench but nothing too concerning, though some pieces of the pig’s liver can be a little grainy and heavy-tasting amongst others. Fishballs were however soft and bouncy; though we did wish that they could have added some pork balls even if it were to be in place of the Fried Wanton. Overall, a decent choice to go for if dining in the food centre, though not one we would specifically make our way down for.