Hill Street Tai Hwa Pork Noodle {Foodee}

A spate of Singapore restaurants and food stalls were recently awarded the coveted Michelin stars. Michelin states on their website:

As a nod to the diversity of Singapore’s food culture, two popular hawkers – Hill Street Tai Hwa Pork Noodle and Hong Kong Soya Sauce Chicken Rice & Noodle – have also been recognised with a prized Michelin star each, a milestone for street food in the history of the Michelin Guide.

This also means that Singapore is now home to the cheapest Michelin-starred meals in the world. A plate of chicken rice from Hong Kong Soya Sauce Chicken Rice & Noodle in Chinatown Complex Market and Food Centre starts from just S$2, while a bowl of bak chor mee (or minced meat noodles) from Hill Street Tai Hwa Pork Noodle starts from S$4.

So before Armar left Singapore for good, we decided to try one of them, and also so that Armar could try one famous Singaporean trait – queue for a long time just to have some good food.

We headed to Lavender station and managed to find Hill Street Tai Hwa Pork Noodle. We purposely went during non-peak lunch or dinner time to avoid the queue, but when we got there, there was still one. 😅

We started queueing at 3:35 pm.

We could smell the delicious scent of vinegar all the way from the back of the queue. This was the day Pokemon Go launched in Singapore, so I wasn’t so bored, as I could reach a pokestop and catch pokemon while in the queue.

About an hour later, when we were the 10th or so person in the queue, we witnessed something heartbreaking. We saw the chef take a quick break from cooking. He walked to the back of the stall with a bowl of noodles in hand, and, facing the wall, quickly devour his very late lunch in under two minutes, while standing up, before getting back to work. Success always comes with a price. 🙁

We finally reached the start of the queue 70 minutes after we had began. Even though I had eaten lunch, for some reason I was ravenous by then. Must be the delicious smell!

We ordered a $5 portion for Arlyn (left) and $10 portion for Armar and me. If you queue that long, obviously you have to get the largest portion to make it worth the effort, you know?

It’s the best minced meat noodles I’ve tasted so far, though I haven’t really tried any of the other famous ones. The noodles had just the right “al dente” texture that I love, the vinegar taste was perfect, and there were many ingredients – pork and liver slices, minced pork, dumplings, fried sole fish – with different tastes and textures so as not to bore the palate, like several dishes in one.

Was it worth the queue? Probably not the whole 70 minutes. I didn’t mind doing this once, but probably won’t do it again unless the queue is just 30 minutes. I did manage to finish the entire giant bowl, though, which is saying something, because I usually don’t manage to finish noodle dishes, like the blah ramen that we had the next day.

Hill Street Tai Hwa Pork Noodles
🏠 466 Crawford Lane, Tai Hwa Eating House #01-12 Singapore 190465
🚉 Nearest MRT: Lavender MRT (Behind Immigration and Checkpoint Authority Building)
📞 Tel: +65 6292 7477
⏱ Opening Hours: 9:30am – 9:00pm (Closed on 1st and 3rd Mondays of the month)

 

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