Tiew Mai Thai Boat Noodles

The food at Tiew Mai Thai Boat Noodles turned out surprisingly good. It’s run by the folks of the now-defunct Nung Len, that rather decent Thai eatery and bar which was on McKenzie Road. This new restaurant serves only boat noodles in chicken, pork and beef. There’re some sides of meatballs and deep-fried items like wontons and tofu, winglets and such. Not sure what the name means. The English phonetics don't tell me anything. The Thai words in its logo 'ก๋วยเตี๋ยวเรือ' states 'kway teow reua' or literally, 'boat noodles'. The other part says 'สูตรเด้ด', 'suut ded', kinda means 'a good recipe/formula'.

It’s fairly popular and crowds pile in at lunch time. Dunno about dinner since I’ve not stopped by in the evenings. The only catch- it’s located in Hougang, at The Midtown which used to be the old Hougang Plaza (the building that’s also next to the train station, which is not the adjacent Hougang Mall), a tad too far away for us to conveniently get to. The NEL to Hougang MRT station helps though. Taking the train is likely to be faster than driving up.

Do taper your expectations. The kitchen gets very confused during peak hours, and it tends to mix up orders or completely forget them. if you're in a huge group with different wants, good luck sorting out your orders and hoping that the kitchen gets them right. The order chit itself is not properly laid out. One look at it and I could tell exactly all sorts of problems that would arise if the chit holds more than four bowls. Worse if you order four bowls of the same meat with different requests or additional items.

I like its tiny S$1.80 beef bowl. The portion of noodles is sufficient, and I can simply add more slices of beef and an egg to pad it up. Although they offer a few choices of noodles, I tend to stick to egg noodles and not bother about vermicelli or the rest. I haven’t felt like trying its pork or chicken bowls yet, but the friends said those are fine too. The beef broth has so far been flavorful and rich. Tiew Mai’s boat noodles and broth are wayy better than many other restaurants’ overly salty versions with lousy broth and even lousier meats.

This is my usual bowl of uhh beefed-up beef noodles.