Amoy St Lor Mee at Whampoa Market (厦门街卤面)

I dunno much about lor mee (卤面), and thought it a mushy mess. I still think it's a mushy mess and a tad too starchy, even when it's supposedly done right. It's supposedly a braised Hokkien noodle dish from Zhangzhou in China's Fujian Province. 

Growing up, the family and nobody around me ate much lor mee or any form of noodles in thick gravy. I'm a lot more familiar with clear and light soups, udon, beehoon, kway teow and phở. As a result, I'm generally not fond of starchy noodles, braised e-fu noodles, Hokkien noodles (white or black) or whatever the ilk. I'm not even that hot about hor fun.

Checked out the lor mee at Amoy St Lor Mee (厦门街卤面) at Whampoa Market, a stall that has been raved about by many. I was game to try a good version of lor mee again. The stall changed its English signboard in 2020 from 'Best Lu Mian In Town' (著名厦门街卤面) to the current Amoy St Lor Mee (厦门街卤面). Second-generation owner Lee Kian Huat and his wife continued his father's 60s food legacy between breaks in the intervening years, and set up this stall 12 years ago at Whampoa Market. It's at the block where the wet market is, not at the other block where it's all the food stalls are. 

When I got there, I was stunned by the 25-people-long-and-growing queue at 11am. Wow. The BFF was already in the queue for 15 minutes. Apparently the queue averages 40 minutes at any time. People sure eat noodles and heavy foods at all hours of the day. Usually people would separate the noodles and ingredients, and the gravy. We brought our Cuitisan stainless steel bowls and didn't mind everything to be soaked within. The BFF is fine with yellow flat noodles typical of lor mee. I don't like yellow yellow noodles. Way too starchy. Asked for beehoon; wanted less gravy, add tons of chilli sauce, sliced red chilli and garlic, and no vinegar.

Besides noodles or beehoon, the four main ingredients in a bowl of lor mee are batang fish, fried fish, pork belly and prawn roll (hae zhor). I honestly couldn't tell which is what when all of them are mostly fried and soaked in the gravy. Hahahaha. It wasn't too bad. We didn't let the noodles and ingredients sit for too long in the bowls. So the fried items were still crunchy when we ate it. I'm unable to tell if it's indeed a good bowl of noodles. But it turned out tasting less heavy and cloying than some lame bowls in town that I've unfortunately tasted. 

Amoy St Lor Mee (厦门街卤面)
91 Whampoa Drive, Whampoa Market and Food Center 
#01-19, Singapore 320091
Hours: Daily, 8am to 2pm