We Tried Singapore's Only Michelin Star Street Food

[pot burbling]

[bowl clanking]

[Lucas slurping]

Welcome to Singapore.

We're here at Hill Street Tai Hwa Pork Noodle

to try their bak chor mee, their minced pork noodle.

They are the only one Michelin-starred hawker stall

in all of Singapore.

They got that star in 2016 and still have it to this day.

Chef has always been insistent

that this should be an everyday luxury.

It should be a luxurious experience.

The other thing they have maintained is this long line.

It's usually at least a 30-minute wait.

That's probably what this looks like an hour after opening,

but people say that it can be up to two hours.

As most hawker stalls go,

they specialize in a couple of things,

which means that the space is quite compact.

At the back is the cooking.

We'll see the noodle pot in the front,

the seasonings, a bunch of other luxurious toppings.

Welcome into the kitchen.

So the standard noodle is known as mi bok bao mian.

It's made with egg and alkaline.

It's nice and bouncy, reminiscent to me of wonton noodles.

The thinner noodle, mee kia, is also available.

When you come up to the stall,

you'll order your noodles to your size

and to your type of noodle.

That noodle then will get portioned out

into these bowls, stacked.

Noodle will get cooked inside of the noodle boiler,

divided in three reservoirs,

on the left side of the stock,

in the center, a small reservoir for cooking noodles,

and on the right-hand side,

fresh water with which they will continue to replenish

the other reservoirs throughout the cooking process.

Noodles come out into the bowl,

the bowl gets warmed very slightly,

and the noodles go back into the reservoir

for the second round of cooking.

Taking it in and out, mixing it with the chopsticks,

means that the noodles will cook evenly.

As that noodle gets cooked, it then gets drained,

rinsed, placed inside of the seasoning bowl.

It's tossed so that all those flavors come together.

Chef will build the seasoning on a bowl on the side.

Number one, a seasoned black vinegar.

Similar to zhenjiang cu, or Chinkiang vinegar,

is a black vinegar made from rice.

On the left, yulu, translates to fish sauce

and/or seasoning sauce, source of umami and saltiness.

Next, the chili sauce, slowly cooked over time

of a combination of fresh and dry spices.

Finally, touch that brings it all together

is a small splash of lard, made also fresh every day

at a low temperature from pork skins and pork fat.

The noodles will continue to release starch

through their cook.

The starch is going to help those sauces emulsify.

It's going to allow that seasoning

to stick to the noodles themselves,

but not too much because you don't want

a watery, bland bowl of noodles.

That seasoned noodle then goes onto the service bowl.

The second chef will top those toppings,

the minced pork, the pork liver, the sliced pork,

scallions, cai pu, fried sole, wontons, meatballs,

all go on top of that noodle,

out back into the front where you're waiting,

and you're watching that cooking process the entire time.

You take those noodles to your table,

and you have your bak chor mee.

All of the toppings contribute different things to the dish.

The minced pork will mix more easily with the noodles,

so you'll get a little bit of pork in every single bite.

The fresh pork will be the nice, clean, fresh pork flavor,

and the liver is gonna provide gaminess,

a little bit more bloodiness,

and a little bit more texture.

The wontons and pork balls,

after they come out of the cooker,

they get seasoned with a generous amount of vinegar

and fish sauce, just to make sure

that you'll get good amount of flavor in every single bite.

These are the little touches that mean

that no matter what part of the bowl

you start your adventure on,

you're guaranteed for a bite of deliciousness.

I don't like waiting in line for food,

but this is the Street Eats philosophy.

We don't abuse any of the privileges

of carrying a heavy-ass camera around Asia.

Gotta wait in line.

Singapore is a wonderful and pretty special place.

There are hawker stalls all over the place,

some in hawker centers, some in kopitiam,

some in food centers like this,

and each of these hawker stalls oftentimes have a narrative

or at the very least some sort of thread

that brings them back to a specific ethnic origin, right?

They could be Malay, they could be Chinese,

they could be Indian.

Here at this hawker stall,

this is clearly a very Chinese dish.

If anything, it actually has its roots in Teochew cooking,

so [speaking in Mandarin] which is part of southern China

in Canton on the eastern side.

A lot of these merchants brought a lot of their food

to different parts of Southeast Asia.

Pho has some origin to that place.

Kuih, which is rice cakes, rice desserts oftentimes,

have origins in Teochew.

And these specific types of pork noodles

originally started as a Teochew dish.

I mean, this is a very popular stall.

I'd say this is probably a 10 to 20-minute wait.

And the reason why you're waiting is every single bowl

is made-to-order one at a time.

We caught Boss Chay Seng in line

as I'm waiting for my bak chor mee.

[Lucas speaking in Mandarin]

[Chay Seng speaking in Mandarin]

[Lucas speaking in Mandarin]

[Chay Seng speaking in Mandarin]

Chef here has been with Boss for 60 years.

His touch is the magic sauce.

He's still at the original stall,

splitting the shifts with Chay Seng's son

and Chay Seng's daughter.

The touch is incredible.

The instinct, the noodles in, no timers.

It's getting everything cooked properly.

[Chay Seng speaking in Mandarin]

[Lucas speaking in Mandarin]

Okay, so here's the order.

Bak chor mee with mee bak dry.

Whenever you order dry noodles,

seaweed soup always comes on the side.

Do not mix the two together.

Bite of this, bite of that, bite of this, bite of that.

People say that Tai Hwa is expensive,

but look at all of this food.

And also, look at all of the toppings.

There is a certain type of luxury here

that I think should not go unmissed.

So the first thing you smell is vinegar.

A lot of people might associate this

with a little bit of a funk or a little bit of a stink.

That's a fermented rice vinegar

made from the rice hulls in the wheat bran,

the Chinkiang vinegar.

It's carrying all of that aromatics up

because of the steam.

Vinegar is important here

because it's gonna get rid of any of the gaminess inside

of the pork, which I think is critical.

And your job as an eater is to mix it well

so that the flavors are even, yes,

but the lard and the vinegar

and a little bit of that soup and the seasoning

is well incorporated into the noodle.

Okay.

[Lucas slurping]

First time in Singapore, first bak chor mee,

does not disappoint.

[Lucas slurping]

Mm.

The acidity is aggressive.

It carries the spice to the back of your mouth.

It's so slippery.

It's a hairline away from being greasy,

but that oil is so fragrant.

Of all of the flavors within a cohesive flavor profile

of saltiness and sweetness and bitterness

and so on and so forth,

I think acidity brings freshness, but it also feels like

there's a little bit of an acceleration of flavor.

I mean, it's aggressive bowl of noodles.

Compared to anything in Hong Kong,

the acidity complementing that spice is addictive.

It's the type of thing that you don't want to stop eating.

And when it does get too aggressive,

you have the soup on the side, seaweed,

and you can see the little like delicious pork particles

moving inside, a little bit of that lard.

It's less delicate and less clean than what I'm used to,

but it's a savory counterbalance to the noodle.

It also has this wonderful thing.

My favorite thing in food almost ever

is the same ingredient presented different ways

in the same dish.

A little bit of that soup

goes into cooking all of that pork.

It also goes into the last touch of the noodle seasoning.

So you get echoes of flavor.

It's definitely worth it.

I was just gonna stop myself.

The reason why I stopped myself

when I almost was about to say worth the wait

is you have to know that there is a Tai Hwa opened

by the same family right next door.

This Tai Hwa opened three years ago,

also got the star, run on a day-to-day basis

by Lao Man's daughter, Mui Koon.

It is a much quieter stall

that does not have a two-hour wait.

It is the same broth every morning.

The person putting the noodles together is different.

Doesn't have 60 years of experience, for example.

But I would be curious to know

whether there is a substantial difference

in a blind taste test.

Should we go get a bowl of noodles?

We're now in Sister Mui's stall.

Mui came back from her job running between here and Europe

to run this stall.

The same four bowls of sauce, the same noodle cooker.

They move just as quickly and just as efficiently.

So, those fresh noodles are still in the front, you see?

The mee bok and the mee kia, as well as the guo tiao.

The rice noodles, same sort of toppings.

Look, look at this.

The number of spoons and the color of the spoons

with the clips correspond to what the ticket is,

what size the noodle is, whether it is extra spicy,

any other modifications.

Kind of like reminds me of Waffle House in the US.

[chuckles] That's so cool.

Awesome, Xiexie.

This is Mui's bowl of bak chor mee.

Same order, $10, cut same, portion same.

Mui bowl's different, but they share bowls, so.

I don't know, it's the same starting point.

It's the same spiritual origin,

so I wouldn't expect it to be too different.

[Lucas slurping]

Maybe there's, Singaporeans have better palates than me

and they can tell the difference, but.

99%?

98%?

[Lucas slurping]

So delicious though.

Any difference between the two stalls

are negated by the fact that one day,

Chef's mood might be a little different.

The next day, the pork comes in at a different quality.

I bet if you came on a Monday and a Tuesday,

that difference would be the same as having the same bowl

on the same day made at the same time,

from stall A to stall B.

Yummy though.

The real win is now I get to have two bowls.

The soup here is cleaner as of now.

You know, late morning,

not quite peak, peak, peak time.

The reason being, they're continually cooking that broth

with more and more pork throughout the day.

If you're less busy,

you're gonna add less pork to the dish.

I think perhaps at that stall,

the stock more likely has come into contact

with raw pork more recently,

which means that you might get a little bit more

of that porky flavor over there.

Like fresh cooked pork, kind of like blanched taste.

It's cleaner here.

It's a little bit more subtle.

Dude, this is my first bak chor mee.

Thought it was delicious.

Aggressive in the acidity,

but well-rounded with that spice.

It's a very sort of whole dish.

When it comes out, bright red oil on the side,

glossy noodles tossed in lard.

What feels like every cut of pork imaginable.

The textural differences, the textural contrast,

the whole thing makes for a very, very satisfying meal.

Now, there's only one Michelin one-star restaurant

in Singapore that is a street food stall,

which is Tai Hwa Pork Noodle.

A Michelin one-star restaurant is, on paper,

a very good restaurant within its category.

It's gauged on a couple of things,

including the expression of the personality

of the chef in the dish.

As a result, I often think, as a consumer,

that a lot of the most creative and interesting restaurants

all around the world

fall into this Michelin one-star category.

A lot of local Singaporeans, which I agree with,

reject guides like the Michelin Guide

because it feels like a Western imposition of Western taste

on the local market and local palate.

In the same vein, if the national pastime here

is telling other people that you have a better bak chor

in your place than them,

that you have a taste that's more authentic,

or you have a restaurant that you like a little bit more

than everybody else, that's cool.

It is a very effective guide,

and a very effective guide is for us travelers

looking for a good bite,

but it's not the only authority on deliciousness in food.

I love this place.

I had a really good time here.

Knowing that a place like this is well-recognized globally

makes me want to find more places similar to this

in a similar style, with a similar history,

and attention to detail and technique

that Tai Hwa has shown me today.

Welcome to this edition

of Lucas is wearing a white shirt again,

who knows what's going to happen.