meng kitchen

I live in the North and I find it so unfair that all the good food is anywhere but in the North. Everytime I want to find something to eat, there's nothing spectacular I will crave in the North. There is an absolute dearth of good food in the North. Hear me restauranteurs/food stalleurs.. Come save us Northies. Petrol is expensive, I don't want to travel half of Singapore to get a good fix.

Meng Kitchen is one of the best places in the North I would say. Their bak chor mee is extremely popular. Come here on a Sunday afternoon and expect to wait up till about an hour. It's not cheap too, at $4 a bowl. It is the Tai Hwa of the North. It's actually a far cry from Tai Hwa, but nonetheless, I think it is really quite good.

We decided to check out their fish soup and fishball noodles.

Their fish soup is very very peppery. They added so much pepper when you scrutinize the fish slices, you can see spots of pepper settled on them. I like pepper so I liked this. However, I do think that most people will find it too peppery.

The fish soup is also saltier and more savoury than most other fish soups. This is probably because they used a lot of MSG. (I couldn't stop drinking water when I got home.)

The fish was much too overcooked. It was tough and just bad. They added a lot of ginger in the soup to mask the fishy smell to no avail.

It is tasty, but only because of the abundance of MSG and pepper. This is merely average.

This is the fishball noodles. Sharon prefers the bak chor mee over the fishball meepok. The fishballs were not springy enough and a bit limp. I've had it before and I'm not sure if this is just an off-night. They are normally quite springy.

The chilli here is quite shiok. The balance of the vinegar to sauce was immaculate. You can still taste the vinegar but it was not overpowering. I found this very agreeable. Sharon only likes her noodles with vinegar here and at Tai Hwa. She thinks that the proportions at Tai Hwa and Meng Kitchen are just right. (Hence reaffirming my point that Meng Kitchen is Tai Hwa of the North)

The noodles were a bit overcooked for some reason. They were a bit soggy. They are normally perfectly Q. I guess the standard really differs from day to day. Catch them on a good day, and the noodles are perfect. Catch them on a not-so-good day and the standard dips dramatically. "dramatically, it's really dramatically lor" says Sharon.

I still think these noodles are good, just that we had it on a bad day. And the bak chor mee is a lot better than the fishball noodles so try that if you come to Meng Kitchen.

Meng Kitchen

246B Upper Thomson Road