The day of my ‘book in’ back to my hall at NTU, I went to Chongpang with my mother to have a hearty breakfast and some quality daughter-mother bonding time 😛
It’s a bustling neighbourhood where many stalls selling groceries can be observed. You can see the crowd of (mainly) aunties haggling for fruits, vegetables and other necessities. The same day we went, the hawker was closed for cleaning 😦 so the kopitiam we ate at was super crowded, given that it was in close proximity, it became the obvious alternative eating place for the displaced hawker-goers (including us!).
Yu Pan (Kway Teow * Fish Soup)
Address: Blk 101 Yishun Ave 5 | #01-93 | Singapore 760101
Opening Hours: 7.30am – 9.30pm
Average Cost: $3.50
There are two queues for this store, one for ordering and another for collection. Luckily it wasn’t that long when I went there but there was a short queue at the collection and it took around 10-15minutes to get our bowls.
My mother and I ordered the same: Bak Chor Mee. But she had hers with kway teow and I with mee pok as per usual – our go-to noodle choices with bak chor mee anytime anyday.
What I find unique is their style of presentation. They will give you a fat dollop of their chilli on top of your choice of noodles (if you ordered it dry, that is). Along with a bowl of all the usual BCM condiments in the soup instead of the noodles. Actually I’ve seen this kind of food presentation elsewhere too but it definitely isn’t the common way of doing it.
In the soup, there is minced meat, lean pork, fishball, lettuce and their tau-kee roll. Right off the bat, I find that the fishball isn’t soft and is a little on the tougher side. It feels like it’s those kind of store-bought cooked fishballs, well I guess they specialise in fish and not the derivative products of fish. The minced meat and lean pork slices were well-marinated as well as soft! I dislike chewy meat and this was right up my alley ~
The tau-kee roll was show-stopping! Firstly, it’s an ingredient that others do not normally serve with bak chor mee. Secondly, I love the umami flavours with each bite and I wished it was larger 😦 . Some may find it too salty for their liking (honestly it is a little…) but I think that’s its charm hehe.
The soup itself was normal, nothing too special and it’s the usual minced meat soup with a subtle hint of sweetness to it.
Now for the noodles, after the rave review for the ingredients in the soup you may think that it’s the same for the noodles. But sorry, no.
The mee pok was overcooked and it lost its QQ-texture, it was overly soft with no bite to it. It was quite disappointing because the importance of well-cooked noodles in bak chor mee is very essential to the dish, it’s literally in the name bak chor Mee.
The chilli was moderately spicy but for my mother’s bowl, the chilli given was disproportionate to the kway teow she was given, her chilli couldn’t be fully mixed in as it was saturated already; lacking in consistency in the quality of food served as mine was alright. Personally, I would tone down slightly on the chilli because I find it a tad bit overwhelming on my palate and my nose was sweating a little…
Rating: 6.5/10
This was my second time eating from this store but their consistency in delivering the same quality of food isn’t ideal yet. The second encounter with Yu Pan which was documented in this post, left me disappointed with the soggy mee-pok which killed the dish for me. The saving grace were the ingredients in the soup which were tasty enough to help me overlook the lack of QQ-texture in the noodles .
Usually I would end off my food posts here but this time I just want to share an interesting shop that I found while strolling around Chongpang.
This was my first time seeing a halal bakery in my whole lifetime ever since I was born in the sunny island of Singapore. A sudden realisation hit me that not all of the bakeries underneath HDBs were halal!! This shop is located nearer towards the hawker and CC. It’s within the stretch of stalls between the two locations aforementioned.
I thought bread was like an understood-to-be-halal kind of food but then I remembered some toppings that the bakers put in or on the bread aren’t always halal…
What caught my eye wasn’t solely because of the fact it was a halal bakery, it was this!
The donut boms are so cute! They look so tasty and I find it quite unique to be combining local flavours like Ondeh-Ondeh with such pastries. They do look very sweet though so if you ever try it, do consume in moderation 😛 . It was really interesting to see a halal bakery with sweet treats leaning more towards the western style of confectioneries rather than the usual local or Chinese-inspired ones.
As they have plenty of unique flavours, it seems that they come at a premium as well. The prices are actually comparable or even higher than Krispy Kreme so I’m not sure how their sales and profits will pan out.
I didn’t step into their stall though because my mother and I were in a rush to get groceries and head home as soon as possible because we wanted to avoid the sweltering sun 😦 . I’m sure they have many more offerings that I had missed that day and I haven’t tried any of their pastries yet!
One day… I will try the donut boms when my wallet doesn’t cry…
Chem You Not 
One response to “Yu Pan at Chong Pang”
[…] it’s left, there is Mei Xi’s Yong Tau Foo and on the other side is Yu Pan (Bak Chor Mee) ! I forgot to photograph this coincidence but you just have to trust me on […]
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