88 Cafe

The folks at 88 Hong Kong Roast Meat Specialist are definitely venturing into unexplored territories with the opening of 88 Cafe in the basement off Marina One — aside from serving up their stellar Hong Kong-style roast meats, the coffeeshop-style space also sees 88 Cafe allocating one of the stall units to a concept named 88 Specialty Pork Noodle 88特质猪肉面；88 Specialty Pork Noodle taking up the stall unit that is situated in between the stall dedicated to 88 Hong Kong Roast Meat Specialist and the beverage stall that also serves up Hainanese-style breakfast toast and sandwiches as well. 88 Specialty Pork Noodle primarily serves up local-style minced meat / fishball noodles, offering both dry and soup variants of the noodles. Apart from serving up local-style minced meat / fishball noodles, patrons can also opt for soups that features the same elements as their noodle offerings without the noodles, while there are a number of Side Dishes that it offers — pretty much the same that is offered by the 88 Hong Kong Roast Meat Specialist stall within 88 Cafe.

We found ourselves going for the Handmade Meatball Noodle (Dry) — one thing that 88 Specialty Pork Noodle does seem to be noted for doing is how they serve up quite a number of handmade elements that other minced meat noodles stall around the island would usually opt for commercially-made elements instead. The menu at 88 Specialty Pork Noodle does mention that their various noodle dishes do come with handmade meatballs, fishball, handmade fish cake, pork liver and minced pork — there is also an emphasis on their Mee Pok being made in-house too, with the In House Made Mee Pok being the only choice of noodles that are being offered at 88 Specialty Pork Noodle for their noodle offerings. As with our standard order at 88 Hong Kong Roast Meat Specialist, we have decided to add on the Lava Egg for our order. Giving the noodles a bit of a toss, the Mee Pok here does come coated with the sauce base that comes at the bottom; one thing about the sauce base of the noodles at 88 Specialty Pork Noodle is how it gravitates towards being savoury — in fact, the sauce base isn’t quite as vinegary as one would expect in the standard bowl of minced meat / fishball noodles that one would find at a typical stall in a neighbourhood coffeeshop / food court / hawker centre, but still comes with sufficient flavour that makes finishing the noodles really easy. The sauce base also sees a cluster of crispy pork lard sitting at the bottom of the bowl; whilst the crispy pork lard comes in pieces smaller than most stalls would serve them up, they are pretty generous with the portion of crispy pork lard served with their noodle offerings and these do provide a crunch amidst the noodles.

The house-made Mee Pok isn’t as thick as commercially-made ones that one would typically find at a stall in a neighbourhood coffeeshop / food court / hawker centre; this do really come across as springy and not too heavy to have. Sharing the real estate space within the same bowl as the noodles would be their handmade meatballs and handmade fishballs; the handmade meatballs seemingly hand-formed without much use of fillers within. Served deep-fried, we did wish that they could be served warm; these came with a temperature that was a little off compared to all of the elements in the same bowl – we would also reckon that the handmade meatballs would be especially enjoyable if they could carry a bit of crispness on the exterior. The handmade fishcake does carry a good bouncy texture without carrying any undesirable fishy notes. Found in the soup would be the minced meat and beancurd skin that features fish paste wrapped within — it also does come with shallots and spring onions sprinkled atop. The soup here is pretty clean-tasting and fairly refreshing — a decent flavour considering how the noodles are coated with a savoury sauce; provides a bit of a balance, while the minced pork doesn’t carry any undesirable porky stench. One can also find vegetables that carried a soft crunch which makes for a good break from all of the pork within the dish.