Teochew Fishball Bak Chor Mee (Maxwell Food Centre)

If you like your bak chor mee saucy, the Bak Chor Mee ($4.50) at 福来成 Fu Lai Cheng Teochew Fishball Bak Chor Mee at Maxwell Food Centre (#01-26) is right up your alley.

The springy mee pok is doused in a feisty mixture of chilli, ketchup and lard. The noodles come with a generous portion of minced meat, sliced pork, fishball, fish cake, liver, mushroom, meatball and lard. I like that the fishballs are bouncy but soft, and the liver is crunchy and not overbooked. Enjoyed this!

Maxwell Food Centre seems to be seeing quite a number of new stalls sprouting up recently, replacing a couple of the old stalls that had moved out of the food centre in recent times. We had recently visited Dan Lao 蛋佬; a stall that serves up scrambled egg rice with various types of meat options available. Located in another row away from Dan Lao 蛋佬 within the same food centre is 福来成潮州鱼圆肉脞面; a new stall which serves up Teochew Fishball Bak Chor Mee. The stall does seem to serve up handmade fishballs based on a signage being sticker-ed on their counter; the menu comprises of Teochew Fishball Bak Chor Mee in various sizes — think $4.50, $6, $8 and $10, each size comprising of more ingredients added to the soup than the other. Patrons can also opt for various noodles such as Mee Pok, Mee Kia, Bee Tai Mak, Bee Hoon, Yellow Mee and Mee Sua for their order as well.

We found ourselves going for the cheapest option available at 福来成潮州鱼圆肉脞面; the $4.50 portion essentially sees all of the ingredients being served together with the bowl of noodles — we opted to go with the dry rendition of the Teochew Fishball Bak Chor Mee with the Mee Pok. This would be the bowl for those who are not into innards — the $4.50 portion comes with elements such as fishballs, fishcake, minced meat, pork lard, mushroom and greens. Digging into the bowl of noodles, we noticed that the Mee Pok is done pretty springy here; tossed in a savoury sauce, we also liked how the sauce was not particularly heavy — a well-balanced one which was particularly vinegary, whilst the added chili was lightly spicy and should work well with those whom are tolerable to moderate levels of spiciness. The noodles come laced with the sauce and minced meat for a slightly meaty bite; the handmade fishballs being bouncy with a good bite, while the pork lard was well-executed came with a good crunch without being too greasy. The bowl of soup on the side was also pretty tasty; one could easily see how the soup is boiled using minced pork that had disintegrated into soup for flavour.

There seems to be quite a number of stalls serving up Teochew Fishball Bak Chor Mee at Maxwell Food Centre of the late — this would include Ah Gong Minced Pork Noodle; perhaps best known for its really affordable Claypot Bak Chor Mee, as well as a newly-opened outlet of Ru Ji Kitchen which is located at the corner of the row of stalls opposite 福来成潮州鱼圆肉脞面. Whilst we have yet to give every stall serving up Teochew Fishball Bak Chor Mee at Maxwell Food Centre a go, what remains true about 福来成潮州鱼圆肉脞面’s Teochew Fishball Bak Chor Mee is that it is a rendition that is pretty respectable in terms of quality and execution — one that we found to be particularly balanced and easy to have, which is not an easy find these days. This is especially commendable for an establishment like 福来成潮州鱼圆肉脞面, which itself can be said as a new name to the hawker scene, being able to deliver their rendition of Teochew Fishball Bak Chor Mee at such standards worthy of a mention. We would definitely be looking forward to having their Teochew Fishball Bak Chor Mee as an affordable way during lunch time — a stall that we would likely be patronising for a comforting bowl of local noodles when we crave for it.