I went on a food crawl with a bak chor mee hunter, here are the 5 stalls we tried in 4 hours

For quite some time, I've come across Facebook posts about bak chor mee (BCM) by a mysterious netizen who calls himself the BCM hunter. 

He's been extremely diligent with sharing his opinions and even runs two Facebook groups — BCM Hunter and BCM Hunters of Singapore— where he has wholesome discussions with fellow bak chor mee enthusiasts. 

The man in question is 37-year-old Wee Shi Chen, who is a full-time data analyst and a part-time bak chor mee hunter. 

At the time of writing, he has visited over 340 bak chor mee stalls in a span of three-and-a-half years. 

He started documenting all the bowls of bak chor mee he had eaten during the Covid-19 pandemic and posted them on a Facebook page. 

Eventually, he even created a map on Google to complement his findings. 

After a year of quietly following him on social media, I decided to reach out and see if he'd be willing to come along with me on a bak chor mee food crawl. 

And to my excitement, he said yes. 

Narrowing down our options 

From our discussion, Shi Chen and I agreed that our food hunt would take place at Balestier. 

As it's a neighbourhood he does not frequent, the area on his map is a little bare. 

After doing some research and speaking to some of his friends in the BCM Hunters of Singapore community, Shi Chen highlighted some stalls that we could try and patronise. 

But there were no hard-and-fast rules — we left a little room to try stalls that we found at random. 

"There are options in the area, that's what makes bak chor mee-hunting fun," Shi Chen told me prior to the shoot. 

He also shared with us the metrics he uses to narrow down which stalls to go for when there is more than one option. 

Between a hawker centre and a coffee shop, Shi Chen told us that he would typically go to the coffee shop first as stalls there are in a more precarious position, business-wise.

"They fold quite fast if they don't have the proper support," he explained. 

In a situation where the only option is a hawker centre, Shi Chen goes for standalone stalls that are "without brand". 

If the hawker centre has several of such "standalone stalls", he opts for the hawker who looks the oldest. 

"Because they're probably closer to retirement," he elaborated, not wanting to miss any opportunity for a good bowl of BCM. 

"And let's say, if all the hawkers look to be of a similar age, then I will go for the one with a shorter queue to support them," Shi Chen said. 

Unlike most food review platforms, Shi Chen does not have a rating system for the food he tries. 

"The reason is I believe strongly that every person's taste is subjective and relative," he explained. 

5 bowls in 4 hours 

We initially planned on visiting just three stalls. 

But we were so sucked into our mission that we managed to cover a whopping five places under four hours.

The first stall we visited was Da Lian Traditional Noodle, a standalone eatery at 395 Balestier Road. 

The stall exuded old-school vibes and all the cooking was done at the front of the stall in an open kitchen. 

Shi Chen told us that whenever he tries a bak chor mee stall for the first time, he always orders a standard bowl, dry, with mee pok noodles and no extra toppings. So, we did just that. 

This bak chor mee stall turned out to be one of my favourites of the entire hunt. It featured springy, al dente noodles that were tossed in an excellent chilli sauce that had just the right amount of heat. 

There was also fishcake, minced meat and fishballs. 

The star of the show for me were the braised mushrooms. They were meatier which made for a juicier bite, different from the usual shiitake mushrooms that other hawkers use in their bak chor mee. 

My only gripe with the dish was the portion size — I wanted more! But then again, we had other bak chor mee stalls to check out and I couldn't risk getting full so early into our food hunt. 

Next, we attempted to visit Teochew Kway Tiao Mee at Whampoa Market. 

But alas, they were sold out of mee pok noodles for the day and only had kway teow left. 

So we looked around the hawker centre and decided to try another stall called Xin Heng Feng Guo Tiao Tan. 

This had a snaking long queue and we waited a good 15 minutes for our food. 

Unlike Da Lian Traditional Noodles, this stall used tomato ketchup in their sauce, which we were not fans of. 

The noodles were also a little on the soggier side. 

However, the dish was laden with plenty of ingredients such as minced meat and pork slices. 

And they even gave us a sinful amount of lard, which we could not say no to. 

The soup on the side also came with wontons, which is not something you'd commonly find paired with your bowl of bak chor mee. 

After polishing off our bowls of noodles, we walked over to the neighbouring Whampoa Makan Place to check out their offerings. 

We were supposed to get just one last bowl of bak chor mee here but we ended up finding three stalls. 

Thankfully, we still had room in our stomachs so we tried all three. 

The first was Foo Hing Handmade Fishball & Meatball Noodle, which was located along the middle row of stalls in the hawker centre. 

I really liked the texture of the noodles from this stall — they were extremely springy with a good bite! 

What made the dish stand out was its sauce, which was darker and more savoury than the other two bowls of bak chor mee we had tried. 

Ingredient-wise, the hawker was pretty generous and the dish came with minced meat, mushrooms and a pork meatball. 

I also like how he included a dumpling. 

However, the noodle portion size was a little small. If I do come back, I'd probably order a bigger bowl. 

Next, we visited Old Street Fishball Minced Pork Noodle, which is located nearer to the carpark. 

The stall looked pretty new and when we spoke with the hawker, he confirmed that it had only been open for a few weeks. 

Shi Chen pointed out to me that this stall uses something called Jin Mei Chin Kiang Vinegar, which is his personal favourite vinegar. 

He also shared that it's hard to find it in mainstream supermarkets. 

The vinegar taste in the bak chor mee was frankly not very strong. However, the hawker leaves a bottle of it at the condiment area so you can add as much of it as you like to your food. 

A bowl of bak chor mee here comes with mushrooms, minced meat, sliced pork, fishballs and fishcake. 

We loved the fishcake here and Shi Chen noted that it had been hand-cut. 

He also said that the bowl of soup on the side tasted of yellow beans and anchovies, similar to what you'd find in a bowl of yong tau foo soup. 

The hawker was very generous with the portion size, which left us feeling a little stuffed after. 

But that didn't stop us from getting our fifth and last bowl of bak chor mee from Zhang Xin Teochew Fishball Minced Meat Noodle. 

This was located at the other side of Whampoa Makan Place, near the row of shops.  

There was a slight queue for this as it was near lunchtime (we started our journey at breakfast). But this moved along pretty quickly. 

This stall was really generous with the ingredients, especially with the beanspouts, which added a nice crunch to the dish and made it feel just that little bit healthier. 

I also realised later on that this had been our very first bowl of bak chor mee that contained pig liver! I found this surprising as I'd thought liver is one of the more common ingredients used for bak chor mee. 

There were also fish dumplings, which was a nice touch. 

Noodle- and sauce-wise, it was decent but nothing very outstanding. 

Looking at bak chor mee from a new perspective

Before our intense food hunt, bak chor mee to me was just a comfort food that I turned to when I needed something satisfying to fill my belly. 

But there's actually so much more to the dish. 

Visiting six stalls back-to-back made me realise that there are no two bowls of bak chor mee that are the same. 

From the texture of the noodles to the taste profile of the sauce, every hawker has their own unique way of cooking the dish. 

For the longest time, I had also assumed that every bowl of bak chor mee uses the same standard ingredients. 

But now I realise that this isn't the case. During our food crawl, some bak chor mee stalls included mushrooms in their rendition of the dish — like Da Lian Traditional Noodle and Foo Hing Handmade Fishball & Meatball Noodle — while others didn't. 

As mentioned earlier, it hit me that not all stalls use pig liver in the dish, which is something I had thought was the norm for many years.

Whatever the case may be, bak chor mee is unique to our local hawker scene and something that I'll often gravitate to. 

But I think for the next few weeks, I'll take a break from it — five bowls in a day is a bit much, even for a BCM fan like me.

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melissateo@asiaone.com

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