Skip to content

拉面 La Mian World

“the quest for the perfect noodle”

Tag Archives: Singapore

30 July 2013 random ramen

The courageous Swiss races down the steep asphalt alley with his city-bike. I am impressed with the bar tender’s pisco sour in the Grande Bar and the fact that every city shines magically on a sunny day. The glittering rays of light on the surface of the lake. Friends having a sun-downer in a classic wooden motor boat. The mountain peaks covered in some left over ice and the hills close by in the evening light: Zürich. What connects Japan and Switzerland is the tolerance of their inhabitants for noisy train tracks leading through their living rooms.

Berlin feels familiar and far away at the same time. Disgusting, sometimes without soul and then again full of magic and miraculously pretty. At night still creepy Reichshauptstadt. During the day surreal memories of the capital of the GDR at the abandoned orphan’s home in the rain.

The English library in dark wood in the luxury apartment of the friend in Hamburg. Champagne in the back yard while the blackbirds sing a spring song about the absent summer.

A travel through time and three cities. Europe untangles the Ramen for me. Change is slow and sometimes invisible. Back in the Far East things are different. Change is fast and invisible too sometimes due to its speed.

The four seasons don’t exist close to the equator. You can eat them now at Keisuke Tonkotsu Four Seasons at Bugis Village in Singapore. Four distinct styles: spring, summer, autumn and winter, but I still prefer the tonkotsu pork broth Ramen.

Ramen Keisuke Tonkotsu King Four Seasons, 158 Rochor Road, Bugis Village, Singapore

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

6 May 2013 night and day

If you think of Asian mega cities what comes to your mind? Buzzing markets, hordes of people crowding the streets, unbelievable traffic jams and a city life that never stops, twenty four hours around the clock?

This might be true for some places or some areas of these Asian megalopolises. However, take a closer look. Although many cities boast some more or less famous night markets with rows of exotic food stalls, meal times for many are actually early. In Singapore restaurants are jam packed between six and eight in the evening. Finding restaurants that still serve dinner after ten p.m. can be a challenge.

But here comes Swee Choon Dim Sum Restaurant to your rescue. It opens from six to six. That is in six in the evening to six in the morning. So, whether you come at your regular dinner time, whatever that might mean in your cultural environment or after a night out, they will be there for you. Swee Choon Dim Sum in the new trend area of Jalan Besar serves excellent dumplings of all sorts and of course boasts a La Mian chef pulling away the dough during the night. This place is as good for food as for people watching at the wee hours.

After night comes day. Thanks to one reader of this blog I could see light in the La Mian scene in Singapore after heading all the way West to Clementi. Just behind the usual over-air-conditioned shopping center is the HDB lined food court, wet market and community shopping area.

Most likely I am lacking some language skills here but why you would call a food court Bgain 442 Eating House does not become very clear to me. Maybe Bgain is short for bargain?

In any case the Xinpeng La Mian Xiao Long Bao stall must be considered famous in Singaporean terms since it for sure had the longest queues to be seen around there. I can confirm that it is worth waiting in line. The expertly stretched La Mian are spaghetti thin and have excellent al dente consistence and taste!

Swee Choon Dim Sum Restaurant, 183-191 Jalan Besar, Singapore

Xinpeng La Mian Xiao Long Bao, Bgain 442 Eating House,  Blk 442, Clementi Ave 3, #01-121, Singapore

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

15 April 2013 what’s left of the la mian world

It seems that La Mian has peaked in Singapore. Anyway an endangered species in China where it originates from, it looks like that it is going downhill with the art of hand-made noodle pulling in the Lion City.

The still beloved Noodle Star opened several outlets during the past year but soon stopped having a life La Mian chef in its Jalan Sultan restaurant and never had one in the Bugis one.

Imperial Treasure La Mian Xiao Long Bao in Marina Square seems to have closed for good and so does Crystal Jade in Suntec City. Now we all know that the Pearl Center is marked to be torn down this August. This will see another two La Mian stalls go.

La Mian World needs YOU to support your local noodle chef! Go out and visit a La Mian Restaurant today wherever you live.

Maybe try the ever popular Ju Hao in Lavender Food Square or hop over to Jakarta to try Imperial Treasure’s La Mian Xiao Long Bao restaurant there. It is located in one of Jakarta’s most glitzy shopping malls, the Plaza Indonesia. It looks and feels almost like in a Singapore shopping center with only a bit more traffic to get there.

Imperial Treasure La Mian Xiao Long Bao, Plaza Indonesia, 1st Fl Unit J 113, Jl. M.H. Thamrin Kav. 28 – 30, Jakarta

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

16 March 2013 in a single line

So this is something new to me: the single strand noodle or Yi Gen Mian. Wandering around one of Singapore’s endless shopping malls (which sometimes have as many floors underground as they have above plus several roof top areas) I stopped in awe when I saw this young man pulling what seemed to be an endless string of noodles.

According to the menu of the Din Gi Noodle House, which features this open kichen concept, Yi Gen Mian originate from Shanxi province in central China. Shanxi together with neighboring Shaanxi (yes, there is one more “a”) are both famous for its noodle making and noodle dishes (in both cases with two “o”).

It is quite an impressive process to produce this longest of long noodles. First, one chef rolls long half finger thick strands of noodles and lays them out in a spiral in a metal bowl. When patrons order their noodles the Yi Gen Mian chef starts pulling this spiral into thick spaghettis and placing it into the boiling water. The dough seems to be of a different consistence from La Mian since they will boil in the water seemingly longer. However, in essence they also tasted a lot softer than my favorite al dente made classic La Mian. Maybe some shorter cooking process next time, dear Yi Gen Mian chef?

Unfortunately there is not much to be found out about Yi Gen Mian in the internet in any language that I am capabale of understanding. Yi Gen Mian however, are not to be confused with Yi Mian or Ee-fu Mian which originate from the south of China and are made with eggs instead of only flour and water[1]. They are referred to as longevity noodles. Due to its length the Yi Gen Mian would also make a lot of sense to be considered longevity noodles. I shall have them as my birthday meal next time in any case!

Din Gi Noodle House (鼎记面馆), #B2-50-51, Plaza Singapura, 68 Orchard Rd, Singapore 238839

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

4 January 2013 noodles at noodles

Who would think that you could find a La Mian stall in a business hotel on Orchard Road in Singapore?

The Orchard Hotel features the noodles restaurant in one corner of its lobby floor.  It was opened already in May 2012 and is more a bar or bistro than restaurant. I did not take notice of its existence until today.

Recently they hired the new chef Xu Ai Min for noodles from Beijing and put in some advertising effort which successfully reached out to La Mian World. Well, I stumbled over it by coincidence while googling.

I was a bit sceptical about the setting, but it is actually quite nice and bright inside the huge glass facade of the hotel. The place is as simple as it gets with a menu concentrating on the most important La Mian dishes like beef La Mian, Dan Dan Mian, minced pork La Mian and a couple more fancy ones like one with Abalone. Interiorwise noodles features only the bar with the La Mian chef,  one friendly waiter and some bistro tables.

I went to have You Po Mian and my lovely companion ordered the La Mian soup with vegetable and pork dumplings. You have four choices of noodles: either the classic round, super thin, flat or egg noodles. Both dishes were ordered with flat La Mian. The expert chef went to pulling and hitting the dough as I was snapping away at his fast motions. Some perfect La Mian noodles emerged from his hands and submerged into the boiling water.

The meal was served in no time and looked fantastic on nice white china. I must admit that I would have wished my La Mian to be a bit more chewy but in essence both the dishes were excellent.

Which way will the art of La Mian making go? Is it a dying art or will we have La Mian outlets mushrooming up soon at every corner like Starbucks cafes?

noodles, Orchard Hotel Singapore, 442 Orchard Road, Singapore 238879

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

3 January 2013 top of the pops

The best La Mian in 2012!

The time around New Year’s is the time of new year’s resolutions, bucket lists, reviews, best-off’s etc. Here at La Mian World we also sat down to look back on the past year of 2012 and collected some statistical facts. This is it:

I ate La Mian in four different countries: Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan and Thailand.

I consumed approximately 50 bowls of La Mian, of these 47 were consumed in Singapore.

I betrayed the cause of La Mian World by eating Japanese Ramen, Vietnamese Phở and Italian Pasta an uncounted number of times.

Running through the list of places I patronized I decided to nominate the top five best La Mian stalls, restaurants, shops and hawkers in Singapore. Just to remember, the La Mian World criteria for excellency in La Mian are

1. Freshness: The noodles have to be hand pulled freshly for every dish served,

2. Craftsmanship: When you look at the noodles you must utter: ‘wow, that is amazing how evenly sized they are, although he just pulled them in front of my eyes’ (bonus points for front-of-the-eye-open-kitchen-la-mian-expert-chef-pulling),

3. Experience: In your mouth the La Mian are blowing you away with their balanced composition of texture, al-dente-ness and flavour of the dough,

4. Composition: Neither the sauce, soup, meat or whatever it is the dish consists of, can dominate over the noodle. The La Mian speak for themself but are complemented with superior sides.

This is the La Mian top five billboard chart hit list:

Which is your favorite La Mian outlet in Singapore or any place around the world?

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

16 November 2012 The missing pull

After a series of disappointing visits to some places that did not fulfill the very strict criteria established by La Mian World, I took a break from experimenting and had the real deal at Imperial Treasure La Mian Xiao Long Bao located at Marina Square mall. Yes, it is a bit tiring, that you end up in another shopping center and sit in the middle of the buzz of shoppers around. But also, yes, they do have excellent, fresh and expert made, hand pulled noodles here.

With this soothing experience giving me peace of (noodle) mind, I was excited to travel to Taipei. The capital city of Taiwan must hold some La Mian secrets for me to discover as it is, for starters, the home of Din Tai Fung. Their La Mian is decent and we don’t have to talk about the quality of the Xiao Long Bao.

I started searching the web (as Apple’s Siri would say: “I don’t know what you mean by La Mian. May I search the web for you?”). To my surprise it proved to be more challenging to find a La Mian place in Taipei than I expected. It seems that, first of all, the Taipeinese are not as food blog crazy as the Singaporeans. Or, if they are, they may write in Mandarin, which I happen to neither speak nor read.

After endless crawling through web searches and hours of walking through the fascinating streets of Taipei I ended up at Xiao Liu La Mian located close to the Technology Building metro station.

I must have been the first customer of the day as I entered the small restaurant shortly after 11 in the morning already hungry for some carbs infusion. The interior looked more than promising with an open, glass window kitchen with space for the chef pulling the noodles in view of the patrons. The walls were decked out with murals depicting the art of La Mian pulling. The friendly lady and only staff in the entire place seemed to me as if she would be the one pulling it off here. However, to my great disappointment, she was pulling no dough nor was any other chef appearing miraculously.

My beef La Mian was prepared with already pre-pulled noodles. The soup and noodles were good. But after all the effort and time I put into searching and finding this one place I was utterly disappointed about the missing pull here.

I shall come back to Taipei and get some professional help next time to find the right place!

Imperial Treasure La Mian Xiao Long Bao, 6 Raffles Boulevard, #02-138J Marina Square, Singapore (up-date March 2013: this restaurant is closed)

Xiao Liu La Mian, 223 Heping E Rd, Sec 2, Taipei City, Taiwan

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

19 October 2012 Discovery

When I was a little boy, I saw the Columbia sitting on the ramp in Cape Canaveral. After that I wanted to become an astronaut for many years. Though I did not become one, I managed to make NASA send me a number of nice space shuttle mission photographs from the US all the way to my home in Europe.

Discovery is the name of NASA’s second space shuttles. It also was my motto for last weekend’s food choices. Well, maybe not in terms of the kind of food, but in terms of location. I am still working on trying out all the La Mian places, that the Epicure magazine considers the ten best in Singapore. This time I ventured to Tanjong Pagar’s Kampong Bahru Road.

Along a stretch of shop houses are the usual sleazy-bars next to cheap eateries and, to my surprise, two amazingly trendy looking cafes. However, the actual target for discovery was the Savor Rey La Mian Xiao Long Bao Restaurant off Epicure’s list in one of these shop houses.

It starts to dawn on me that my understanding of the best La Mian and that of the guys of Epicure may significantly differ. I asked the friendly waiter at Savor Rey whether the noodles would be freshly hand pulled and he said, they are ‘home made’. What does that mean?

It is time to get serious about things! What are the La Mian World criteria for any eatery to be considered in the best La Mian category?

1. Freshness: The noodles have to be hand pulled freshly for every dish served,

2. Craftsmanship: When you look at the noodles you must utter: ‘wow, that is amazing how evenly sized they are, although he just pulled them in front of my eyes’ (bonus points for front-of-the-eye-open-kitchen-la-mian-expert-chef-pulling),

3. Experience: In your mouth the La Mian are blowing you away with their balanced composition of texture, al-dente-ness and flavour of the dough,

4. Composition: Neither the sauce, soup, meat or whatever it is the dish consists of, can dominate over the noodle. The La Mian speak for themself but are complemented with superior sides.

Ticking through the list, Savor Rey does not fall into the best La Mian category. Not that I did not like the noodles that I ate here, and for sure nothing can beat their prices, but I would not put them on my favorite La Mian list. Since this is not a sell-out food blog, like… some others in Singapore, I don’t have to rave about every place I go to.

Walking back, I entered into Stranger’s Reunion Cafe attracted by its raw wooden door as well as accumulation of funny vintage chairs and table arrangements inside. Great coffee, cool ambience and good cake – this is what I rave about!

Let’s pull it together and forget about the Epicure list. I continue to go out to discover on my own the world’s best La Mian!

Savor Rey La Mian Xiao Long Bao Restaurant, 3 Kampong Bahru Road, Singapore

Stranger’s Reunion, 37 Kampong Bahru Road, Singapore

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

26 September 2012 in your eyes

Some trace back the history of modern-day shopping centers to the grand bazaars of the Orient. Through the retail evolution from downtown via main street shopping to mega malls, the concept has taken over the entire globe. Asia replaced the USA as the location with the largest, craziest and especially most fancy shopping temples. Today the world’s most gigantic malls are found in communist China. Asia loves luxury brands, brands in general and chain stores especially. This is not only true for the consumer’s love for cars, clothes or watches. It is also true for food.

Fine dining restaurants of celebrity chefs evolve into global chains like Wolfgang Puck’s Cut or Daniel Boulud’s db Bistro Moderne, which touched down in Singapore’s Marina Bay Sands’ The Shoppes. The Shoppes are themself a gigantic mall with a collection of high-profile names’ restaurants and sporting the Pangea night club. The latter reportedly serves Asia’s most expensive cocktail at 32,000 Singapore Dollar per glass.

La Mian World is dedicated to the quest for the perfect hand-made noodle. This quest started with the hole in the wall noodle stalls in China. This simple shops for fast food in its literally meaning never fail to impress with the quality of their food, amazing flavours and perfectly hand crafted noodles. Even in Singapore nowadays, a city hailed for its cleanliness and organisation you can find these simplest of places of Northern Chinese influence in and around the Pearl Center in Singapore. The next step towards commercialisation is the Hawker Centre. Ultimately the search will bring you to one of the malls. The Shoppes own food court has a La Mian outlet with a chef pulling the dough. However, the most common evolution of the La Mian stall is the restaurant or of the the chain restaurants serving the Shanghainese cuisine with a string of La Mian incorporated.  Din Tai Fung, Crystal Jade, Imperial Treasure and others have outlets across Asia(‘s malls).

Kuala Lumpur is mostly underestimated when talking about Asian mega cities while Hong Kong, Manila or Jakarta jump into mind immediately. As  any Asian city with some self-respect, Kuala Lumpur has a mind-boggling concentration of mega malls just within walking distance of its center: KL City Center, Berjaya Times Square and Pavillion Kuala Lumpur to name just a few.

No wonder a quick internet search for a place to have some La Mian for lunch brought me to a MALL. Not the usual candidate like Crystal Jade, a restaurant by the name of dragon-i caught my eye. As was to be suspected also this is not a single-outlet-only place. With a very similar menu to Crystal Jade La Mian Xiao Long Bao it throws in some Sizchuan and Beijing dishes. The interior of the dragon-i in Pavillion Kuala Lumpur feartures some interesting red plastic brick walls and  Xian soldier sculptures standing around. Overall it looks a lot more fancy than Crystal Jade and they seem to have sense for special effect and drama as can be witnessed in their La Mian pulling video: dragon-i la mian drama

I tried their seafood La Mian and the Xiao Long Bao. Although the presentation, juicyness and looks of the XLB were not entirely convincing, the taste was very good. The La Mian were pulled in the open kitchen by a seemingly very experienced chef. I felt that it took him only nano-seconds to produce my noodles. I enjoyed my bowl of freshly made fare and dreamt of some hole in the wall noodle shop in China….

Dragon-i, Pavillion Kuala Lumpur, Lot 1 .13, Level 1, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

17 September 2012 carbs commitment

Just as I realized my lack of commitment over the past weeks towards the ultimate goal of finding the best La Mian in the world I stumbled upon this article in the Epicure magazine titled Best La Mian in Singapore. This is their list:

ZI YEAN RESTAURANT, which I heard about. But not so much for noodles as more for dim sum,

SHANGHAI REN JIA, which I only knew as the name of a restaurant in Geylang serving very good Beijing duck,

JING HUA RESTAURANT, who‘s noodles did not convince me entirely,

SWEE CHOON DIM SUM RESTAURANT, I have not heard about,

IMPERIAL TREASURE LA MIAN XIAO LONG BAO, to which I never went so far,

LAN ZHOU LA MIAN, which was last on La Mian World’s 2011 Singapore La Mian ranking,

CRYSTAL JADE LA MIAN XIAO LONG BAO, which I love but find the Great World City branch the best,

LAO BEIJING, which has a lot of great northern Chinese food,

SAVOR REY LA MIAN XIAO LONG BAO RESTAURANT, I don’t know,

SHOU LA SHOU BEIJING RESTAURANT, and another one that I did not know.

Shockingly I had not even heard about or visited half of the places on this list. Time for some serious carbs infusion!

I started with Zi Yean Restaurant. It is a short walk from Redhill MRT station on the ground floor of a HDB block. It is quite sizable with an outdoor and an indoor air-conditioned section. I ordered some dumplings, dim sum and of course a bowl of stewed beef La Mian. It comes in a small bowl and is the perfect size to go with a selection of other dishes. The noodles were nice and good tasting. However, I am not entirely sure if they were made fresh on the spot. I did not manage to see or find the La Mian chef pulling the dough. I will have to review La Mian World last year’s list of the top La Mian places in Singapore. I am not convinced yet that the Zi Yean will make it in the 10 best. However, it would make it in my dim sum list for sure, if I would start one.

To compare against last year’s number one champion, I went to Noodlestar’s outlet in Bugis. It has a minimalistic, casual dining restaurant flair. But to my disappointment there is no open kitchen with the La Mian chef visibly performing his noodle pulling art. However, the La Mian of my bowl with in-house stewed pork rib were as amazing as in the food court stall of the Noodlestar in The Shoppes and in their Jalan Sultan restaurant. The pork was, wow!, quite fatty, but still I loved the dish.

The La Mian with minced pork and mushroom sauce was found to be fairly oily and the overall taste not up to the minced-pork-sauce-mark found in other places around Singapore. Still, the Noodelstar noodles outshone it all.

Now it is off to the gym again before heading to the next joint on Epicure’s list!

Zi Yean Restaurant, Blk 56 Lengkok Bahru, #01-443, Singapore

Noodlestar, 233 Victoria Street, Bugis Village, Singapore

Tags: , , , , , , , ,