So many of my makan kakis ate and shared about Chef Kang's wanton mee at Jackson Square Cafe, I couldn't wait to check it out myself. (Chef Kang as you know is the chef behind the Singapore One Michelin Star Chef Kang Kitchen.)
Jackson Square Cafe is a small food court between Block A and Block B of Jackson Square. It is located at the street level. It is easy to find - once you are in Jackson Square, walk straight ahead along the large building until the end of Block A. Turn left and walk ahead until you see this outdoor food court - tadaa..... .
Reading about the 1 - 2 hour queues, I got here slightly after 9am to save myself the wait. At this early hour, I got my noodles in about 10 minutes.
The staff were very polite and professional. An auntie just ordered like 30 packs 😱
I ordered the $5 wanton mee set. It comes beautifully plated with a bowl of soup. There's only the dry version (no noodle soup version).
There's the $10 luxury edition with abalone. They also have $10 plates of char siew. You know me - I went just for the basics.
Let's cover the soup first. It was excellent. Actually, the best thing about Chef Kang's wanton mee.
It's a pork soup, not a dried sole fish soup 大地魚 (Hong Kong style), nor a dried anchovy soup (Malaysian style).
The whitish milky soup was very smooth and round bodied. It had a very nice well balanced savoury sweet pork bone flavour. It's the kind of soup you get at fine Chinese restaurants.
Buddy Aaron is right that this soup alone is worth $5.
There were 2 good size wantons inside the soup. The silky slippery smooth wanton skin wrapped minced pork, shrimp and chopped mushroom. The fresh pork tasted sweet, the soft spongy crunch of the mushroom added texture to the soft minced pork and shrimp. There was no sesame seed oil taste in the wanton.
The wanton mee came beautifully plated inside a deep oval shaped soup bowl. On the mound of egg noodles were char siew slices, choy sum greens and pork lard crackling at the side.
The egg noodles sat in a pool of heavy dark sauce.
The egg noodles were light and slender almost like mee hoon. The bamboo pole kneaded egg noodles were imported from Hong Kong. Tossed and well coated with dark soy sauce blend, it tasted caramelly sweet savoury with subtle hints of lard flavour.
There was no lye water taste at all. Neither was there any egg taste (but honestly, I can't remember when was the last time I tasted egg in wanton mee anymore).
The egg noodles had a light stringy springy crunch to the bite (which differs from the heavier soft firm more tactile crunch which I prefer).
Lard cracklings added crunch and old school touch to the wanton mee.
The char siew was nicely arranged. Good balance of fat and lean meat. It was tender and juicy. Tasted mainly caramel sweet with underlying savouriness and a bit of toastiness from the charred fringes.
Nice sambal chili with lots of hae bee (dried shrimps) in the savoury spicy blend. I didn't mix this in my noodles as I couldn't bear to throw the finely balanced sweet savoury tossing sauce off kilter.
👉 Nice wanton mee with good springy noodles in caramelly sweet savoury sauce. Good sweet savoury char siew. The most memorable part was the pork soup which was fine restaurant quality.
Quite generous portion for $5 (damn worth it, as we say in Singapore). How generous? I wanted to pop over to Lik Ming for my laksa fix since it was just across the road. But, I decided against it as I was quite full already and wanted to save my stomach for lunch.
Oh... I didn't let any of that sweet savoury dark soy sauce blend go to waste - slurped it up to the last drop. I love that smooth well balanced blend of flavours.
Today's Jackson Square was Fairchild Semiconductors in its past life. I know this view of Fairchild very well as I passed this way literally > 1,000 times. When I was in First Toa Payoh Secondary School, I walked to school and back from home in Lorong 5 every school day. I remember the ladies in their light blue mini skirt uniforms 😝 Both my old school and home have been demolished.
Restaurant name: Chef Kang's Noodle House
Address: Jackson Square Cafe, 11 Lor 3 Toa Payoh, Singapore 319579
GPS: 1°20'15.7"N 103°50'53.5"E 🌐 1.337701, 103.848202
Nearest MRT station: Braddell (10 minutes walk)
Hours: 8:00am - 4:00pm | close at 2pm on Sat & Sun (Monday off)
Non Halal
Date visited: 21 Nov 2018
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