Soon Li Yong Tau Foo

Crazy Midnight Crowd!

On a Dark & Stormy night in June, a certain Mr Wong (hmm...) was very hungry at 1am. 

Eager as always to serve him well, i set out towards the newly re-opened Bukit Merah View market.

Upon my arrival at about 1.30am, i decided to try my luck scout around the hawker centre to see if there was anything still open. 

Lo and behold, to my surprise, there was a long queue of about more than 10 people outside this Yong Tau Foo shop!! I was utterly stunned. I thought to myself, "What kind of legendary prowess does this Yong Tau Foo have? To be able to lure such a queue in the wee hours in the morning, while it's raining like mad!"

I decided not to join the queue on that day, but made a mental note to return someday.

That 'someday' came. More than once- because, each time i returned, there has never failed to be a queue of at least 10 or more people in it. 

If there's one thing i'm not really keen on, it's long queues for food. I concluded then, that i'll eat there if only the queue was shorter. 

The day finally came! Last Wednesday night, at around 10pm, I happened to be in the area and decided to check out the queue. 

"6 People only!" My mind screamed. Rushing forward, i glanced around and noticed bowls of selected food items, all neatly arranged in a line, mirroring the human queue that i was in. 

Asking for some advice from the person in front, He was kind enough to explain the procedure. 

"You'll have to quickly choose your food, if not you might be at risk of someone else cutting your queue." He stressed in Mandarin.

Here are my observations to getting your food:

1) 2 options, you can either choose to go and select your food, and queue up with bowl in hand throughout the entire time, or, you could wait till you are closer to the food, then choose and send your bowl to line up behind the rest. 

2) There WILL be the obnoxious uncle/aunty trying to get their bowl in front of yours, no matter what.

3) After you are able to set your bowl in the line, you are safe. 

4) When it is your turn, Don't Kancheong. The uncle looks fierce only. 

5) As there are no veggies for selection at the counter, you'll have to let the uncle know if you'd like some in your meal. On top of veggies, the uncle will ask if you want ikan bilis and green chilli padi in your soup. Be smart and say yes.

6) He will also ask you what kind of noodles you'd like. There's a selection of Bee Hoon / Yellow Mee, or a mixture of both. No Mee Kia, No Kueh Tiao. You can either choose to have the noodles in the soup medley, or separately. 

It looks something like this:

 

7) After i got my food at around 10.45pm, there were about 10 people in the queue behind.

Taste Test:

Right off the bat, i noticed that the soup was concocted using a large quantity of pork belly, soya beans and ikan bilis. A person in the queue ahead of me requested some pieces of pork belly, and the uncle obliged to cut some for her.

There is no separation of fried or soup items. Everything gets mixed into the soup.

Soup: Personally, i thought the body of the soup was better than average. It was not overwhelmingly porky. Somehow the uncle managed to strike a balance between the flavours. The most predominant flavour must have been the notes of soya beans & ikan bilis coming through at the top, followed by a blur of whatever items you picked, blended with a strong back-end of numbness from the green chilli padi. I don't think the soup lacked love or character, perhaps it was the medley of everything coming together in a bowl that made it hard to distinguish the flavours. 

Bee Hoon: Although i did not select dried cuttlefish, squid and pig's intestines, i found a piece of each in my bowl of Bee Hoon. Perhaps a gift from the uncle, or perhaps just his usual standard. Also, the aunty will ask you if you'd like sweet sauce and/or chilli. I went for both. Finally, it's topped off with crispy bits of what i believe is pork skin. The Chilli hits the palate first, and a split second later, the sweet sauce comes through. It wasn't that spicy and the flavour was quite well rounded. I added a few spoons of soup to help the dish achieve greater harmony.

Overall, it was a nervous and exciting experience, with a ridiculous number of people buzzing around. Food was above average, although i'm certain that most of the items available are brought in. I noticed that if you had more people sharing, that you'll get a significantly bigger bowl to share from. Good for communion eating. Ok. Honestly, i might not eat it again if i was at the end of the queue. It's not bad, but it's not mind-blowing either. Perhaps the best word to use in this situation would be: Unique.

Shiokness Factor: 7/10