I love pork chops and I love egg noodles, so when I heard about an ex Din Tai Fung (DTF) chef serving pork chop noodles at Whampoa Makan Place, I needed to check it out. I wanted to see if I could get DTF standard pork chops at a fraction of the price.
The stall is run by Robin and Kim, who both grew up in Sabah. Robin told me he grew up eating Kolo Mee, and it was something he really missed. So when he left his job at DTF, he decided to open a hawker stall selling Sabah style Kolo Mee. But since he knew the DTF pork chop recipe so well, and knew how much Singaporeans love it, he swapped in that pork chop instead of the more traditional toppings.
It got me curious enough to read up on Kolo Mee properly. Turns out the dish actually traces back to Kuching, not Sabah, where a Hakka businessman is said to have started selling a dry tossed noodle back in the 1920s.
Over the decades it picked up its name from the Cantonese “gon lo”, meaning dry mixed. Its Sarawak version stayed pale and light, tossed simply in lard and shallot oil. Sabah only really got its own Kolo Mee scene going from around 2010. It developed its own character from there, darker, with black soy sauce stirred through.
So when Robin says Sabah style, he is talking about a real, distinct branch of the noodle, not just a regional label.
The Pork Chop Kolo Mee
Sabah style Kolo Mee is easy enough to find in Singapore these days, but most of it is imported frozen from Malaysia. What sets the noodles apart from our local wanton mee is that there is no kee, or alkaline water, in the dough. Instead, they are made with eggs, which gives them a springier, more tender bite than wanton noodles.
Robin has kept his version traditional, using only shallot oil, no lard, which he tells me is how it is done back home in Sabah. The noodles themselves are lovely. I like mine plain, no chilli, because I want to taste the egg noodles and the shallot oil doing their thing together, nothing else needed.
My bowl was a little overcooked that day, so it lost some of that springiness I was after. My friends’ bowls came out just right, though. The pork chop, unfortunately, did not quite hit the DTF standard I was hoping for. It was tasty, but was over tenderised. It lost some of that bite which a good pork chop should have.
Don’t Miss the New Knife Cut noodles
Three Bowls has just introduced a knife cut noodle, hand pulled, with a lovely toothy texture. I had mine with the black soy sauce, which reminded me of the Malaysian style noodles I have had up north. The texture was satisfying, chewy in the right way, and the minced pork worked beautifully with it.
Conclusion
Overall, I think this stall has real potential. Robin just needs to tweak the pork chop recipe a little and be more consistent with his noodle cooking times. Despite the rough edges, Three Bowls is still worth a visit if you are craving pork chops or a proper bowl of Sabah style Kolo Mee. The knife cut noodles with dark sauce are well worth trying if you are after Malaysian style noodles!
