A Rashid Khan Indian Food: Old School Mee Siam and Sup Kambing!

Indian Mee Siam

I get really excited every time I manage to find a good Indian Mee Siam. It’s one of those dishes that are getting really hard to come by nowadays. I guess if you belong to a certain age group, you will probably remember two places in Singapore where this dish was famous. One is Waterloo Street and the other would be Shenton Way hawker centre. I don’t remember either of these because I was a Toa Payoh boy and my dad never brought me to these places when I was growing up. But this type of mee siam is significant for me because I was eating it at the St Andrew’s School Tuckshop for 10 years. So it is a flavour that brings me back to my very happy school days of playing soccer during recess time and coming back to a classroom that felt more like a sauna. Pity my teachers!

Well, this particular stall can trace its lineage back to the days of Shenton Way. It was a blast from the past and it was exactly what I remembered and was yearning for. There is an addictive quality about the mee siam which I can’t really put my finger on. You first impression will certainly be of the sweetness, but moving beyond that, the full mouth feel and subtle umami flavours of the dried prawns and candlenuts gives it a depth of flavour that compels you to want to finish the plate. 4.5/5

Soup Kambing with bones $4

It seems that when they shut down the old Shenton Way Carpark, most of the Hawkers relocated to the Ayer Rajah Food Centre. As a result, Ayer Rajah Food Centre is one place where you can find a concentration Indian food stalls. We were there for the Indian Rojak and was introduced to this stall by my fishing kaki, Kencanfish. I am sure there must be a good Roti Prata stall as well as Teh Tarik here, so if you have any stalls to recommend, please let me know.

There aren’t many places left in Singapore that make a good Sup Kambing, so we were very happy to find that there is a good Sup Kambing here. You can of course go for the normal bowl which is soup with cubes of Mutton, but I would highly recommend ordering the tulang (Bone Marrow) version. The tendons are cooked till they have turned to jelly and you will really enjoy gnawing at the bones and picking out the marrow. Don’t forget to order a side dish of French bread to mop up the soup! The soup here is actually not too heavy and the flavour is good although I felt it could do with a bit more punch. It is however a bowl of soup that would satisfy that Sup Kambing craving. 4.25/5

I find that the Roti John nowadays are just too full of Mayonnaise and Cheese Sauce. In the old days, it was just bread and chilli and its the chilli which is the star of the show. So I am glad when I heard this stall owner boast about his chilli which he cooks himself. He likes to flatten the bread so that the crust is super crisp and you dip it into the chilli sauce as you would a cracker. The mutton flavour was, however, lacking and I felt they could be more generous with the egg. 4/5

Conclusion

Mee Siam and Sup Kambing. When was the last time you had some?

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