Roast Paradise Hawkers Open Noodle Stall Serving $6 Ikura Bak Chor Mee With Herh Keow
Minced Pork Bros is located at Old Airport Road Food Centre, where the popular Roast Paradise also resides.
The folks behind popular KL-style char siew stall Roast Paradise at Old Airport Road Food Centre have branched out into bak chor mee. The three-week-old stall, already attracting queues, is named Minced Pork Bros and offers bak chor mee accented with atas ingredients like scallops, ikura and abalone – though a traditional bowl is also available for $3.
Kai Koh (left), 36 and Randall Gan (pictured below, rightmost), 32, aren’t strangers to mod concepts — their other ventures include collaborations with personalities like Class 95FM deejays The Muttons for hip roast meat joint Fook Kin and the now-defunct izakaya Izy Fook by Sonia Chew of 987FM.
They run this noodle stall – located just down the row from Roast Paradise – with three other shareholders: Nicholas Kong (right), 32, who quit his job as a web developer to work as a full-time hawker here; Tan Shi Xiong (below, leftmost), 31, who works in sales in the finance industry; and Samuel Ow, 31, a self-employed designer who wasn’t present at the shoot. The last two partners kept their day jobs – Shi Xiong handles finances and marketing for the stall, while Samuel does the designing and photography.
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Bak chor mee was their go-to supper dish
The gang used to work as event planners in the nightlife industry. Shi Xiong explains, “After parties [that we’ve planned], it’s usually a very tiring event, so we seek comfort in suppers. And one of our go-to supper dishes was always bak chor mee.”
“So Minced Pork Bros came about during one of our [recent] catch-ups. While reminiscing, one of those [old suppers] was brought up. And we thought, ‘Why can’t we do this ourselves?’” he adds.
From web developer to BCM hawker
Veteran hawker Kai cooks the noodles for now, while F&B newbie Nicholas assembles the bowls.
Nicholas says he wanted to “try out something that would be more fulfilling than working for a company”. He adds: “The work life [balance] isn’t too different actually. In IT, you always have to OT (work overtime) anyway,” he says with a laugh.
As it’s only been three weeks since Nicholas first started cooking, Kai has temporarily moved over from Roast Paradise and taken him under his wing for the time being. “That’s why we got the stalls so close to each other, we can save time and move staff around when we need to,” he shares. “Nicholas is about 40 percent there, but he needs more confidence before he can run it independently.” Eventually, Kai will return to Roast Paradise while Nicholas handles things at Minced Pork Bros.
So your experience may vary if you’re swinging by in a couple months’ time when the former web developer is in charge.
Confident they have something that’ll work
Modern riffs on bak chor mee, like those at Gimee Face or Jofa Mee Pok, aren’t new. However, the hawkers are confident that Minced Pork Bros can stand apart from the competition. Nicholas says, “Before we started, every partner went to compile a list of their favourite bak chor mee stalls, and why we found it nice. We’ve tried to combine all of that into a single bowl.”
Their criteria for good bak chor mee: yummy ingredients, down to the little details like “the ratio of fat in the minced meat” – they went with a 20:80 fat-to-meat ratio for the minced pork that comes with every bowl, and double that for dumplings. Other details include balancing out the sauce between chilli, lard oil and vinegar, as well as the texture of the noodles.
The guys added some contemporary flourishes like ikura to keep the dish interesting. However, they’ve also included a classic $3 bowl as they’re aware that hawker food has to be affordable.
The menu
Minced Pork Bros sells around 200 bowls a day, though Nicholas adds that they’ve faced a few hiccups since opening day, like long waiting times. “We’re working on improving our cooking processes so that people won’t be so sian while waiting,” he says with a laugh.
There are four main noodle dishes on the menu – all variations of dry bak chor mee, with toppings like canned abalone, handmade herh keow (Teochew fish dumplings) and prawn paste. Some of these toppings, like herh keow or dumplings, are also sold as snacks in a bowl of soup.
Classic Minced Pork Noodles, $4 (8 DAYS Pick!)
Minced Pork Bros’ classic bowl comes with minced pork, sliced pork collar, gobs of prawn paste, a dumpling and deep-fried fish sticks. We opted for the $4 version, as the cheaper $3 bowl comes without the last two ingredients. Every bowl is dressed with a sauce that’s lard and chilli-forward rather than vinegary (though you can get more vinegar on the side if you like it tangier) – which clings to the al dente, springy mee pok, the only noodle option here. According to Nicholas, they get mee pok that’s slightly thicker than usual from a supplier for “better mouthfeel” – the same mee pok that’s used at Roast Paradise for their Hakka noodles.
The bowl is fragrant and savoury, with overlapping layers of flavour from the hae bee-laden chilli, crushed ti poh (dried flat fish) and crispy lard. The other ingredients don’t disappoint either. The prawn paste orbs are suitably QQ, and the ti poh and fatty minced pork-stuffed dumpling umami and rich. The fried fish sticks – fish paste wrapped in beancurd skin, from a supplier – remind us a bit of lekor (Malaysian fish crackers), though with far more crunch and intensity.
Considering the hawkers’ speciality is in roast meat and not noodles, their bak chor mee is pretty delish. Our only grouse – the portion is a little small.
Signature Mee Pok Tar with Superior Soup, $5.50 (8 DAYS Pick!)
Every serving of bak chor mee also comes with a little bowl of broth, made from pork bones, white clams and old hen. It’s mellow and sweet, faring well enough on its own. For this more luxe version, the stock is simmered with scallop, minced meat, sliced pork, Teochew meatball (comprising pork, fish paste, coriander and bits of chilli), prawn paste and cabbage. The resulting soup is full-bodied and packs a savoury punch – a worthy foil to the addictive bak chor mee. As for the Teochew meatball, expect an elastic bite that gives way to a soft interior speckled with bits of veg.
Teochew Modern Pork Noodles, $6
Teochew is a bit of a misnomer here, since the star ingredients include a whole canned Japanese abalone and half a store-bought ramen egg, alongside more conventional fare like a Teochew meatball, minced pork and a shard of ti poh. It doesn’t work as well as the other bowls here as the abalone – though pleasantly chewy and briny – in tandem with the ramen egg don’t meld with the other ingredients to create something particularly memorable.
Seafood Minced Pork Noodles, $6
The small spoonful of ikura (salmon roe) in their seafood-themed bowl works far better, as the shiny orbs provide little bursts of oceanic oomph as you work your way through the noodles. The prawn and scallop are plump and tasty, though the herh keow is the highlight. These Teochew fish dumplings are handmade by the hawkers daily – down to the dumpling skin, which is crafted from minced yellowtail fish and tapioca flour. This is stuffed with fatty minced pork and ti poh, yielding a slippery package brimming with meaty flavour (you’ll want to get an extra bowl of the stuff on the side).
We can’t help but wonder – shouldn’t the herh keow go into the Teochew bowl, while this bowl gets the abalone?
Bottom line
Minced Pork Bros serves punchy, lardy bak chor mee that ticks all the boxes. While the portions aren’t as large as we’d like, you’re getting your money’s worth from the attention to detail in the tasty house-made toppings. Pop by before the queue gets any longer.
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