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Wah Eng Beef Noodles has recently opened their very first food court stall at ION Orchard’s Food Opera.
For the uninitiated, the brand has very humble beginnings, starting as a push cart along Bain Street back in 1948. When the Singapore government stepped in to phase out street peddlers, they shifted to a kopitiam where they operated as Hwa Heng (Odeon) Beef Noodles opposite the old Odeon Theatre.
The brand was founded by the late Madam Mai Wah, who was the younger sister of the famous Hwa Heng family. When she passed on, her husband wanted to give up on the brand. But somehow in 2017, he managed to collaborate with the founder of British Hainan, Mr Frederick Puah (pictured above), to revive it. The pair met when Mr Wong’s sister introduced Frederick to him.
To this day, Wah Eng Beef Noodles supplies beef noodles to the Lobby Lounge at Shangri-La Singapore and occasionally to Marina Bay Sands.
Moving forward, the brand is looking for passionate franchisors who are able to get the flavour right. For now, the brand plans to focus on quality and getting their processes right before exploring plans to expand.
We started with the dry Signature Beef Noodles (S$15.90), my go-to order at any beef noodle stall. It came with thin beef slices, thicker chunks of beef brisket, tendon, beef balls, honeycomb tripe, then garnished with peanuts, salted veggies, and Chinese celery (kin chye).
I gave the bowl a good mix, enveloping the strands of thick bee hoon with the rich brown gravy. The texture was neither gloppy nor gooey, but perfectly smooth, with a well-balanced savoury flavour that ticked all my boxes.
I’ll be honest, the thick beef brisket chunks looked potentially tough before I tucked in, but that all went out the window after my first bite. The meat was tender without those irritating fibres getting stuck between my teeth.
The other beef parts — tripe, tendon and thin beef slices — were all done to tender perfection. My favourite was the tendon that just melted in my mouth like butter. I was impressed with the level of execution.
Just when I thought the flavour couldn’t get any better, I paired the noodles with the salted vegetables, housemade cincalok, and sambal. The cincalok’s zingy notes with the tangy veggies and spiced sambal really made me want to give a standing ovation — yes, it was that good, in my opinion.
If you’re a fan of beef balls, you’ll want to try the Handmade Traditional Beef Balls Soup (S$8.90). Each of the 6 beef balls was massive and irregularly ‘ugly’ in the best way possible, a telltale sign that these weren’t mass-produced in a factory. It had a great depth of flavour and harmonised well with the beef broth.
For those who prefer something soupy, you can also order the soup version of the Signature Beef Noodles (S$15.90) that comes with all the same partners in crime. Head to Food Opera at ION Orchard to give Wah Eng Beef Noodles a try!
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