The Four-Eyes Zai Fried Hokkien Mee: Hyped-up old-school wet HKM that’s only open for 4 hours

I’m not a fried Hokkien prawn mee fanatic. It’s not my favourite dish. Despite that, I’ve learned that I have very specific preferences regarding it: It must be the “wet style”, and absolutely no thin bee hoon. Only thick bee hoon and yellow noodles for me, and the ratio must be just right to avoid the yellow noodles overwhelming the entire dish. Thus, when The Four-Eyes Zai Fried Hokkien Mee popped up on my Instagram feed, I wanted to put their noodles to the test.

The Four-Eyes Zai Fried Hokkien Mee is located at Holland Drive Market & Food Centre. As for why the main signboard says “Fatty Cat Curry Rice”, it’s because Damon, the owner of Four-Eyes Zai, shares the stall with his cousin who sells curry rice during lunchtime. 

The stall has been gaining quite a following since its opening. Some of the reviews made bold claims, such as “The best Hokkien mee in town! Seriously!!!!!”

The waiting time can be as long as an hour, so I arrived as early as I could. I didn’t see a queue, and thought I lucked out.

Nope.

The Four-Eyes Zai Fried Hokkien Mee uses a buzzer system. After I made my order, I realised that at least 5 people were ahead of me. Dang it. I sat down and prepared myself for a wait.

What I tried at The Four-Eyes Zai Fried Hokkien Mee

The Four-Eyes Zai Fried Hokkien Mee sells their titular dish in 3 different portion sizes: S$6 (S), S$8 (M), and S$10 (L). There’s also the option to add Egg for S$1, and extra ingredients are S$2. I went for the S$8 portion with added Egg, for a total of S$9.

I ended up waiting about half an hour for my food.

It was served on a very flimsy styrofoam plate with disposable chopsticks. While it doesn’t bother me too much, I know some diners may find this off-putting. 

There were a few bits of lard sprinkled on top. The lard didn’t retain its crunchy texture for long – some of them got soggy and mushy as I was about halfway through.

I had asked for extra egg, and for S$1, this was about as much as I got. Not impressed. I found more egg bits later, but some of them were completely charred and unpleasantly bitter. I ended up not eating those and shoving them to the side.

I scooped up some noodles. They were slightly softer than al dente from being simmered in the stock, which had collected into a viscous puddle under the noodles. While I could taste the prawn essence in the broth, I didn’t find it umami enough. There also wasn’t much wok hei, if at all. 

The more I ate of the dish, the stronger the taste of the yellow noodles became. At one point, all I could taste was yellow noodles. Urgh. This opinion goes against what most fried Hokkien mee appreciators say, but I think I like my noodles much firmer and less “soaked”.

The S$8 portion comes with 4 decently sized prawns. I am pleased to report that each of these prawns tasted fresh and sweet. 

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The sotong rings likewise were also fresh and cooked to the right doneness. I liked that they were sliced thicker for a more substantial bite.

Strips of pork belly were generously sprinkled throughout. Well-cooked and flavourful, they added nice contrasts in texture and bursts of savoury meatiness.

The chilli was perplexing to me. Tasted on its own, it was very spicy and had a pronounced bitter aftertaste that I didn’t like at all. When mixed with some of the noodles and broth, the bitterness was gone, but it also didn’t add much apart from making everything spicier. 

Final thoughts

I really wanted to like this fried Hokkien mee, but a combination of factors kind of dragged the plate down. The lack of wok hei, the texture of the noodles and how overpowering the yellow noodles got, the chilli… 

I thought all the individual ingredients such as the sotong, pork belly and prawns were good, but the noodles couldn’t bring it home for me. If you’d like to try Four-Eyes Zai’s Hokkien mee, take note that they are only open from 5pm onwards until 8.30pm, except for Sundays when they start at 10am.

Expected damage: S$6 – S$10 per pax

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