Malaysia
Singapore
Thailand
Singaporeans are naming Chilli Crabs and Chicken Rice or even Satay as the national dish or the dishes to let their foreign friends try when they’re in Singapore. But I personally think our national dish should be Satay Bee Hoon.
To me and probably many others, Sin Chew Satay Bee Hoon at Bukit Timah Food Centre probably does it the best. The almost permanent queues in front of Sin Chew Satay Bee Hoon tell no lies. On top of that, they have a Google rating of 4.5 stars with 288 reviews at the time of writing this article.
While dishes like chicken rice can easily be found in every coffee shop, some even have more than one stall, stalls that sell Satay Bee Hoon (from S$4) are rare. Finding a good Satay Bee Hoon stall makes it even rarer.
I think partially the reason is that it is a dying tradition to cook up Satay Bee Hoon since the younger generations tend to stray away from it as the combination does sound weird.
Satay Bee Hoon is believed to have originated from the blending of Chinese and Malay influences in Singapore, a reflection of the country’s multicultural food scene. The dish takes inspiration from the Malay satay, a popular street food consisting of skewered meat grilled over charcoal and served with a rich, savoury peanut sauce.
The Chinese influence is evident in the use of bee hoon, a type of thin rice noodle common in Chinese cuisine. The fusion of these elements creates a unique dish that has become a staple in Singaporean hawker centres.
What I tried at Sin Chew Satay Bee Hoon
What sets Sin Chew Satay Bee Hoon apart is its rich and flavourful peanut sauce, which serves as the heart of the dish. The sauce, made with ground peanuts, coconut milk, chilli, garlic, and spices, is rich, creamy, and mildly spicy with a hint of sweetness.
My experience with other places is that they leave huge chunks of peanut in the sauce, which does not go well with the watery sauce— think peanut chunks with water, a nasty combination. Here, their proprietary sauce is homogenous, meaning that it is well-blended, almost like liquified peanut butter.
While there are chunks of peanut which give it the crunch in every bite, it blends well with this creamy peanut sauce. Spices are also added to give it that additional earthy depth of flavour.
The sauce I feel is the key to any good satay bee hoon and Sin Chew Satay Beehoon has nailed it.
This delicious luxe, vibrant orange sauce is abundantly poured over bee hoon and other ingredients like cuttlefish, prawns, pork slices, taupok (tofu puffs), bean sprouts, prawn and kangkong (water spinach). The combination of these ingredients creates layers of textures and aromas, resulting in a taste explosion with each bite.
While the cockles were on the larger side and there was a generous variety of ingredients, I feel that there was nothing out of the ordinary with the bee hoon and other ingredients.
This again reiterates the point from before that the heart of a satay bee hoon is the sauce.
For those who prefer something lighter, they also sell Cuttlefish Kangkong (S$6) which comes with some cucumber for the crunch. While I am probably uncultured and do not understand how this can be a dish on its own, I can see how those who love fresh cuttlefish might enjoy this. Because the crunch of the cuttlefish is satisfying and the ingredients they use are premium.
Final thoughts
I feel that Sin Chew Satay Bee Hoon has lived up to its high Google reviews and hype. I hope that they will continue their operations despite the disruptions to Bukit Timah Food Centre, due to renovation activities.
On top of that, it is already tough finding a satay bee hoon stall, let alone a good one. So here’s to a couple more decades to allow many more, especially the younger generation to try this Singapore delicacy.
Expected damage: S$4 – S$8 per pax
Old Teochew: Tasty satay bee hoon & $4 bowls of mee siam sold out by lunch
