Will I ever get to eat dry noodles again?

Recently, I have been very troubled by the fact that most hawkers sell their dry noodles, rather wet!!

It all started from my minced meat mee pok, that I love to eat. Some places just love to scoop one big scoop of soup to so-call mix the sauces together, when I specifically ordered dry mee pok.

Then it extended to the wanton noodles that I love to eat! They had to scoop soup into the wanton noodles dry that I ordered. I was particularly very angry with this stall at Gourmet Paradise, a food court at Toa Payoh HDB Hub. I had specifically told the guy, "dry-dry, don't add soup". But in the midst of all that talking with his co-worker, he added one round of soup into my noodles already. The second time that I saw him wanting to scoop some more soup, I literally barked at him not to do so. I was fuming mad as I was ordering take-away and by adding soup, it would make the noodles super soggy.

True enough, the noodles were soggy and it had a very bitter taste to it, which means a certain type of ingredient (called jian shui in Chinese) has been overly used in this noodle. I swear I will never eat at this stall again.

At first, I thought this was a trend brought in my Chinese nationals but it seems like the Malaysians (those working at the Gourmet Paradise Hong Kong style roast) are also picking up on this adding soup onto dry noodles habit.

Worst still, I was watching this Taiwanese show on cable t.v. and they were doing an episode on instant noodles. The host was also doing the same thing!! She was demonstrating how to cook IndoMie Mee Goreng and after she dished out the noodles, she poured some soup in to mix!!! EEeeeks!!!

I guess it boils down to personal preference but I really prefer my dry noodles to be just that! Dry!!

I think the only mee pok I will eat will be from the stall at Kopi Tiam food court at Plaza by the Park (reachable by Circle Line, Stop: Bras Basah)and this 24-hour coffee shop at Toa Payoh. But for the latter, I must ensure I get the right staff to cook. If not, this other lady will still steal some soup and even add ketchup, which to me, in mee pok world, is not acceptable.

This stall at this particular food court is called Tang Ren Jie (Chinatown). You must look out for the uncle with white hair and not the uncle with thinning black hair. The latter is a stand-in. He has a slightly bad temper and does not cook as well as the 'original' uncle.

As for wanton noodles, I shall tell you in my future postings, which ones I prefer. Got to get the addresses right first before I 'report'.