I have a love hate relationship with ban mian which is a dish of handmade noodles in broth because it is so difficult to find a real good one. I actually love the dish but every since Qiu Lian bian mian started franchising out to many stalls and the standards started dropping, I no longer attempt to order ban mian at just any stall. My colleague sent me a youtube video about this stall recently and it looked too good to miss out.
The noodle stall is located at Ubi Ave 1 area where there are many industrial buildings and offices. The DMQ Eating house coffee shop is one of the many coffee shops around this area and only houses 4 stalls selling Thai food, chicken rice, ban mian and drinks. The ban mian stall is like the anchor tenant directly owned by the DMQ coffee shop owner as you can see that they do not have a named signboard except for the word ‘Noodles’ and their staff wears the DMQ T-shirt.
The DMQ Eating house is a corner coffee shop so the available seating is actually quite limited especially during meal times, it could be a challenge to find an empty table if you are a big group.
The stall is constantly busy as almost all visiting the Eating house orders their noodles. Customers can choose between pork, chicken, seafood or meatballs, thick or thin noodles, soup or dry and make their payment as the staff will serve you the noodles.
It took close to 10 – 15 mins before my noodles arrived. I ordered the fortune pork ball version which comes with fuzhou pork ball as well as minced pork meat with thin noodles in soup for SGD 5.50. The serving is the same as the usual hawker but the price is about 10% higher because of the pork ball. The bowl comes with the standard fried scallions and anchovies as well as an egg which was cooked with the soup.
This meat ball is just like the one sold at Capitol food court where the inside of the pork ball contains seasoned minced pork. I absolutely love this pork ball and could eat many of them for lunch by myself. The pork meat outside is lightly seasoned and very bouncy while the inside is seasoned minced pork. I recently found out that these stalls get this meat ball from one same supplier.
The noodles are well made and cooked with a slight al dente bite. The noodles itself is firm yet with a good spring and bounce without the overly floury taste that many ban mian stalls cannot avoid. It was an enjoyable chew paired with the soup and did not get soggy even by the end of the meal. The highlight is definitely the soup as it was extremely flavourful with a deep layer of meat broth taste which is also refreshing at the same time. I could taste the natural sweetness of the soup made by hours of boiling the broth without excessive use of artificial seasoning.
I ordered the dry version with the flatter ban mian for the 2nd bowl as I realised that the dry version was very popular with the other patrons. The basic bowl of ban mian with minced pork was only SGD 4 which is similar to the pricing of other coffee shops but the serving was the same size which is filling enough for lunch. The dry version also comes with a separate bowl of soup with a poached egg.
After giving the noodles a good toss, you will realise that the dry noodles has this light brown sauce with a semi thick consistency that coats the noodles very well.
The flat noodles has a more chewy texture compared with the thin noodles and personally I love this version of the noodles better as the noodles were so bouncy it was a delight to eat. The sauce which has a light soy and scallion note provides a good balance to the noodles. To fully enjoy the noodles, you can break the poached egg with the runny yolk into your noodles to add another layer of yolky goodness.
Another important thing to highlight is their chilli which is ambrosial. It packs a good citrusy punch and is so fresh that you can taste the freshly grounded flavours of the chilli. Adding the chilli to the noodles will give it such a taste booster for those who can take spicy food.
Overall, I have to say DMQ noodles is really a gem found and their noodles can easily be one of the best ban mian I have eaten and I would say it is even better than Qiu Lian. The only deterrent is the distance to travel just for this bowl of ultimate goodness but I am definitely looking forward to my next trip there to try the other toppings.
Address: Blk 304, Ubi Ave 1, Singapore 400304
Operating hours: 10.15 am to 9 pm ( closed on Sun)
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