Market Stall Staple · Braised Noodles

Lor Mee

Photo: ProjectManhattan / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0

The gravy is thickened with starch and often beaten egg until it clings to the noodles rather than pooling, and diners adjust each bowl themselves with black vinegar, raw garlic and chili.

Thick yellow noodles are ladled with a starch-thickened, five-spice-scented braising gravy, then piled with braised pork belly, fried fish cake, a hard-boiled egg, and crispy flour fritters, finished with a splash of vinegar and raw garlic.

Why it's made this way: Lor mee grew out of Hokkien braising traditions, and it became one of the signature dishes at Tiong Bahru Market's hawker stalls after the market's 1955 opening gathered the area's street hawkers under one roof.