Hill Street Tai Hwa Pork Noodle: Selling Bak Chor Mee and The Only Remaining MICHELIN-Starred Hawker Stall

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This article is part of the Singapore Food Trip 2024 series Check out the installments in this series: Maxwell Food Centre (Hawker Centre) | Tian Tian Hainanese Chicken Rice

Hill Street Tai Hwa Pork Noodle is the only remaining MICHELIN-starred hawker stall because Liao Fan Hawker Chan in Chinatown Complex Food Center ost its star in 2021. Anyway…

Located in Tai Hwa Eating House in Crawford Lane, Hill Street Tai Hwa Pork Noodle specializes in Bak Chor Mee or minced pork noodles. This iconic Singaporean noodle dish is mainly composed of noodles, minced meat, and different pork ingredients such as meatballs and pork slices. It’s also available in dry and soup versions.

Hill Street Tai Hwa Pork Noodle was founded by Tang Joon Teo back in 1932 when it was still located at its namesake street. When Tang passed away, his second son, Chay Seng, continued the operations. Unlike the ever-expanding Hawker Chan, Hill Street still has only one branch as of the time of this writing.

As I mentioned earlier, this stall has a 1 MICHELIN Star, which it first won in 2016 together with Hawker Chan. But aside from this recognition, it also ranked number one in the Top 50 World Street Food Masters by the World Street Food Congress 2017. No wonder it’s considered best bak chor mee hawker in all of Singapore.

Hill Street Tai Hwa Pork Noodle has 1 MICHELIN Star

This is not to be confused with Tai Wah Pork Noodle (notice the slight difference in the spelling), which is a chain with its main branch in Hong Lim Market & Food Centre. While the owners of both shops are relatives, they are two different establishments. In fact, these two have a feud, which CNA features in this video.

There’s only one Tai Hwa Pork Noodle, as this notice claims

I first visited the stall back in 2018 and it took me exactly one hour and thirty-seven minutes just to place my order. I got the dry bak chor mee and the meatball soup. Thankfully, both dishes were tasty and enjoyable, making the wait worth it.

But after all these years, is it still worthy of a MICHELIN Star? I returned to find out.

This time around, we went just before its opening time. After a customer or two before me, I was able to place my order. And we got our food in less than ten minutes.

The Cook Preparing Bowls of *Bak Chor Mee*

We got both dry (“Gan Mian” in the menu) and soup (“Guo Tiao Tang”) versions. Let’s start with the dry one first.

The noodles are still bouncy and chewy, as I remember it to be. I could tell that all the ingredients—dumplings, meatballs, minced pork, pig liver, and the deep-fried sole fish—are of high quality.

The dry *bak chor mee* has bouncy and chewy noodles!

But this time around, I think the black vinegar sauce is overpowering. It has a strong sour taste that makes the dish less enjoyable than before.

The soup version has more or less the same ingredients but has kway teow (flat rice) noodles instead. The soup is tasty and porky, while the noodles are soft and smooth.

So is Hill Street Tai Hwa Pork Noodle still worthy of a MICHELIN Star? I’m not so sure. I’m glad that the queue in the morning was short and the quality of ingredients is still top-notch. However, if they changed the recipe so that the black vinegar is stronger, I personally think it’s no longer worth queuing for.

But who knows? Maybe the cook that day just had an off day and put more vinegar than usual. Regardless, I recommend that you pay it a visit and find for yourself.

Address: #01-12 Tai Hwa Eating House, 466 Crawford Ln., Singapore | Operating Hours: Daily, 9AM-8:30PM | Facebook | Website