The Story Behind MingFa’s Bak Chor Mee

It all started off in 1970s, when 2nd generation Mr. Lim Gek Meng was expanding Ming Fa’s business into the food court. One of the challenges that he was facing was the rental. At that time, the cost was about 10 times higher than hawker centre. He then thinks of a way to add more food choices to the menu. Bak Chor Mee was one of the more popular dishes during that time. Furthermore, both minced pork noodles and fishball noodles use the same base but only with different topping ingredients. This was how Bak Chor Mee and a variety of favourite local dishes were created in Ming Fa.

What is Bak Chor Mee? 

Minced pork noodles, also widely known as “Bak Chor Mee” can be said as a representation of Singapore food culture. It is a unique dish that originated from the Teochew community and is almost exclusively found in Singapore. Bak Chor Mee in Singapore is so satisfying for an empty stomach and this is one of the reasons why it is enjoyed as a staple food by locals at all times.

Bak Chor Mee features a delightful combination of flavours and textures. It consists of egg noodles, which is usually mee kia or mee pok that is cooked to an extent in which the texture becomes chewy and springy. It is then tossed in a sauce for flavour together with a mix of ingredients served with the noodles. Different stalls may vary for the toppings that come with the minced pork noodles. In a bowl of Ming Fa’s classic Bak Chor Mee, the ingredients that you can find is the minced pork, sliced pork, meatball, liver, braised mushroom slices, lettuce and pork lard. 

What Makes Our Minced Pork Noodles The Best?

Bak Chor Mee in Singapore comes with a distinctive sauce. It is well known for its vinegar taste. To become one of the best in Singapore for serving delicious minced pork noodles, the condiments Ming Fa uses in making the sauce includes their own cooked chilli plus a homemade vinegar recipe that makes it taste savoury, tangy and spicy at the same time. Besides that, before marinating the meat, the tendon of the lean meat is removed by hand to ensure the tenderness of each slice of meat. Ming Fa uses a special meat cup to standardise each portion in a bowl of noodles to be perfect, paired with an in-house created signature meatball that makes each mouthful of minced pork noodles to be juicy and flavourful!