Song Kee Eating House Opens at Yio Chu Kang Road – Best Fish Dumplings in Singapore!

I am sure many supper goers remember Song Kee Fishball Noodles in Upper Serangoon. That is my favourite supper place with my friends when I was ahem, much younger. The Song Kee owners relocated to Tembaling Road in 2017 while the original stall along Upper Serangoon was taken over by a cousin of Song Kee’s owners and renamed as Finest Songkee’s Fishball Noodles. Their lease at Tembaling Road is up recently and they have moved to Yio Chu Kang Road just before Circuit Breaker.

We visited once during Phase 1 and waited close to 1.5 hours for our fishball noodles. Just last week, we visited the second time for a late lunch. It wasn’t that busy and we had an enjoyable lunch. Mr Chua runs the eatery, which is located at the defunct seafood restaurant Crab Party, with his wife and two brothers. They still insist on making their own fishballs, fish dumplings, and fish rolls.

The menu is very straightforward. You can either pick the dry or soup version, and each bowl is priced at $5 (small), $7 (medium), and $9 (large). All of us prefer the dry version with chilli, it’s tastier!

Song Kee Fishball Noodle is most famous for its fish dumplings (her giao), which is painstakingly hand-rolled by Mr Chua using fish meat and tapioca flour. The translucent fish paste skin needs to hold the meat and one by one folded like ingots.

You don’t see many places making fish dumplings now. I think Soon Wah Fishball Kway Teow Mee at Newton Food Centre and Lau Sim Shredded Chicken Noodles at Toa Payoh still make their own. But Song Kee’s version is still the best I have had. It is slippery smooth and very tasty.

A bowl of dry chilli noodles comes with lots of “liao”. Besides the signature fish dumplings, there is also fishballs, meat balls and fish cakes. I love how every fishball looks perfectly imperfect. There aren’t two that look exactly alike. Lightly salted, they are perfect to me in every way, from texture to flavour. The firmness and bounciness were on point. The meatball was a bonus for me.

The seasoning for the noodles is robust and the cubes of crispy lard a joy to eat. And every strand of springy noodle is coated in the savoury and spicy sauce which really makes it shine. How I wish I can have this every morning.

After our lunch, I peeped into their kitchen and saw Mr Chua busy making fish rolls with his son. Totally no short-cuts here, their fish products are really a craft of passion! Hence, be prepared to queue if you are there during lunch or dinner time.

You probably see a lot of outlets of Song Kee Fishball Noodles in Singapore. Well, they are somewhat related but they each make their own products in their different kitchens. But if you want the original one, you probably have to come to Yio Chu Kang Road lah. If you are driving to the new Yio Chu Kang outlet, there are lots of parking spaces opposite the shop (near the stadium). They have also opened another outlet at Jalan Besar but that outlet doesn’t sell fish dumplings.