Xiao Mei Ban Mian – Myanmar-Style Noodles by a Former Software Engineer in Woodlands!

We stan budding chefs who take a leap of faith from a completely unrelated industry into the crazy world of cooking and F&B! Myanmar-born Khine Zar Lin did exactly that; due to the impacts of COVID which caused her company to shutter. The young hawker made the switch from a software engineer, and opened up Xiao Mei Ban Mian. 

Don’t just expect to find your standard ban mian here; Khine had also decided to give Singaporeans a taste of home, or more specifically, Yangon. Commonly known as kyay oh, this Myanmar-style dish is wildly popular with the locals there and comprises rice noodles and meatballs. 

It’s hard to find Burmese cuisine here in general, but Khine is determined to roll out more dishes like mohinga (rice noodle and fish soup) in the future. 

The menu doesn’t end there, with offerings of Tom Yum Seafood You Mian Soup ($5.90), comforting Fish Soup with bee hoon or rice ($5.90) and Mee Hoon Kueh ($3.90). You can also choose to dress your noodles with more ingredients such as egg, meatballs, pork belly, bitter gourd and tofu at additional costs. 

The Pork Belly Ban Mian Soup ($4.90) features handmade meatballs, thin pork belly slices, cabbage, egg, ikan bilis, fried shallots, and smooth noodles. The ban mian had a bit of bite to it and still retained its firmness despite sitting in the soup for some time while I was busy snapping photos. 

When it comes to ban mian broth, I’m always in favour of a soup that has robust flavours but is still light on the palate. This bowl definitely achieved that. Having been boiled for three hours with pork bones, ikan bilis and onions, the soup was full-bodied and was delicious with the noods.

I absolutely couldn’t get enough of the meatballs. These tasty morsels were well-marinated with slightly sweet tones and were already great on their own. But once you dip it into their homemade chilli sauce, it was further elevated by the spicy-sour tang of the chilli. It also went well with the almost paper-thin pork belly!

Painting quite an aesthetic picture, the Myanmar Style Pig Organs Bee Hoon Dry ($7.90) was an eye-catching ensemble of offal, more of those yummy meatballs, tofu, quail’s eggs and green mustard leaves with a sprinkling of fried garlic, shallots, spring onions and Myanmar ground pepper. 

The bee hoon was tossed in a sauce mixture of lard oil, soya sauce and sesame oil that made it quite aromatic but as one who favours strong flavours, I would have liked it to be, well, even more strongly flavoured.

The offal – pig’s tongue and intestine – was well deserving of praise, having been cleaned thoroughly with zero funkiness left behind. As for the dipping sauce, Khine mentioned that this was specifically made to go with the pig’s organs. While it wasn’t made from scratch like the previous one with the ban mian, it was made with a mixture of sauces and reminded me a lot of ketchup but not as sweet. 

As for the accompanying soup, it had slightly bitter undertones and was very much on the lighter side, probably to offset the flavours of the main dish. 

There are also sides of Fried Gyoza and Boiled Gyoza ($2 for three pieces, $3 for five pieces, $5.90 for ten pieces). Khine also mentioned that they do sell handmade gyoza but only while stocks last due to limited supply! 

All in all, I would say that this was a pleasant change of pace from the typical noodle dishes we have in Singapore. It’s not everyday that you see Myanmar-style dishes in hawker centres and coffee shops so I’d suggest giving it a try!

MissTamChiak.com made an anonymous visit and paid its own meal at the stall featured here.

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