Chung Cheng Chilli Mee – The Savoury Belacan is Great!

Do you know that there’s a famous chilli mee stall on the second level of Golden Mile Food Centre? That’s Chung Cheng Chilli Mee!

At first glance, Chung Cheng’s chilli mee may be mistaken for an indulgent bowl of prawn noodles (and yes they sell prawn mee too, as well as laksa). Priced from $3 to $5, the different portions of the chilli mee also determined the kind of ingredients you will get. The $3 starter bowl comes with standard fish cakes, tau pok, bean sprouts, peeled prawns and hard-boiled egg. The $4 version takes it up one notch with the addition of pork ribs, and the $5 bowl basically upsizes everything. Customers can also choose what type of noodles they want — mee pok, kway teow, bee hoon, etc. I ordered the $4 chilli mee with pork ribs and a mix of yellow noodles and bee hoon.

If not for their signature chilli, Chung Cheng Chilli Mee may well be a regular prawn noodles store. So the star of Chung Cheng Chilli Mee is undoubtedly its belacan chilli. Made in store from a secret recipe, Chung Cheng’s chilli is kept in a large silver pot and you can ask for as much as you want! Fearing that I would be unable to withstand the heat, I meekly requested for a little chilli. Their chilli lies more on the savoury side, rather than spicy, which made sense as the point of concocting your own chilli was to differentiate an otherwise plain bowl of prawn mee from its competition. Too spicy and it risked overpowering the freshness of the prawn and sweetness of the pork ribs. The sweetness of the belacan chilli was balanced out nicely, with the fragrant paste coating the yellow noodles well and leaving a lingering heat also.

For the other components of the chilli mee, they were generally alright but none particularly stood out. The prawns were crunchier than usual, providing a nice bite albeit their smaller size. The pork ribs were also flavourful, with the soft bone giving a welcome change in texture. However, Chung Cheng’s pork ribs had a pungent stench of pork and I wished that it could have been removed more thoroughly.

Their soup really impressed me though. I expected it to taste like the usual accompanying soup for prawn mee with just a light prawn fragrance. Instead, there were distinct sweet herbal notes and hints of pepper in the rich soup. I’ll suggest buying an iced cold drink after fighting the fire of the chilli mee instead of washing it all down with the soup as the peppery kick will not do much to soothe the burn.

True to its name, Chung Cheng’s belacan chilli does elevate a simple bowl of prawn mee. Chung Cheng is also a perfect example of how individually, the liao may not be much, but together with the belacan chilli, the liao makes a good hearty bowl of noodles. If you haven’t already been to Chung Cheng, be sure to give their noodles a try when you are in the Lavender area!

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

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