Sotong balls + ee mian soup ($8)!
Chinatown hawker — fried ee mian noodles in clear broth loaded with sotong balls, pork meatballs, sliced fishcake, bok choy. $8.
Lunch today: sotong ball + ee mian soup at $8, Chinatown. A loaded fishball bowl. 😋
What was in the bowl ($8):
- Ee mian (deep-fried yellow noodles) in a clear pork-and-anchovy broth.
- Multiple sotong (cuttlefish) balls, the bouncy pale ones.
- Pork meatballs, smaller and darker.
- Sliced fishcake strips.
- Bok choy and chopped scallions.
The noodle base here is ee mian (伊面), the flat yellow noodle that’s been deep-fried into nests before cooking, so it has a slightly spongy, crinkly texture that drinks up the soup, eating quite differently from a smoother kway teow or bee hoon in the same broth. The soup itself is the clean, comforting clear kind, simmered with pork bones and anchovies for a light savoury-sweet base.
What makes this bowl worth $8 is how loaded it is. The sotong balls are the highlight, made from cuttlefish paste with that distinctive springy, almost squeaky bounce, while the pork meatballs add a deeper savoury bite and the sliced fishcake rounds out the seafood trio. With the bok choy for greens, it’s a proper full meal in a bowl, the kind of generous handmade-ball noodle soup that keeps you coming back.
Overall: 4.4 / 5. The sotong balls had proper bounce, the ee mian held the soup well, and the mix of proteins gave great texture. A reliable hawker fishball bowl. 😋👍🏼
