Most hawkers welcome publicity to boost their business. But not Eddie Png, 52, who reopened his family’s famous Bukit Purmei Lor Mee stall today (Feb 25). The comeback stall is located at a kopitiam in Bugis, near the popular King of Pao Fan opposite Kwan Im Thong Hood Cho Temple.

The lor mee stall’s illustrious history and hours-long queues meant that Eddie, a first-time hawker, had big shoes to fill. Initially, he was reluctant to be interviewed for this story. “Don’t want lah. We don’t like publicity. It’s a lot of pressure to live up to the name, especially with media attention on us,” he tells 8days.sg.

Eddie was feeling especially nervous about his stall’s opening day. The lor mee stall, which was run by his uncle Teo Hock Chuan for over four decades, has a lot of diehard fans who swoon over his delicious noodles. They are drenched in a gooey, garlicky, vinegar-spiked braised sauce — made by boiling pork bones with egg whites and five-spice powder — plus crunchy fried flour bits (which we’ll get to later).

Selling lor mee runs in Eddie’s family. His grandfather had first started a lor mee stall in Bukit Ho Swee in the forties. After the Bukit Ho Swee Fire in 1961, he shifted operations to Tiong Bahru. A young Eddie, his mother, uncle and aunt were all roped in to help out. Eddie’s uncle later left to open his own lor mee stall at Bukit Purmei.

However, Uncle Teo’s health deteriorated over the years. Now nearing 70, he suffered a heart attack in 2014 and closed shop. It was only in 2016 that he resurfaced with a new stall at Blk 501 West Coast Drive, much to his fans’ delight.

But it was a short-lived stint, as he had a second heart attack that caused him to shut the stall again in 2018. “The second heart attack was more serious. The doctor told him not to overwork himself any further,” says Eddie.

Photo: Micah Lim/ Google Maps

After a three-year closure, Bukit Purmei Lor Mee is back in business in 2021. This time, it’s Eddie and his wife Wang Liping (pictured), 39, who are manning the stove. “My uncle’s daughters are not taking over his stall ’cos they just gave birth to their kids, and we felt it was a waste not to continue,” he shares. “So we came out to start our own stall with my uncle’s blessings.”

Both his uncle and mother taught the couple to cook lor mee. “Anything we’re not clear about, we ask our uncle,” says Eddie. He spent a year mastering the family recipe before he set up his stall. “We were worried that our lor mee will taste different. People will compare. We had to make sure we could replicate the original taste. If we can’t do that, we won’t sell anything,” he says, explaining that he had to meet the expectations of his uncle’s longtime customers. “Everybody has been looking for my uncle; they want what he used to sell,” he shares.

Eddie and Liping, who hails from Anhui, are parents to seven-year-old twin daughters. Eddie runs his own printing company and has some basic F&B experience. “I’ve been helping my uncle sell lor mee in Tiong Bahru since young,” he says.

But Liping was “very new” to hawker life. To prepare for the stall reopening, which was a “long time” in the making, Eddie advised his wife to gain relevant experience by working as a hawker assistant for a few years at a mala xiang guo stall in Chinatown.

In the long run, he plans to split his time between his printing company and lor mee stall. He reckons, “My own company is more flexible, and my partner is helping me there.”

The menu here is straightforward, with the signature lor mee served in three sizes that cost $3.50, $4 and $5. You can top up $1 for Fried Fish or Handmade Ngoh Hiang. If you don’t like the flat egg noodles that usually go into lor mee, you can swap it with yellow noodles, thick bee hoon, bee hoon or kway teow at no extra charge.

Eddie requested to meet us after lunchtime peak hours. He and Liping had spent the whole of yesterday preparing the ingredients and lor mee gravy for their opening at 7.15am today. “My mother told me not to prepare too much [food], ’cos we don’t know if there will be a lot of customers,” he says.

But by 12.30pm, the couple’s lor mee was sold out. As it turns out, Bukit Purmei Lor Mee’s stans had been eagerly waiting for its comeback, and rushed down as soon as the stall opened. “The queue stretched outside of the coffeeshop,” Eddie recalls.
bkit purmei lor mee tan soon kiat

Bukit Purmei Lor Mee’s ngoh hiang is not the conventional meaty logs wrapped in beancurd skin. Instead, they are fried little balls that look more like popcorn bits flavoured with five-spice powder and what appears to be cloves.

“It’s like a stone, hard and crispy,” says Eddie, who declined to reveal its ingredients except “meat and flour, the standard”. He uses the original ngoh hiang recipe from his grandfather (“I feel this ngoh hiang is more unique,” he says).

His uncle had stopped offering this ‘popcorn’ ngoh hiang years earlier as it’s time-consuming to make. “It’s a lot of work ’cos we make it lump by lump and fry it,” says Eddie.

To add crunch that balances his lor mee’s goopiness, Uncle Teo’s stall served zha zha (Chinese for ‘fried fried’), deep-fried floury bits which kinda resembled lighter, ultra-crispy granola and was not as tedious to prepare.

We sampled one of Eddie’s leftover ngoh hiang balls, and found it too hard for our liking. And ’cos it had been sitting out for hours, it also tasted a tad like stale grease, and was aggressively salty. But it wouldn’t be fair to judge this based on our tasting today. We will give this another try — when it’s freshly fried and the first-time hawkers have had time to settle down.

Some lor mee purveyors who had managed to snag a bowl left comments on the stall’s Facebook page, and the consensus was generally positive.

“Taste-wise quite on point and yes the crispy bits need to improve… It's considered quite good on first day 加油!” says netizen Jade Quay.

Facebook group Heritage Singapore Food’s member Soon Kiat Tan says “is indeed old-school taste”.

Viral ‘Rice Cooker Man’ Leslie Koh, who ordered “their Medium ($4) which is loaded with sliced fish cakes, braised pork belly, char siew, and their signature crispy deep-fried flour nuggets”, opines that he loves “how the addition of vinegar enhances the flavours of the gravy, making it savoury, sourish, mildly sweet all at the same time”.

But “unfortunately, the deep-fried flour nuggets were disappointing as it wasn’t crunchy even though it was freshly fried”.

If you’re keen to try, we suggest that you head down to the stall before noon, or be prepared to go home hungry.

PHOTOS: KELVIN CHIA/ YIP JIEYING/ EDDIE PNG