Swee Heng Wanton Noodle

Over 50 years of wanton mee, and the noodles are green.

Swee Heng is the stall to know if you live nearby and want a proper bowl of wanton mee on a weeknight without joining one of the famous queues elsewhere. It is not one to cross the island for, and it doesn’t pretend to be. What it offers is everyday wanton mee made carefully, with one twist worth ordering at least once: the noodles come in green.

Why it’s worth finding

The stall has been making wanton mee for more than 50 years (no relation to the bakery of the same name), and it still makes its own wantons, dumplings and char siew. The house signature is spinach mee kia, served with a pile of char siew, greens and five wantons in soup. The broth is built on ikan bilis, so it leans savoury and deep rather than sweet. The menu is short – prawn dumpling noodles, chicken feet noodles and the regular wanton mee, with spinach noodles as a swap on any of them – which we take as a good sign. The dry version comes tossed in a glossy, spicy sauce with sweet char siew.

That short menu is also the reason to come here first and wander after. Chomp Chomp is an evening food centre, and the sensible way to use it is a bowl of noodles to start, then wings or barbecued seafood from elsewhere in the centre once the table has settled in. Wanton mee is cheap, quick and filling, which makes it the right opener for a night that will end in barbecued seafood.

How to do it well

Look in the back corner of the centre, at #01-12; it is easy to walk past if you are scanning the stalls along the front. Order the spinach noodles dry for the chilli gloss, or in soup if the evening has turned wet. Food is generally brought to your table, so find a seat within sight of the stalls you’ve ordered from rather than across the hall.

The stall opens at 4pm and runs until midnight, so it suits a late dinner as much as an early one; it is closed on Wednesdays, which is the day you will inevitably choose the first time. Chomp Chomp itself dates from 1972, when it was built to move street hawkers off Kensington Park Road, and was last upgraded in 2003.

Nobody here claims the bowl will change your life. It will, however, make a Tuesday better, and that is a more useful thing for a wanton mee stall to do.

Good to know #01-12 Chomp Chomp Food Centre, 20 Kensington Park Road, in the back corner. Opens 4pm to midnight; closed on Wednesdays. Prices weren’t checked against the stall; see the facts box.

Swee Heng Wanton Noodle | #01-12 Chomp Chomp Food Centre, 20 Kensington Park Road, Singapore 557269