AMK Hainanese Abalone Minced Meat Noodles: 24/7 noodles perfect for late-night supper runs

The thought came out of the blue one day. “Whatever happened to that bak chor mee place I used to go to at 2am when I was younger?” I didn’t remember the name of it, but I did remember its location. Some Googling later, it turned out to be called AMK Hainanese Abalone Minced Meat Noodles, and it appeared to be still serving up noodles in the same spot.

AMK Hainanese Abalone Minced Meat Noodles is located one street down from Star Western, in a kopitiam called Mee Sek Food Court. Ponggol Nasi Lemak is also located in the same place.

At this time of day, Mee Sek Food Court is pretty deserted, but at night, when the nasi lemak stall opens for business, it gets really packed. As the clock drew closer to lunch time, I noticed more people slowly arriving, also to have bak chor mee.

The menu at AMK Hainanese Abalone Minced Meat Noodles is straightforward enough: variations of bak chor mee or fishball mee. The latest addition to the menu is Abalone Mushroom Minced Meat Noodle (S$10), which contains a whole abalone, as opposed to another similarly named dish, Abalone Minced Meat Noodle (S$5.50), which contains mock abalone.

The stall is also manned by two middle-aged ladies with the sweetest smiles ever. I don’t recall if they were working at this stall when I used to come here in my teenage years, but I hoped that the food would at least taste somewhat like how I remembered it.

What I tried at AMK Hainanese Abalone Minced Meat Noodles

I ordered the Abalone Minced Meat Noodle, and for my choice of noodle, I chose mee pok with chilli, and requested for extra vinegar, which the auntie at the stall readily agreed to. 

My noodles were ready in no time at all, and once I settled down at my table, it dawned on me that the bowl in front of me was… huge, and full of noodles. I initially thought the auntie cooking the bowl had only taken a handful, but it turned out to be a very generous one. 

I started by mixing up the noodles and ingredients thoroughly. The mee pok here is the thinner variety, and once they were well-coated, I dug my chopsticks in. The mee pok had an interesting texture, slightly more slippery than I expected. They were also cooked to al dente with a nice bite. I found the chilli sauce to be lacking slightly in savouriness, and didn’t really taste much of the vinegar either.

The taste of the noodles elicited a vague sense of familiarity, but it was definitely not how I remembered it.

This particular bowl of bak chor mee came with just minced and lean pork, and no liver, unfortunately. I noticed that save for one particularly large piece, there were barely any pork slices. At least the one single pork slice in my bowl tasted good. The minced pork was more generous, but I felt like I should’ve asked for extra. 

There were also 2 meatballs inside the bowl, but they were very small – smaller than even the ones you buy at the supermarket. Hmm.

The braised mushrooms surprised me. They were my favourite part of the entire bowl – chewy, juicy and full of earthy, savoury goodness, they’d soaked up the very good braising liquid and weren’t tough at all. 

The accompanying soup was much clearer than I’d expected. When I had ordered bak chor mee, the bowl of accompanying soup was often usually cloudy from all the meat that had been cooked in it, and I was kind of apprehensive about this bowl of deep amber-coloured liquid. I always remembered the broth from AMK Hainanese Abalone Minced Meat Noodles being completely obscured by the bits from cooked pork.

I needn’t have worried – the soup was quite flavourful, if a bit salty. Interestingly, it also had a very pronounced shallot note, almost as if deep-fried shallots had been added to it and left to steep in the soup.

Final thoughts

Did it taste as good as I recalled it tasting? Well, I don’t think so, but when you have cravings for bak chor mee at 2am, perhaps this was every bit as good as it could have been in that situation.

Generous servings, decent taste, and open 24 hours – I’m glad AMK Hainanese Abalone Minced Meat Noodles is still open after all these years.

Expected damage: S$5.50 – S$10 per pax

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