If you’ve visited Singapore, you may be familiar with the tasty local noodle dish, hokkien mee. Well, now that the Singapore Restaurant and hokkien mee specialty shop “Yac Man” has opened in Omote-Sando, those of you based near Tokyo won’t have to travel all the way to Singapore to get your fix! And since we’re always on the lookout for new and interesting foods, we sent one of our reporters to “Yac Man” to see what hokkien mee is all about.

We were quite excited about trying out this restaurant, as it is apparently the first specialty Hokkien Mee shop to open in Japan.

Entering the shop on an alley street in Omote-Sando, the cute tableware made of clear material in fluorescent colors caught our eyes. It looked like a shop that would be popular with the younger crowd.

We of course ordered the hokkien mee, which cost 990 yen ($12.50), and also thought that some Singaporean Tiger Beer (500 yen, or about $6.25) would accompany them very nicely. As this would be our reporter’s first encounter with hokkien mee, we waited for the dish with great anticipation, wondering what it would taste like.

By the time the food arrived, we were more than ready to try the specialty dish. But first, we quenched our thirst with the beer, which was quite a satisfying experience in itself. And then, the dish we’ve been waiting for!

The hokkien mee looked like fried noodles and when we ate it, our first impression was that it was a bit like ramen without the soup. The taste was mild, but stimulated our appetite, and the gentle flavor somehow felt both new and familiar at the same time.

The restaurant is apparently well-known in Singapore, and they say that they serve the same hokkien mee here in Tokyo as they do in Singapore, so this could be very good news for fans of Singaporean food who happen to be in Tokyo. As for us, we think we may have become a fan of the dish – we may well be coming back for some more!

You can find directions and further details on Yac Man’s Japanese site (it looks like they’re hiring part-time staff and gaijin applicants are welcome!).

Original Article and Photos by Ren Ikeda

▼The Exterior View of the Shop

▼A Cute and Casual Atmosphere With Colorful Tableware

▼The Friendly Staff with their Welcoming Smiles

 
[ Read in Japanese ]