Mei Yuen Restaurant

This is a review of a lunch with a colleague at Mei Yuen Restaurant.
Based on different things I had read on the net, I had pretty high expectation. Sadly, they were not met.
The staff, while not overly friendly, were effective enough.
The room is little disorganized. But it is relatively clean. Well, except for the washroom. I just wouldn’t suggest going there.
We went here specifically for the food and even more specifically, we went to try the Roast Duck + Char Siew + Roast Pork with the noodles.
Roast Duck + Char Siew + Roast Pork with the noodles — Unfortunately, it just wasn’t that good. I’ve had much better char siew. The duck wasn’t very tender or flavourful. As a whole, it just didn’t have that just prepared taste and feel. All of the food was lukewarm. I’ve had noodles out of a packet that were as good as the noodles we were served.
Overall — I am just not sure what the buzz is about. We may just be missing something or maybe they were just having an off day. The food we were served simply wasn’t that good.

This one has been around since I was a little girl. Besides the roasted meat for Chicken Rice, Char Siew Rice and Wantan mee, there’s also a Macaroni Soup option, which was my favourite thing as a child. It’s got soupy mararoni goodness with shredded chicken and veggies in it. I don’t eat meat anymore, but it was good while it lasted. I believe they still have it now.
Very similarly to Carlton which is just a bit down that same street, the peopel who run it are the same people always did. You might spend some time finding a place to park because that road is always busy (East Coast Road) so come early and take some time to explore the rest of Katong. Us locals can just walk over from our Katong abodes: P
The prices are still cheap and you can get a good meal or just $ 3 to $ 5.

Mei Yuen Restaurant is more like an independent hawker stall than a restaurant, and a real blast from the past. It’s looked the same for as long as I can remember, and every decade or so, a new coat of paint is added to the walls. I’ve been coming here since I was a child, and they have maintained the standard of the food all these years. It’s been the same people there for as long as I have been a patron.
Along East Coast Road, it can be difficult to find parking, especially during lunch and dinner time. The service is very fast and the folks there are friendly enough, but not particularly chatty. Their signature roast meats are always hanging in the window, and I always order the same thing — roast duck noodles with char siew and roast pork. The duck is well cooked and fragrant, but not too oily and fatty. The char siew is nicely roasted with slightly burnt edges (for me, that’s the best!) and the roast pork is moist, and the skin is sinfully crispy.
The noodles are springy and is mixed into a soy based sauce with sesame oil and other goodies. The chilli is not too overpowering, and complements the noodles well, but I also like it without the chilli as that is the flavour I’m used to, having eaten it without chilli as a child. But the best thing by far is the special black bean sauce they make themselves. it’s thick and dark, sweet and savoury at the same time. I often ask for an extra bowl of sauce (which they provide at no extra charge) to drown my noodles in.
They serve generous portions of meat, noodles and vegetables, as well as a bowl of soup with every portion ordered. They also serve wanton soup, and while the wantons have a very home-​made taste, I find them a little bit bland for my liking. The chicken rice is decent, but I’ve not tried the other things on the menu as I already have a favourite, and ordering something else that isn’t as good will just upset me and fill me with deep and sorrowful regret.
I also like to order their home-​made barley that’s not too sweet and comes with real barley bits! It’s really yummy and kind of like having a healthy dessert when you’ve slurped up your last dregs, and start eating the grains at the bottom of the cup.