Ji Ji Noodle House — Michelin Bib Gourmand Wanton Mee

At Hong Lim Market and Food Centre, one stall gives itself away by its crockery. Every bowl returning to the tray cabinet is the same bright purple, and every one of them comes from Ji Ji Noodle House. What began as a pushcart in 1965 is now run by the third generation of the family, sisters Kristen and Jill, with their mother, Madam Lai, still overseeing the operation. The wanton noodles here diverge from the springy Hong Kong style that most stalls have adopted, built instead around a chewier, round-profile noodle made without ghee and a dark house sauce that doubles as the braising liquid for the mushrooms.

Awarded a Michelin Bib Gourmand in 2025 and named in every edition of the Michelin Guide since 2016, the stall draws queues through both its lunch and evening service. Here is what to order.

The noodles are the foundation of everything Ji Ji serves, and they are unlike the standard wanton-noodle mee kia. Specially made for the stall by a dedicated supplier, they are produced without ghee, so a full bowl does not leave diners feeling bloated. The profile is rounder and thicker than the usual thin, springy strand, closer in bite to something between ramen and spaghetti, and cooked to a firm, chewy finish rather than a bouncy one. To keep that consistency across a long service and to ease the physical strain of the work, the stall cooks and tosses the noodles using a purpose-built machine, an unusual step for a hawker stall of this vintage.

Char Siew Wanton Noodle — from $4.50

The bowl that carries the stall is a study in how much can be loaded onto a single plate of noodles without any single element being lost. The egg noodles are tossed dry in a dark, house-made sauce that leans savoury with a restrained sweetness, then topped with char siew, braised mushrooms, leafy greens, crisp fried shallots and pork lard. Two styles of wanton arrive with every bowl: a soft steamed version and a deep-fried one. The dish is offered across several sizes, from the smallest at $4.50 up to the largest, so the ratio of ingredients to noodles scales with how much you want to eat. A dollop of the stall’s own chilli is served on the side, alongside free-flow sambal and pickled green chilli.

Soup Wanton Noodle

The same components can be ordered with the noodles in soup rather than tossed dry, and it is here that the stall’s most distinctive touch shows itself. The broth runs darker than the usual clear wanton-noodle soup and carries sliced red dates and goji berries, a change the family introduced after the pandemic for their circulation-improving properties. The result is a herbal, faintly sweet soup that sets Ji Ji apart from the standard pork-and-anchovy base found elsewhere. The steamed wantons, filled with pork and prawn, hold their shape and flavour in the liquid.

Deep-Fried Wanton

Worth singling out are the fried wantons, which depart from the chunky, heavily wrapped versions common at most stalls. Here they are rolled thin and fried until very crisp, so the skin shatters rather than chews and the finished wanton stays light rather than oily. They are folded into both the dry and soup bowls, and their texture provides a deliberate contrast to the soft steamed wantons and the chewy noodles.

Chicken Cutlet Noodle — from $4.50

For those who want a larger protein than char siew, the same noodle base is served with a whole chicken cutlet. The cutlet is thick and chunky, fried so that it stays crisp on the outside while remaining juicy within, and it is finished to avoid the greasiness that often weighs down hawker-fried cutlets. It sits on the same noodles tossed in the signature sauce, with braised mushrooms and greens alongside, making it one of the more substantial bowls on the menu.

Dumpling Noodle

The dumpling noodle swaps the smaller wantons for larger dumplings, more generously filled with meat, while keeping the rest of the bowl intact: the same dark-sauced noodles, braised mushrooms, greens and the crisp fried wanton on the side. It is a heartier variation for those who come primarily for the dumplings themselves rather than the char siew.

Chicken Cutlet Curry Noodle

The stall also offers the chicken cutlet in a curry form, pairing the same fried cutlet with a curry gravy rather than the dry signature sauce. It sits alongside the stall’s own curry noodle on the menu and gives the egg noodles a richer, spiced treatment, the gravy soaking into the crisp coating of the cutlet. It is the most heavily sauced option here, and a change of register for anyone who has worked through the dry and soup bowls and wants something with more heat.

Braised Soy Sauce Chicken

The stall also prepares a braised soy sauce chicken, cooked down in a dark, savoury braise until the meat takes on colour and flavour throughout. It can be taken on its own as a side or paired with a bowl of noodles, and it draws on the same command of braising that produces the mushrooms and the darker elements of the signature bowls.

Ji Ji Noodle House has kept its place in the Michelin Guide for the better part of a decade while remaining a family stall serving bowls from $4.50, a rare combination of recognition and accessibility. For a wanton noodle that trades the now-common Hong Kong style for an older, chewier, ghee-free bowl and a herbal soup you will not easily find elsewhere, it remains one of Hong Lim’s essential stops.

531A Upper Cross Street, #02-48/49 Hong Lim Market and Food Centre, Singapore 051531
Opening Hours: 9:30am – 3:00pm, 5:00pm – 7:00pm daily (Closed Thursdays)
Tel: +65 6532 2886