Let’s start with every Singaporean’s favourite pastime: queueing. Every popular Hokkien mee stall comes with one, and we all know the hearsay. If a stall has a queue, it must be good. So many people can’t be wrong, right?
In my case, though, it wasn’t the queue that pulled me in. I’d been hearing a lot of good things about Fung Yi Hokkien Mee in a Singapore Hokkien mee Facebook group, so this visit was more 慕名而来: I came for the reputation. That’s how I ended up at 844 Tampines on a Friday lunchtime, queue number in hand, hoping it would live up to the hype. This Fung Yi Hokkien Mee review is my answer to whether it does.
The Queue: 20 Minutes Promised, 40 Minutes Delivered
When I placed my order, the boss said the expected waiting time was about 20 minutes. Fair enough. For a well-known Hokkien mee stall at lunch, 20 minutes is the price of admission.
I waited about 40 minutes.
That’s double the estimate, on a Friday lunch when half of Tampines is also trying to eat. Did I stay anyway? Of course I did. I’m Singaporean, and the queue must be good, remember?