Lixin Teochew Fishball Noodles

Yellowtail worked for spring

The fish paste takes its shape by hand before service, and everything at Lixin Teochew Fishball Noodles follows from that. The house began with Lim Lee Seng, who started selling fishball noodles from a pushcart on Kempas Road in 1968, then built the family's following through Bendemeer Road Hawker Centre before the original stall moved to Kim Keat Palm Market and Food Centre in Toa Payoh.

Lim still works that Toa Payoh stall with two helpers, while his son Eddie Lim leads the wider business across hawker centres, food courts and standalone shops. No executive-chef title is attached to any of it, which is accurate: the expertise is Lim's, learned across decades of scraping and kneading rather than in a kitchen brigade. The dish does not need ornament. It needs fish handled the long way, noodles blanched to the point, sauce held in balance, and a hand trained to know when paste has enough spring.

Six hours in the paste

Lim Lee Seng’s method begins with yellowtail, historically sourced from Jurong Fishery Port, then scraped, filleted, minced, kneaded, and molded by hand. The process can take up to six hours daily. The point is texture as much as flavor: fishballs with bounce, fishcakes shaped from the same fish, and dumplings with thin skins around pork filling. The house states the fishballs, fishcakes, and fish dumplings are made fresh every day without preservatives, fillers, or surimi.

The bowl stays direct. Mee pok, mee kia, bee hoon, or a mixed noodle base comes dry or in soup; the dry version takes chilli, vinegar, tomato, soy, and pork lard into the toss, then cracklings bring the final bite. Fishball Noodles, Fish Dumpling Noodles, and Mee Pok Dry carry the program because they ask the same question at different angles: how much chew, how much acid, how much sweetness, how clean the broth should sit beside the noodle.

The counter at Toa Payoh

At Kim Keat Palm Market & Food Centre, the work happens without theatre. The stall sits in the open rhythm of a hawker centre, with shared tables, quick counter exchange, and a room that grows lively when bowls begin moving. The original Toa Payoh counter remains the heritage heart of the business, even as Eddie Lim has expanded the brand into food courts and standalone shops.

The Michelin Bib Gourmand belongs to the Toa Payoh stall, not to an idea of the chain in the abstract. That matters because the craft here is physical and local: paste mixed to the right resistance, noodles lifted from hot water, chilli sauce catching on flat mee pok, clear soup waiting beside the bowl. Lixin Teochew Fishball Noodles has always asked to be judged on the fishball.