Parklane Zha Yun Tun Mee House
Parklane Zha Yun Tun Mee House
#01-53, Sunshine Plaza
91 Bencoolen Street
Singapore 189652
Ratings: 6.0/10
To put it frankly, this place has been over-hyped.
The most notable feature of this stall is its zha yun tun or fried wanton (fried dumplings). Apparently, many people love the wantons of this stall because they’re extremely crispy. True enough, you can hear that "crunchy sound" of people biting the extremely crispy wantons echoing throughout the stall. However, the reason why the wanton is so crispy is because of the paltry amount of meat that’s wrapped in the wanton, thus making the wanton less moist when fried, hence resulting in these crispy wanton.
However, is this method of cooking justified? I don’t think so.
I feel like I’m just merely eating wanton skin when I’m biting those wantons. True enough, they’re extremely crispy. But I could hardly taste the minced meat wrapped in it. If the reason why I’m eating those wantons is just to taste the crispy wanton skin, the owner of the stall might as well skip wrapping the meat in the wanton and just served fried wanton skin to its customers.
To make a tasty wanton so to speak, you need to also have a good mastery of the right combination of ingredients to use in the wanton filling and also on how to marinate the fillings well. It’s easy to fry a wanton skin well. However, when it comes to making a good crispy wanton with delicious fillings, I think this stall has failed to make the mark.
Perhaps I should put the blame more on the patrons of the stall, who goes "Oh, I like the wanton because it’s so crispy and nice to bite! The noodles are nice because the sauce that accompanies the noodles is sweet!" And wala, the stall owner has found the "winning formula" to draw its customers back again and again.
Thus, the measly fillings in the wanton, the paltry portion of noodles for $3, or the thinly-sliced char siew that’s actually made from frozen meat become insignificant. This is simply because the customers are here to taste the crispy wanton skin.
The entire plate of wanton noodles doesn’t taste that bad. The noodles are springy. On the whole, it’s much better than the wanton noodles sold in most food courts (and also the type of lunch I’m eating on most days). However, I just feel that the food from this stall has been way over-hyped.
