Beach Road Fish Head Bee Hoon Review: Michelin-Approved Fish Soup Near Novena MRT Station

Beach Road Fish Head Bee Hoon is a Michelin Bib Gourmand stall

Over the years, Beach Road Fish Head Bee Hoon has steadily made a name for itself as one of the best stalls in Whampoa Market 5—some even say that it serves some of the best fish soup in Singapore. It seems that the praise hasn’t gone unnoticed, as this year, the stall was inducted into the Michelin Guide Singapore Bib Gourmand 2023.

As a fan of fish soup, fish bee hoon, and other such variants, I wanted to see if this stall lived up to the hype. And so my colleague and I braved the long queue to get our hands on this acclaimed stall’s food.

Food at Beach Road Fish Head Bee Hoon

We started with the Mixed Fish Bee Hoon ($7), which is essentially the stall’s signature fish soup, but with thick bee hoon and a mixture of sliced and fried fish.

The milky soup here was slightly unusual in that it had a noticeably sweeter taste than most—this is something that many reviews have pointed out, and I found it to be true. But I felt that my bowl could do with more umami, more of that savouriness that marks truly great fish soup.

I hoped that the sliced fish would fare better, and they did. There wasn’t any unpleasant fishiness that plagued them, which indicated that they were fresh. The fact that they were supple and tender made them even better to eat.

The fried fish was decent, and managed to remain somewhat crispy even after it floated in the soup for a good bit.

That crispiness gave the dish some textural contrast—I especially liked following up a bite of fried fish with the smooth, silky bee hoon.

We then moved on to our other bowl of fish soup: the Special Tom Yum Soup ($5). This is a more atypical dish for a fish soup stall, so naturally we were quite excited to see how it would taste.

Upon taking a sip of the soup, my colleague noted that it “doesn’t taste that much like tom yum” and it was “more of a spicy and sour soup”. I have to agree with him there—it felt like the spiciness and sourness of the broth existed on two separate planes, and didn’t come together cohesively. It was also way too sour for our liking.

And even though you could taste the flavour of fish here, again there was a slight lack of umami that would’ve definitely improved this dish.

For this bowl, we decided to get yi mian instead of rice noodles. This chewy and spongy noodle wasn’t as texturally pleasant as the bee hoon, but I still enjoyed slurping it up after taking bites of the fresh fish slices. Should you enjoy yi mian, you can also have it in the previous dish and it’ll probably work just as well.

Ambience at Beach Road Fish Head Bee Hoon

As mentioned earlier, you’ll probably have to queue for a good bit to have some of this fish soup. Thankfully, the hawker centre that the stall inhabits is quite well-ventilated and airy, and it wasn’t too difficult to find seats—when we were there, at least.

Beach Road Fish Head Bee Hoon is a 10-minute bus ride from a stop near Novena MRT Station.

The verdict

The dishes I tried at Beach Road Fish Head Bee Hoon were a bit of a letdown. While I liked how fresh the fish is, I found both broths I tried to be lacking in some regards. Seeing how the stall receives such acclaim, though, I’m hoping that this is a one-off, and that my next visit here will be much better.

For a new fish soup stall in Toa Payoh with collagen broth, read our Fish Joy review. For Michelin Bib Gourmand zi char, read our Kok Sen review.

Address: 91 Whampoa Drive, #01-46, Whampoa Market 5, Singapore 320091
Opening hours: Tue 9am to 2pm, Thurs 9am to 2pm, Sat-Sun 9am to 2pm
Website
Beach Road Fish Head Bee Hoon is not a halal-certified eatery.

Photos taken by Melvin Mak.
This was an independent review by Eatbook.sg.