Ming Shan Mutton Soup Review: 80-Year-Old Chinese Mutton Soup At Chinatown Complex

Ming Shan Mutton Soup has legit Chinese mutton soup in Chinatown

The Chinese herbal mutton soup—not to be confused with its Malay counterpart soup kambing—is far from what you would call a popular dish in Singapore, and that’s a shame, because it can be good when done right. Case in point: Ming Shan Mutton Soup, a stall that has specialised in the dish since 1943.

Ming Shan continues to draw patrons to its humble stall at Chinatown Complex. We were there to try the food recently, and had a good time with the dishes we got.

Food at Ming Shan Mutton Soup

We started with the Mixed Mutton Soup Special (from $8). It’s basically the most complete version of Ming Shan’s soup dishes, containing mutton ribs, tripe, tendon, and meatballs.

As with any dish with “soup” in its name, we have to talk about the broth first. This was the result of hours of simmering and various herbs, and, boy what a treat it was. Fragrant and flavourful, the characteristics of the herbs and mutton came together in a complementary way. The overwhelmingly gamey taste that can plague some mutton dishes was missing, and there wasn’t any herbs-induced bitterness either—everything was well-balanced.

I am happy to report that all the different cuts of mutton here were all moreish. As many fans of the stall have noted, the ribs in particular were fall-off-the-bone tender, making them an absolute delight to eat. The tripe and meatballs were solid additions, too.

The only issue I had with this bowl of soup was the tendons. I get that tendons are usually more sparse in terms of the meat on them, but it felt like there was almost nothing to chew on here.

Our next dish was the Mutton Meesua Soup (from $6), which was basically a bowl of mutton soup with ribs and mee sua noodles. The broth and mutton meat were great once again, and I did like the addition of the silky mian xian. Most have herbal mutton soup with rice, but having it with these noodles was great too—especially since they could soak up all that mutton goodness.

We topped off our meal with the Dumpling Soup ($8), containing dumplings which are made of, you guessed it, mutton.

These were decent enough dumplings, but I felt the wrapping was a little too thick, and the filling—which also had chives and what seemed to be water chestnut—strangely did not taste that muttony. Perhaps those who do not like the taste of lamb might find this unoffensive.

Ambience at Ming Shan Mutton Soup

Ming Shan Mutton Soup is located in Chinatown Complex, home to many famous stalls including Hawker Chan and Fatty Ox HK Kitchen. It’s also generally very crowded and humid, so some level of discomfort is to be expected. Still, it’s worth dropping by for the good food.

The stall is a six-minute walk from Chinatown MRT.

The verdict

Ming Shan Mutton Soup serves up delectable herbal mutton soup that is well-balanced and pleasing to the senses. If you’re a fan of the dish, this is definitely worth a shot.

For great soup kambing, read our Haji M. Abdul Rajak review. If you’re a fan of fish soup, check out our review of the Muslim-owned You&Me Teochew Fish Soup.

Address: 335 Smith Street, #02-093, Chinatown Complex, Singapore 050335
Opening hours: Mon-Fri 10am to 5pm, Sat-Sun 10am to 7pm
Ming Shan Mutton Soup is not a halal-certified eatery.

Photos taken by Rifdi Syahir.
This was an independent review by Eatbook.sg.