Taste of Home Review: Malaysian-Style Cuttlefish Bee Hoon And Handmade Lai Fun Noodles

Taste of Home has cuttlefish beehoon and lai fun in Potong Pasir

I’ve always had a fondness for Malaysian food, and I’d chalk it down to the influence of my mother, who hails from Malaysia. So when I came across Taste of Home, a new hawker stall in a Potong Pasir coffeeshop, I was immediately struck by its unique Malaysian offerings. These include cuttlefish bee hoon, street food from Seremban, and lai fun, a type of noodle I recall eating in my mother’s hometown.

I was really keen on trying the food, so I dragged a colleague to the stall one weekday afternoon.

Food at Taste of Home

We started with the Seremban Cuttlefish Bee Hoon ($5), which saw bee hoon, cuttlefish, braised pork, and xiao bai cai drenched in a thick dark sauce.

That combination of silky-smooth bee hoon and the savoury, complex gravy made this dish a joy to eat. Interestingly, the bee hoon possessed some wok hei, which helped this dish stand out from others that make heavy use of a braising sauce instead.

The cuttlefish and braised pork played off each other well. On one hand, the fresh cuttlefish was chewy, while on the other, the tender pork was succulent and juicy.

I’ve never had Seremban cuttlefish bee hoon, but if this is an accurate rendition of it, I would certainly want to have more in the future.

A dish I did have more familiarity with was the Lai Fun with Fragrant “Nan Ru” Pork ($5.50).

The thick, chewy lai fun noodles—which is handmade by the stall’s owner—were mixed with another dark, savoury sauce, making each mouthful both flavourful and texturally satisfying. If you’ve never tried lai fun before, think of it as similar to mee tai mak in terms of mouthfeel.

What made this dish really pop, though, was the meat. The nan ru pork, which is essentially deep-fried pork belly prepared with red fermented tofu, impressed with its juiciness, good meat-to-fat ratio, and crispy outer layer. The fermented aspect also gave the pork a unique, slightly pungent aroma.

We also got the Pork Trotter Vinegar ($7), which is a favourite of my mother’s side of the family.

This dish was more of a mixed bag overall. In terms of positives, the pork trotter here was soft and plenty meaty, with a layer of gelatinous skin that you’d come to expect from this dish.

However, the vinegar—which usually elevates the dish—was too overwhelming here, making it difficult for me to eat more than a few bites. If the vinegar was scaled back, this could’ve been a hit.

Ambience at Taste of Home

Taste of Home is located in a small, quaint coffeeshop tucked away in a HDB estate. There aren’t a large amount of tables and seats here, but the fact that the place is pretty hidden away means it shouldn’t be too hard to find a seat, especially if you arrive during off-peak hours.

The coffeeshop is a seven-minute walk from Potong Pasir MRT Station.

The verdict

Taste of Home’s dishes are well-prepared and full of flavour. The stall definitely deserves more attention than it is getting at the moment, so to that end, I highly recommend it to any fan of Malaysian cuisine.

For a new Orchard Gateway food court with seven well-known eateries from KL, read our EatAlley coverage. For legit kolo mee and Kuching laksa in Punggol, read our 219 Sarawak Kolo Mee review.

Address: 137 Potong Pasir Avenue 3, Singapore 350137
Opening hours: Wed-Mon 9am to 3pm
Website
Taste of Home is not a halal-certified eatery.

Photos taken by Ke-ian J Leong.
This was an independent review by Eatbook.sg.