Singapore Fried Noodles

Here's my attempt at serving up the ubiquitous 'kwailou鬼佬-fav' found in all 'respectable' overseas Chinese restaurants. my 1st experience of tasting this was when i was studying in london many years back. i'd come to learn that this dish, together with

• Won Ton (anagram: Not Now...hurhur...ok its corny) Noooodle
  
• sweet & sour pORk
• spling loll
• 'peek-ing' duc
  

are 鬼佬's fav orders. i have never eaten Singapore Fried Noodles prior to my london days (i mean why wld i want to to Singapore Fried Noodles in Singapore?!), my experience of it had been rather disappointing. often it's no more than a curry-flavoured oil drenched plate of noodle with miserly portions of ingredients. i assume its an aquired taste. 鬼佬s would eat the above listed dishes as mains and often incur so much leftovers while we hungry poor overseas students wld look over our shoulders and mumble 'tsk tsk, so sayang' as we savoured our 1 plate meal of beef horfun/duck rice/soy chicken rice.

years later in my travels, it'd occurred to me that 鬼佬s the world over really haven't quite changed their chinese restaurant palattes. so be it berlin, chicago or sydney, 鬼佬s eat just about the same thing. but the presence of chinese restaurants in all the places i've been, made me proud of being chinese, for i'd learnt to respect the tenacity of the owners and their forefathers who eek out a living in sometimes not too chink-friendly environment. i suspect Singapore Fried Noodles share the same overseas chinese cuisine origins, with its set of reapproriations and spins, like that of fortune cookies and chop suey. incidentally, one of my fav docu series of all time is Chinese Restaurants.

since i am in Melb now, i figured i'll do up my rendition of this dish. The Wife wasn't quite sure if she'd actually like it when i announced the dinner menu. but it went down pretty well in the end. :)

ok here's the recipe:

ingredients

1. noodles (dried types, not the thick types. i used 蝦仔面, other wise known as HK Shrimp Roe Noodle)
2. garlic, onion/shallots finely chopped
3. eggs (okie i didnt add them into the one i cooked last nite, thot i'd cut down on the calories intake for a day)
4. fish sauce
5. dark soy sauce
6. sugar
   
7. salt, pepper
   
8. whatever raw/ precooked ingredients
9. red chilli, choy sum (chopped) & towgey
   
10. curry powder (yellow type, otherwise known as madras curry powder)
    

recipes

• prepare noodles. some types require you to soak before boiling. the ones i used didn't need to boil and cook noodles in separate pot. once done set aside. make sure they are dry
• fry scramble eggs set aside
• fry garlic, onion/shallots till brown
• add in raw ingredients (e.g. pork slices) and fry with fish sauce, sugar and dark soy sauce. add some water so that there is some gravy. keep fire at medium
  
• once raw ingredients are cooked, add in scrambled eggs, noodles and vegs. stir fry continuously, cover and simmer for a short while to allow noodles to soak up the gravy
  
• add salt and curry powder to taste. stir fry until noodle has an even yellowish tinge
• off the fire, the noodles should look dry by serving time