Business Lunch: Singapore Noodles via China

I’ve been making my own lunch lately because a few of the regular places I go to near work has closed! What’s up with that?

But one of my favorite lunch meals is Singapore Rice Noodles. They’re light and tasty with the subtle curry flavoring. While this dish takes some prep work, it’s actually very quick to fry up once you’re ready because you don’t really need to cook the ingredients that long. And as usual, with a white-hot wok, you can really add a flavorful element to your noodles.

One note about shopping for rice noodles: they’re much harder to find than I thought! Growing up, I loved rice noodles, called mai fun. I would eat them either in a soup dish or as a plate of fried noodles. But for some reason, the stores in Chinatown don’t really stock a lot of rice noodle sticks. Instead, they have tons of what looks like rice noodles but are actually made from mung bean (they’re sometimes called “long rice”). Do not buy these. Be sure to buy those that clearly says “dried rice noodles.”

I ate my first Singapore Fried Rice Noodles when I was a graduate student in New York. I would go to those corner Chinese restaurants and order take out because I was too tired to cook at the dorms. This one place made this great Singapore Fried Rice Noodles and I’ve been eating them ever since. I notice places vary in the way they prepare it, but the constant ingredients are always shrimp, fried eggs and a yellow curry base. When I was researching the Web to create the recipe below, I found out that Singapore Fried Rice Noodles is made mostly in Chinese restaurants and may not necessarily be a staple of Singapore. Of course! Enjoy!