MasterChef Singapore finalist Aaron Wong opens wonton mee stall at Bukit Merah

Since competing in the inaugural season of MasterChef Singapore in 2018, finalist Aaron Wong has been keeping busy. After his competition stint, he went on to set up Jiak Song, a mee hoon kueh hawker stall in Telok Blangah that now has a chain of outlets.

HE OPENED A NEW WONTON MEE CONCEPT 

More recently, Wong has set up a new wonton mee stall at an industrial canteen in Bukit Merah. Called Legend Wanton Mee, it offers noodles at a flat S$5.50 a bowl in your choice of either soup or dry.
 

It is a brick-and-mortar spinoff of his wonton mee pop-up called Wang Ji Wanton Mee, which Wong set up last year at the Singapore Food Festival. He was inspired to whip up his own version of “good wonton mee” after having “eaten thousands of wonton mee (sic) across Singapore and Malaysia”.

Wong, who has a full-time job as a professional underwater photographer, describes his wonton mee woes as such: “None had gotten it all right. If the sauce is perfect, the noodles may not be 'Q' enough. And if the sauce and noodles are good, the disappointingly dry char siew falls short. And if the stars are almost aligned and the noodles and fatty char siew are spot-on, the vegetables look like they died last year.”

At the food festival, his wonton mee was S$12 a bowl and came with slices of Kurobuta pork belly char siew. But don’t expect Kurobuta pork at his Bukit Merah stall, which is meant to be more wallet-friendly at S$5.50 a plate. The char siew is still roasted KL-style though, subtly charred with a caramelly glaze.

For his S$12 noodles, Wong also prides himself on giving customers wontons with “at least 15g” of meat filling, “so none of that stupid lame stuff where you struggle to find the meat!”

He tells 8days.sg that his new stall’s wontons are “close” to the same size. “Last time I tested my guys, it’s 12g to 15g each,” he laughed.

STEAMBOAT CONCEPT

Legend Wanton Mee also shares its stall space with an upcoming new steamboat concept by Wong. Its name, Guo Jin (which means ‘extreme pot’ in Chinese), is a play on the famed main character Guo Jing in Chinese author Louis Cha’s The Legend Of The Condor Heroes.

According to Wong, the steamboat stall is still in the planning stage. The menu and prices are still in the works. He shared: “We are planning to launch it maybe in mid-July. It will be a very classic, almost home-style steamboat we eat on Chinese New Year’s Eve.”

Legend Wanton Mee & Guo Jin Steamboat is at Stall 6, Maddox Canteen Bar, 3752 Bukit Merah Central, Singapore 159848. Legend is open Mon-Sat, 8.30am to 2pm.

This story was originally published in 8Days.