Laifabar is a noodle house that specialises in traditional wanton noodle, dumplings and roast meats. Chef-owner Royce Lee inherited the recipes by his grandmother, who used to be a hawker selling homemade taupok and wanton noodle back in the 1970s.

Known for its “Bu Jian Tian” Fatty char siew and wanton noodle, Laifabar first started and made a name for itself as a wine bar turned noodle house at Scarlet hotel in Ann Siang Hill. Then it moved to Lucky Plaza B1 Lucky Food Centre in December 2020 for a brief period before shifting to the current location at an industrial building in Bukit Batok in April 2021.

With the move to a bigger space, Laifabar has expanded their menu to include rice options to pair with their roast meats.

On Laifabar’s menu, there are four types of roast meat—char siew, roast pork, roast duck and Soya Sauce Chicken.

There is a top-up of S$2 to upgrade the Char Siew to their signature Bu Jian Tian Char Siew for mains.

Out of the three roast meats that we’ve had, the signature Bu Jian Tian Fatty Char Siew was the clear winner. It had the right proportion of fats to meat ratio and it was truly outstanding.

The difference between the Bu Jian Tian Fatty Char Siew and the leaner Char Siew is the texture of the meat. Bu Jian Tian Char Siew is fattier and a lot more tender than the normal Char Siew. Unless you are not a fan of fatty Char Siew, we definitely recommend upgrading it from the normal Char Siew to the Bu Jian Tian Char Siew.

The Roast Duck was also excellent and we enjoyed it thoroughly.

We didn’t quite like the Roast Pork as it was too fatty (not in a good way) and not as crispy we would like it to be.

Laifabar’s new outlet at Prestige Centre in Bukit Batok isn’t the most accessible location, but their excellent roast meats are worth travelling for. Otherwise, they offer islandwide delivery on Grab and you can still get their roast meats without going all the way to the west of Singapore.

Laifabar
Prestige Centre at 71 Bukit Batok Crescent
Tel: 9181 6383

Just like how Bangkok has its own rendition of chicken rice, they also have their own version of what we Singaporeans call roast pork noodles. The Thai’s call theirs bak mee moo dang and while it looks pretty similar to Singapore’s roast pork noodles, it has a few differences as well.

Bak mee moo dang consists of Chinese-style egg noodles that are tossed in a savoury sauce and accompanied with ingredients such as leafy greens, pork slices and dumplings. The dish also isn’t hard to find in Bangkok and you can easily get your hands on a bowl of this goodness at any market, street or mall.

While people hear more of the famous Sabx2 Wanton Mee, there are other places in Bangkok that are quite popular for their roast pork noodles too. One of them is Bamee Sawang and for our recent trip to Bangkok, we decided to try it to see how it compared to both Sabx2 Wanton Mee and Singapore’s roast pork noodles.

Bamee Sawang has a pretty extensive menu that consists mostly of noodle and pork dishes that are all very reasonably priced.

We went straight ahead and ordered ourselves a bowl of Egg Noodle With Barbequed Pork (50 baht).

We like how the noodles were al dente and incredibly springy with a good bite to it. The sauce it was tossed in was also not too oily and overpowering and it added a nice savoury touch to the overall dish. The pork slices, on the other hand, were a tad too dry for our liking despite being thinly sliced, which was slightly disappointing.

The portion size of the dish is also pretty small so if you’re a big eater, you may need to get two bowls.

We also had a go at their Stewed Pork Leg Over Rice (40baht) which featured chunky strips of pork leg paired with white rice and doused in a rich, full-bodied gravy.

The pork leg was outrageously tender and the layer of fat on each piece of meat provided it with an additional amount of umami. We also like how the pork had been stewed long enough to soak up the juices and goodness of the gravy.

All in all, Bamee Sawang may not have the best roast pork noodles out there but in terms of quality and service, we still prefer it over Sabx2. However, at the end of the day, we still feel that nothing so far is as good as what we can get from our Singapore hawkers.

If you’re popping by Bamee Sawang, we recommend getting the Stewed Pork Leg Over Rice instead of their noodle dishes but if you are more of a noodle person, there’s no harm in giving theirs a shot either.

Bamee Sawang 
982 Phetchaburi Road
Khwaeng Makkasan, Khet Ratchathewi
Krung Thep Maha Nakhon 10400, Thailand
Tel: +66 2 056 0663
Daily: 9.30am – 11pm