Happiness Cafe : Ban Mian 板面

Ban Mian 板面 means broad noodles. The noodles are usually handmade. Flour is combined with eggs and water, and then kneaded to a dough. The dough is rolled through a manual noodle machine. The width of the noodles can be adjusted to your liking.

A stall at Happiness Cafe sells ban mian. Here, you can have your ban mian dry-tossed, or served in a soupy broth. I prefer the dry-tossed ban mian.

My friend and I headed over there for lunch today. I ordered the broad noodles and my friend ordered fine noodles. I prefer the chewy texture that the broad noodles provide. But my friend says that the thinner noodles absorb the flavours of the other ingredients better. I guess it's all up to personal preferences.

Broad Ban Mian

Fine Ban Mian

As you can see, the ban mian is topped with thin slivers of shiitake mushrooms, black fungus, minced pork, blanched cangkuk manis, and deep-fried anchovies.

Both my friend and I like to douse our noodles with lots of chilli sauce. Somehow, it gives the noodles more oomph.

Fiery Chilli Sauce

Pour Chilli Sauce Over Noodles

Mix the noodles and the chilli sauce well

The vendor auntie serves her ban mian with meatball soup. She is quite generous with the meatballs.

Meatball soup

The meal comes to RM10.00 for the two of us.

Well, the current vendor auntie is not the original ban mian vendor at the stall. Many years back, the stall was run by a couple from Perak. Their ban mian was superb, and the shop was literally packed with customers lining up for a good bowl of ban mian. The couple have since decided to pack up their business and move back to West Malaysia, and the stall was taken over by other people.

The ban mian at Happiness Cafe now is not as fragrant and tasty, compared to the original version. But it is still one of better tasting ones in Miri.

Happiness Cafe is located at Boulevard Commercial Centre, Miri. It is a corner shoplot, the same block as Ambank.