Boasting a new look and new dishes, this casual noodle house’s future as one of Perth’s best southeast Asian eateries is assured.
14.5/20
Asian$
Among Christians, Sundays are regarded as the Sabbath: the day of rest. Sunday
lunches and dinners at Two Hands Noodle Shop, however, don’t strike me as being especially restful.
Between the post-church crowd that flock here (that’d be the pods of friends and
multigenerational families all rocking their Sunday best); late-rising locals in freshly laundered athleisure and streetwear; plus all the dedicated eaters that have set course for Como after getting a tip-off for great Malaysian-Chinese cooking, Sundays are a bad day to be one of the 50 or so seats at this squat eatery beneath a block of units.
The hungry and the impatient not-so-subtly eyeball tables of chatters. Eaters at
communal tables do their best to avoid rubbing elbows with one another. Staff in
black uniform tees dart from kitchen to table and back again.
Not that Two Hands is the only suburban Asian restaurant that gets slammed on the Lord’s Day. The church-to-brunch double-header is a common Sunday ritual across Bullcreek, Winthrop, Rossmoyne and other south-of-the-river postcodes with strong southeast Asian communities.
Joseph Lau – owner of Two Hands along with wife Georgia Ding – knows this all too well.
Prior to opening Two Hands in 2019, he ran Malaysian restaurants on and around the Leach Highway catchment including Willetton’s Sarawak Hawkers Cuisine, plus the original Kitchen Inn in Thornlie. Like his current business, all these places were based on a similar premise: cook great versions of the Chinese-influenced food synonymous with eastern Malaysia.
From street level, Two Hands’ dress sense is best described as practical. There are
outdoor tables and a PVC door curtain, perhaps with the tail end of the line poking through.
Inside, things feel a little more upbeat and livelier, thanks largely to the smart black and white floor tiling that got laid over Christmas. Orders are made and paid for at the counter, typically manned by manager and Lau’s son-in-law, Kevin Er. A warning: said counter is clustered with takeaway snacks, cakes and condiments gunning for your impulse buying dollars.
Think blistered curry puffs, gummy kueh, coconut-filled pancakes and other foodstuffs capable of both curing and conjuring homesickness among Malays and
Singaporeans.
While this selection changes regularly, one constant are the bao buns: steamed
pillowy airbags filled with lush minced pork, chicken and char siew. Considering Two Hands’ proximity to the Manning Road freeway south on-ramp, dropping in and buying some buns – and some juicy fried chicken wings, and the fried “roll” of minced pork known as lobak – for a down-south road trip would not be a mistake.
Trying to slurp the restaurant’s namesake in-car, however, would be. And not to
mention dangerous.
The noodles at Two Hands are best eaten there and then once served. Certainly the soup-less, “dry” noodles that requiring mixing by end-users, anyway. Left untouched, these un-lubed noodles have a habit of clumping together.
Even taking too long to nail that Instagram shot can be enough time for lunch to
seize. The expert move is to “churn” your noodles while eating and continually drag those eggy strands through the sauces and toppings pooled in your bowl.
So about those signature noodles. Or more specifically, eastern Malaysian-style
minced pork noodles. The good stuff comes in two styles: thin and straight (kolo mee or kampua) or crinkly and slightly flatter (mee pok or kolo mee pok).
Hitting one of the Hokkien-style “kolo” mees? The kitchen will cook your noods al dente and slip white vinegar and garlic oil into your bowl along with the standard-issue pork lard, soya sauce and minced piggy bits. The kampua and mee pok, meanwhile, are more Fujian in style: the noodles are softer, silkier and seasoned with only the latter.
The core menu features other fine examples of noodle wizardry. The chew and
thickness of the pan mian calls to mind great tagliatelle. Slippery egg noodles
doused in an inky black soya sauce equals a rousing version of Kuala Lumpur-style Hokkien mee. All the aforementioned noodles are, I should add, produced in-situ, hence the shop’s name. Lau uses both of his hands to make them. Diners use both of ours to applaud his commitment to craft.
A stranger to Two Hands I am not. While its kolo mee pok enriched with a fried egg (my go-to order) has brightened many a lunch hour, revisiting the new-look
restaurant with my WAToday and Good Food hats on feels like an apt opportunity to explore the specials menu. I’m glad I did. If the lush, warming buzz of a creamy Nyonya-style barramundi curry with and a zippy rendition of Singaporean bak chor mee starting springy pork meatballs are anything to go by, outside-of-my-comfort-zone is a dining precinct I need to spend more time in.
Best of all, this low-key glow-up and the steady injection of new dishes to the menu suggests that Two Hands is looking and cooking to the future. And if that future involves more suburban addresses serving true-to-type renditions of regional southeast Asian dishes, I’m all for it.
Flavour and bang-for-buck in spirited, casual environs? Friends, can I get an Amen?
The low-down
Vibe: a (handmade, casual) noodle joint that any suburb would love to call its own.
Go-to dish: kolo mee pok.
Drinks: sweet Malaysian-style milk coffees, teas and soft drinks.
Cost: about $40 for two, excluding drinks.
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Max Veenhuyzen is a journalist and photographer who has been writing about food, drink and travel for national and international publications for more than 20 years. He reviews restaurants for the Good Food Guide.
