It is essentially a composition of various meats and vegetables and other ingredients, such as a sausage-like roll consisting of minced pork and prawn (or fish) seasoned with five-spice powder (Hokkien: Chinese: 五香粉, ngó͘-hiong-hún) after which it is named, rolled inside a tofu skin and deep-fried.[2] It is usually served with chili sauce and a house-special sweet sauce. Many stalls in Singaporean food courts and hawker centres sell fried bee hoon with ngo hiang; this combination is common for breakfast and lunch. In Indonesia, people enjoy ngo hiang with sambal.
The Philippine versions were originally introduced by Hokkien migrants and are generally known as kikiam. However, the variant called ngohiong from Cebu has diverged significantly from the original dish. Instead of using beancurd skin, it uses lumpia wrappers. A street food dish also sometimes called "kikiam" (called "tempura" in Cebu) in the Philippines is neither of those dishes, but is instead an elongated version of fishballs. The street food version of kikiam was made from pork, not fish.[3][4][5][6]
On the same day, another incident occurred after the coach of the Philippine women's football team complained that the athletes were only served kikiam with rice and egg for breakfast at the hotel that they stayed in. The hotel clarified, however, that the kikiam was actually chicken sausage, and was part of a buffet service that included other food as well. It was also revealed that the coach was not actually at the hotel when the incident happened. Following this, the coach apologized to the hotel for the error.[8]
