Seafood lo mein is the dish that exposes whether a cook has wok hei or not. Wok hei — "breath of the wok" — is the smoky, almost-burnt edge you only get from a screaming-hot carbon steel pan and a cook who is not afraid to throw flame into it. Mohan Ismail, the former culinary director of RockSugar and an alum of Spice Market and Tabla in New York, has wok hei the way some people have a tan.
Bobby's noodles, per the room, were "clean." Clean is not a compliment in this dish. Clean means there is no char on the noodle, which means the wok was not hot enough, which means the entire dish is missing its signature. The judges, two of whom have lived in Singapore, knew what they were not getting.