Prawn Noodles

Located in one of the legacy “smoking allowed” Kopitiam, I had my worst prawn noodle year to date from this stall.

First of all, the soup just tasted like salt water without any of the umami of prawns. The chilli sauce for the dry yellow noodles was just greasy with none of the usual fragrance of chilli nor the heat.

Pork ribs were tender but lacks flavour. The pig tails were even worse with hint of porcine smell.

Finally the attitude of the auntie helming the stall could be better. Her brusque responses matching her sullen appearance, gives the impression of not welcoming my order.

Given the poor taste of this prawn noodles, I am quite sure I won’t be back any time soon.

A really good Hokkien Prawn Noodles stall. Nowadays you can hardly find prawn noodles with intestines or liver. This stall has it.

Arrived at 11am and there was hardly any queue. Ordered their pork rib liver intestines prawn noodles, bee hoon with yellow noodles. At $7.00, it’s a bit expensive but being such a rare find, I thought it was worth the splurge. I did ask the stall owner if it was possible to ass pig tail but he replied that I probably cannot finish the portion as they will add a whole tail. Maybe next time I’ll just order a portion with only tail meat.

The chilli sauce went well with the noodles after you give it a good stir to coat every strand. Not too spicy, just fragrant with a little bit of sweetness. Liver was a bit over cooked but the intestines was soft with no funky taste. The pork ribs were choice cuts with good mix of fatty and lean pork. Prawns were mid sized tail on and fresh by its crunchiness.

Special mention for the soup. It was full of umami and the taste of prawns. Not too salty from soy sauce, you’d want to drink it all.

Overall a very good prawn noodle. The queue was getting quite long by the time I left, satisfied and happy.

Been eating here since I was in my 20s. This place together with a couple of others are really the institutions that brought to life prawn noodles with big prawns.

But each time I come, the price seems to have gone up some more. My usual medium portion is now $9.50 as opposed to my last visit when it was $8.80.

Today again I ordered pork ribs / pig tail bee hoon/ mee combination, dry with chilli sauce. Cannot help but compare with my bowl of $6.50 pork rib / pig tail noodle yesterday. This place probably has more ribs and tail. The chilli sauce also has slightly more flavour. Meat wise, both serves ribs and tail with tender meat that comes off the bone easily. The soup is equally good, it exudes lots of prawn flavour. But today I find that their ribs is slightly more dry and chewy than usual.

Also must order their Ngoh Hiang. Always nice to have something to nibble on before the star, prawn noodles, arrives.

Perhaps the price will reach a point when I think the value of no longer there. I hope not. But until then, I will occasionally come and support them.

One of the best prawn mee in the western part of Singapore, albeit their name says otherwise.

Arrived at noon to find a short queue so I decided to indulge myself today. Ordered the pork ribs and pork tail noodles, $6.50 portion, bee hoon/mee.

You will fall in love with their soup. It is legit for of prawn taste and not too salty. Add a dash of chilli powder to jazz things up for you. But the stars of the show are their pork ribs and pig tail. Both are cooked until the meat comes off with the slightest twist of the chopsticks.

The noodles were well coated with the chilli sauce and for once, the fried shallots did more than just irritate me, being factory made. Portion wise, it’s enough for a lunch appetite.

I am happy they made it through the pandemic and are thriving. You can tell because sometimes they are out of ribs or pork tail by 1pm.

A very good bowl of prawn noodles, well deserving it’s Bib Gourmand. Soup is full with umami and the portion is so large. Certainly the largest portion of noodles for $3.50! See video. The chilli sauce is also very fragrant and adds extra dimension of flavour to the noodles.

Ingredient wise, I got three half prawns, tails on, a few slices of pork and fish cakes. The prawns were of the right size and fresh so they tasted sweet and flesh was crunchy. Lady boss gave me the last two pieces of pork skin at no extra charge😃Apparently you can also order pork rib noodles or add pork ribs and pork skin to your prawn noodles but they ran out.

Better come early for this delicious and cheap bowl of prawn mee, especially if you want extras. In my opinion, it’s not the best in Singapore but certainly Top 5. Much better than some of those stalls selling prawn noodles with large prawns at exorbitant prices.

A very good Penang Prawn Noodles stall.

Arrived at 11am and ordered the All-in-one prawn noodles. For $7, you get two pieces of pork trotters, two pieces of pork ribs, two pieces of sliced fish cake, half a hard boiled egg and two prawns shell on.

Of the above, the fish cakes and the pork trotters stand out. Worth adding extra orders next time. The prawns were disappointing as after all the efforts to peel them, they were soft, not mushy, but definitely not the freshest nor crunchy.

The chilli sauce was adequate but nothing to scream about. Last but not least, there is the soup. It is legit full of prawn umami; you can’t stop till you’ve drank every drop!

Pro Tip: Add a dash of chilli powder into the soup if you like your food hot and spicy!

A very good bowl of prawn Mee. The broth is especially umami with strong taste of prawn flavour. Couple of special things about this outlet - you get a choice of mee pork mee kia on top of the usual noodles and most customers will order the dry version. For $4, you get a decent portion that comes with 2 tail on shrimps, pork slices and bean sprouts. You can add extras for additional costs.

Leave it to you to decide which version is better, soup or dry.

Arrived at 11.15am before the lunch crowd. Boss was a really friendly chap and recommended his specialties Nasi Kunyit and Mee Siam but I ordered Prawn Noodles and I was not disappointed.

This has got to be the best prawn noodles I had this year. The soup has solid taste of prawns. The yellow noodles were springy in terms of bite with crunchy bean sprouts. Loved their sliced red chilli sauce when you dip the two shells off prawns into. Brings back memories of how grandma would cook prawns noodles traditional way when I was young.

If the prawn noodles was already so good, must come back soon to try their specialties.

Arrived at 11.00am on a Saturday and was the second in queue. Ordered a $5.00 bowl of pork rib thick bee hoon. A decent portion of bee hoon was served with about 5 pieces of pork ribs. Quite generous in view of inflation these days.

The soup which definitely had the strong, umami taste of prawns, a a little too salty to drink by itself. But together with the bee hoon, it was okay. But the one that gets top grades is the pork ribs. The meat comes off with the slightest effort and almost melts in your mouth without chewing. The choice of cut is between lean and fatty. Very obvious that it was marinated and then braised in soya sauce.

By this time, the queue is getting longer. Seeing that most people are ordering prawn and pork ribs, I will come back soon to try their dry version. Next time it will be bee hoon mee and we’ll see how that goes.

Super long 25 mins queue at lunch time. The first thing that hits you is the broth. Very umami, you can tell it was done with real prawns in it. I like their pork ribs. They choose the ribs with soft bone and the meat comes off easily. The two pieces of prawns, halved and deveined were fresh and crunchy. You can also add pig skin for 50 cents if you come early.

At $4 a bowl with the inflation these days, it’s value for money. Strongly recommended if you have the time to queue or come earlier.

Went to Toa Payoh to try this prawn noodles after seeing recommendations on a famous foodie video. Burpple says it opens at 7.30pm but when I arrived at 7pm it was already serving customers. I was the only customer in the queue at that time.

Ordered the largest portion at $6 as I was feeling hungry. Portion was not huge. Maybe just enough for an adult lunch. Inside there were maybe 8 slivers of halved prawns and 10 pieces of thinly sliced pork, garnished with factory fried shallots. No lard. No fish cakes. No pork ribs. My heart was sinking fast.

As with all prawn noodles, I always order bee Hoon in soup. It is the acid test to see if the bee hoon tastes good after soaking up the broth. Speaking of the broth, it was very bland and so the bee hoon was tasteless as well.

Enough said. Definitely not coming back for seconds.

I have been eating here for more than 35 years. A couple of days ago I suddenly realised I have never written a review about them. But what else is there to write about a stall that sells the best prawn noodles in Singapore (my opinion), that hasn’t been written before?

The taste has not changed through the years, even though the next generation has taken over. The price however, has been increased annually, typically after their long CNY break. It’s now $6.50 for a small bowl. Same goes for the Ngoh Hiang stall in the same shop. This one has seen some slippage in quality but their changing to a flat fish cake, the one that finger print marks, somewhat raised the taste again. When fried this fish cake is more crispy with strong fish taste coming from each crunchy bite.

Back to the prawn noodles. The soup here is clearly the winner compared with other places. The umami taste of prawns is very evident unlike other places. The prawns are normally better, today being after CNY, the prawns were not so fresh. But this is expected. The quality will recover. I like their thick bee hoon, it has a smooth taste, easy to chew and swallow and it soaks up the prawn soup very well. The pork ribs were a bit fattier than usual, again, I attribute this to CNY effect where the ingredients are harder to source than usual.

So until next time which I am sure will be very soon.