Okay maybe not this time. The shop name does say 大陆, which is the term most of us would use to refer to mainland China. Anyways, it's a place that sells, obviously, prawn noodles. I would guess that it's good. I mean, it has to be. How else would they be able to sustain a big shop space in China Square? That spot is expensive yo!
I reached the place at lunch time. Luckily enough the queue hasn't grown by then and I waited barely 5 minutes to place my orders. That said, after I got my meal 5 minutes after sitting down, I looked at the queue again and it has grown in length. Expect about 10 minutes of total waiting time I guess?
I'll start with the slightly more boring stuff. Soup is pretty standard. Nothing wrong with the soup, there's nothing mega awesome about it either. It's sweet, not too oily and most important of all, does not hint of the strong musty smell you'd get when using stale prawns.
As mentioned with the soup, the prawns used are pretty fresh and the serving is quite generous too. Then again, I paid $6 for this which is a medium. I suggest sticking to medium as it's supposedly the entry point where they add pork ribs into your bowl.
The pork ribs are well prepared, very tender and truly fall off the bone kinda. One thing I didn't like is that they picked the cuts of the rib which had large amounts of cartilage. Definitely chew-able but it kinda gets irritating with all the bone grinding. These cartilage aren't exactly mushy-soft (think bak kut teh cartilage soft).
Okay... I sorta ordered the wrong noodles to go with this dish. In a spurt of absent-mindedness, I asked for thin noodles when I should be asking for beehoon mee. Either ways, it doesn't matter. Noodles were okay. They're on the chewy soft side but I didn't like that the dry sauce was a little weak in this. Don't expect the "chili fragrance" you get with this one. What I liked instead? There's a free-flow selection of fried pork lard for you to shove onto your bowl if you're into that kinda stuff. Little crunchy bits of sin!
So I decided to come by a second time after noticing a large number of diners eating their egg noodles and decided to give it a try. If you ask me, egg noodles is just another fancy name for instant noodles but whatever, got a bowl of tom yum egg noodles for $5. First impression? Damn, this bowl is full of ingredients.
On closer look you'll notice that the soup is actually pretty thick. It's very flavorful, definitely not the right kind of tom yum (the real ones from thailand), but it's definitely sweet-sour-spicy! I kinda liked the soup at first but one thing to note is that my tongue was left feeling pretty thirsty after the meal. I normally don't have the habit of ordering drinks if I'm trying out soupy stuff.
The dish comes with a healthy supply of luncheon meat. Yes, you may say that they're cheap stuff but these chunks of processed meat are thick and hearty to the bite. Pretty salty too.
One thing I REALLY like is the way they prepare their eggs. Nicely poached. The whites are soft and "floaty" and very easy to separate with the yolk. Yolk is cooked just nice and bursting it open, you'll be greeted with soft, slow-flowing yellow stuff.
I do have a problem with it though, and it goes across all dishes with eggs added actually. Why just one egg? They always present you with the dilemma of eating the egg yolk whole and bursting the yolk to spread around the soup. WHAT DO YOU WANT, HUH? (I decided to experience the explosion of yolk but biting it whole. Do you know bliss?)
Noodles are meh. The usual springy "maggie mee" texture.
Another hot favorite on the internet was their carrot cake. Ordered a small one which was $5 to see for myself. These boys are made fresh but they take a while to serve. I got mine about 5 minutes after I'm done with the tom yum noodle.
DID YOU KNOW?
Despite being called carrot cake, this dish does not include any carrot in it? Instead the main ingredient is radish, which in Chinese is called luo bo 萝卜. Carrot has a similar name but was hong luo bo 红萝卜which technically means red radish. Go figure.
The carrot cake was not bad I guess. Got a white one and asked for the spicy option. They're definitely fresh, each bite was hot especially when you get to the bottom piece since it's like blanketed by the ones on top. Radish pieces are soft and fluffy. The carrot cakes are prepared into little sheets held together by the egg so it's generally quite easy to eat them.
What I didn't like about this dish, though, was the amount of egg they used here. Flip the cakes over and you'll see more eggs than radish bits. It's almost like the main ingredient has been changed to eggs. Why not call them egg cakes then? Dish was a wee bit too oily for me too, but that one is fine. All in all, they're still enjoyable. I think their oyster egg omelettes would be better, though. Oh wells, another time? Nah...
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