Everybody knows what constitute to a bowl of great tasting Prawn Noodles or “Hae Mee” in Hokkien, a favourite local cuisine well loved by many. The soul of this dish, as we all know is the prawn stock which is so fundamental that it’ll either make or break the whole dish. Today we’ll be checking in on one of the true masters at work with their killer prawn broth.

Hoe Nam has been in the prawn noodle business for decades though little has changed from the way they operate the stall to preparing their signature noodles. Helmed by two sisters by day and their brothers by night, the stall is situated inside a coffeeshop near Macpherson Road where old Jackson Centre used to be. Its hard to expect anything less from the rigorous process taken to churn out gallons after gallons of this glorious consommé. Stock made from fried prawn shells, pork bones, soy sauce with some krazy KFC styled spice mix being thrown in and then simmered for 24 hours straight. In fact for most prawn noodle stallowners, the full details of their recipe is known to be a jealously and carefully watched secret (Probably guarded by some 18 bronze shaolin monks and Imperial Royal Guards too).

Like anywhere else, other then the choice of noodles, there’s gonna be only 2 ways the prawn noodles are coming in, Soup or Dry. You’ll not be entertained with funky requests like al dente Mee Tai Mak. On top of the standard prawn servings, you can choose to have extra condiments like pork ribs, pig’s tail, pig’s intestines and abalone added. Being a speciality stall, Hoe Nam serves the dish without the usual lean pork slices and water convolvulus (kang kong) but makes it up by having larger whole prawns instead. My order came swiftly in a big bowl of blanched noodles with soup ladled over, accompanied by large prawns and tender pork ribs garnished with fried onions and shards of lard. Simply heavenly … I’ll normally kickoff with a dash of the trademark prawn mee chilli powder, followed by a large mouthful of the rich, full bodied and sweet tasting broth before annihilating everything. The prawns were fresh, crunchy and well cooked. The pork ribs that came with it was soft to the bite and really tasty. But of course the soup tops everything combined, tasted really pure yet exudes an intensely rich seafood flavour. Very satisfying and a true gastronomic experience especially for the uninitiated.

More then one decade ago, I was inoculated to this brand of Mee Udang thru a recommendation by an old friend and have been coming back ever since. If you’ve never tried Hoe Nam before, this is seriously going to rock your socks. If there’s a word to sum it all, it has be Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious

-Darth Sidtoh