Penang Road Cafe @ Novena

I am a fan of prawn mee. But I have always been disappointed with most prawn noodles, because the most important thing to me - the soup - is usually a let-down. The soup must be rich and flavourful, with the real taste of prawns, which is usually the result of brewing a lot of prawns (especially the prawn heads) over time. It is quite easy to distinguish between a rich soup and a bland (and sometimes artificial-tasting) soup, just by appearances alone. 

So when I heard that there was a good place for prawn mee at Novena, I went to give it a try. The name of the cafe is Penang Road Cafe, and it is located at Novena Ville, which is diagonally opposite Novena Medical Centre.

The prawn mee is done Penang style, so it is a bit different from the usual Singaporean prawn mee. 

Prawn mee with pork ribs, prawns and pork strips - $8.90

Once the bowl came, I knew that this would be good, judging from the soup colour alone. The soup was rich and full of the sweet flavour of prawn heads. The taste of the fried onions blended in perfectly, and even though bee hoon (which tends to dilute soup flavour) was added in, the soup was still robust enough to stand on its own. The soup was also quite spicy, which was a plus for me, but it may be a tad too spicy for others. 

My only gripes were in the other ingredients. The pork ribs had a slight tinge of the 'defrosted' taste, so I suspect that it was either frozen for a long time or not defrosted properly before cooking. The prawns were rather tasteless (maybe everything is already in the soup), and the pork strips suffered from the same issue as the pork ribs. Of course, this is not going to prevent me from coming back again because I just want the soup. The next time, I shall just order the standard prawn mee (with prawns and pork strips), which costs $6. Adding pork ribs jacks up the price by almost 50% (to $8.90), and they don't taste fantastic either.

I still prefer my old favourite prawn mee haunt at Hoe Nam Prawn Noodles (Tai Thong Crescent, Potong Pasir) but this is more than good enough for revisits.