545 Whampoa Prawn Noodle

Had breakfast at Whampoa Market around 6.15am and there was already a queue. The stall opens till 12.30pm and is closed on Monday, Tuesday and Friday. This isn’t your usual prawn noodle. It’s served only with yellow noodles. The flavour leans on the sweeter side. The sauce tasted mostly of ketchup, and the soup was sweet but lacked that umami depth I was expecting. At $6 per bowl, the portion was generous with lots of prawns. Overall, it was okay for me, though a tad too sweet for my preference.

Albeit a 20-minute queue time, I've enjoyed the bowl of old-school Dry Prawn Kway Teow @545 Whampoa Prawn Noodle👍👏😋 Located within Whampoa Makan Place, 91 Whampoa Drive, 545 WPN has the constant longest line of (mostly regular) customers wanting a taste of its delicious prawn noodles👍👏😋 so it's hard not to spot the stall! Ordering is a breeze - pick from the classic trio of noodles, state the serving size (S - SGD5/B - SGD6) and soup/dry version (with/without chilli). Add-ons are available and charged separately. To satisfy my craving for a bowl of piping hot prawn noodles, I order a S bowl with two add-ons - ingredients (SGD2) and soup (SGD0.50) - which makes a hearty meal! This bowl has an old-school charm, hitting the comfort spot with a familiar cooked-by-grandma taste👍👏😋 - Kway teow texture is on point - Sauce mixture wrapping the kway teow is rich, savoury and delivers a nice fiery kick (remember to add a dash or two of 'gun powder') - Ingredients (cleaned and halved medium prawns, lean and tender sliced pork and crunchy beansprouts) are substantial, fresh and tasty - The spoonful of fried shallot crisps and crispy pork lard elevates the overall flavor and mouthfeel The only gripe is the underwhelming taste and flavor of the prawn broth. Soup stock is a tad diluted, somehow lacking the expected aromatic rich unami-ness and briny sweetness of fried prawn heads and shells that have been simmered with other ingredients for hours. A pity it pales in comparison to that served at Tekka Centre branch. Considering the deliciousness of prawn noodle, I'll possibly make a repeat visit in the hope of savouring a more robust prawn broth next time👍👏💪

Saturday morning about 9am. Queue was snaking but they served the food in a reasonable amount of time. Was it worth the queue? Here’s my take: Small bowl-$5 Big bowl-$6 I ordered two small bowl bee hoon dry and add bean sprout which cost extra 50 cents each. Total $11. Soup-nice colour but disappointingly the soup was almost bland with a slight hint of prawn scent. I expected the soup to be robust, rich and prawny. After all, it’s prawn mee. Disappointed. The bee hoon almost tasted bland too so I added light soya sauce to make it savoury. The prawns vein were not removed. So you can see clearly the black streak of ‘poop vein’ along its body. Just don’t think of it when you bite into it. Overall I feel it is overrated. And not worth the queuing. This is just my personal opinion. Oh, do take note of their operational days. They have a lot of off days in a week.

Ordered prawn noodles (2 dry and 1 soup) total costs $15.00 for breakfast. Soup was blend, prawns intestines were not removed. Dry noodles with chilli sauce taste normal. Not quite worth the queue.

Prawn noodles soup ($6 for larger bowl + $2 for extra prawns) - Not bad overall. Came with spicy and sweet sauce. Excellent broth with strong prawn flavour.

Decent bowl of noodles. Sauce is not great. Soup is not rich. Mid.

Usually a very long queue as early as 6am as many of their diehard fans will come early to have a delicious bowl of good old taste prawn noodle. Highly recommended.

Nice bowl of yellow noodles soup. The good points: the noodles are well prepared, the crispy lards are finely cut and shallots look to be made by themselves. The not so great for me: the soup is slightly thin and the prawns were slightly sandy. Overall v delicious and old sch style. I came at 6am so there were no q.