Johor Kaki reader Leonard recommended me to visit Don Don Prawn Mee at Circuit Road Food Centre. It is his favourite prawn noodle stall.
Don started Don Don Prawn Noodle stall in Oct 2019 - just before Covid-19 struck. Don was a buyer with a leading department store before retirement.
Not quite a flying start. Though Circuit Road Food Centre is at the doorstep of Mattar MRT station, the laid back, old food centre is a little run down with half the stalls closed or were unoccupied. Still, Don Don Prawn Noodle pulled through even with Covid-19 measures and business is now on an even keel, growing steadily.
A rookie hawker, Don used this time to tweak and improve her prawn noodle. Beginning its third year, Don Don Prawn Noodle now has regulars who come from across Singapore.
Leonard bought these - two bowls of "dry" prawn and pork rib noodles and a bowl of prawn soup with assorted ingredients. Truth be told, on my own I won't naturally gravitate towards a prawn and pork rib noodle combo as I felt it would be too much meat, too heavy for me.
The noodles and bee hoon were well coated with sauce after tossing. A bit of wetness made it easy to mix the noodles and sauce. I like the taste of the savoury spicy blend of sambal, sauces and aromatic oils.
It turned out that I enjoyed this meaty pork rib. Don marinated the fresh pork ribs and cooked them by steaming. So, they were fall-off-the-bone tender, tasted savoury with natural sweetness of fresh pork.
The good size "ang kar" white prawn though fresh was a little overdone. I appreciate it that the prawn was shelled for our convenience.
The highlight of the day was this prawn soup with lots of ingredients inside. Don goes to the wet market before coming to the stall and buys what is good at the market. So, the extra ingredients in the soup varies from day to day (like mum's cooking). If you are going for the customised soup like us, check prices with Don.
Though the soup doesn't have a thick body, it was fully loaded with savoury umami spicy sweet and garlicky flavours. The sweetness in the soup came from carrots, not from sugar cane or rock sugar. The soup also had complex layers of flavours from the various add on ingredients blanched in the soup.
We had fresh pig intestine. Fresh, well cleaned, cooked to soft-tenderness, nice.
I love this pork liver. Hand picked by Don at the wet market, fresh, sliced thick, cooked to medium doneness, soft-crunchy, "powdery" in the mouth like pâté, tastes good too. Don said her pork kidneys are nice too but she didn't get any at the market this morning as they were not up to her requirement (yeah, just like fussy mums buying for family).
There were other add on ingredients like "lobster ball", crab stick, etc in the soup.
I love this pig tail. Soft-tender, smooth, juicy, sweet.
Today, we had item B ($9.80) and soup with add on ingredients ($10).
My next time, I will go for item D, Pig Tail Prawn Noodles ($5/6) and soup with pig liver and kidney.
This old "forgotten" food centre seemed to hide some hawker gems. Do you know of any others? I shall be exploring Circuit Road Food Centre more in the future.
Written by Tony Boey on 26 Feb 2022
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