Zhen Jie Pork Rib Prawn Noodle @ Mega Food Court Balestier Road 珍姐海鲜大虾面

Uncle Bob stumbled upon Zhen Jie prawn noodle stall which opened at Mega Food Court coffee shop two months ago at Balestier Road. Since I got an unexpected break this morning, I zipped by to give it a try.

Buddy Chua came by too.

Zhen Jie actually opened to quite a bit media hype a couple of years ago. They had a few outlets from Bedok to Ponggol, but is pared down to this one stall at Balestier Road now.

They have different combinations of pork, prawn and seafood noodles supposedly based on the recipe of the late Zhen Jie who used to operate her stall at 628 Ang Mo Kio hawker centre. The stallholders at the Balestier stall are a couple from China and they were taught the recipe by Zhen Jie's son.

It took me a long while after I got home before it clicked. It must be because I am old 👴🤭 Zhen Jie is actually the spinoff from Sumo Prawn Noodle which went wildly viral in 2016 but soon faded away. Good lah... Like that I am not affected by my past experience with Sumo Prawn Noodle.

I thought the portion was pretty generous for $6.

Their signature is the soup versions but I just went for my preference.

I opted for yellow noodles which came well sauced with sambal and lard, and topped with prawn, pork rib, kangkong greens, beansprout, etc.

I have to admit that it was the lard and croutons in Uncle Bob's photos that did me in.

The yellow noodles nicely done tender, slightly spongy, was well coated with a robust savoury, spicy, lardy, lip smacking delicious sauce.

If the sauce doesn't give you enough kick, add in this hae bee hiam - it tastes spicy umami savoury sweet. Nice.

The crustaceans were shelled, halved, cocktail prawn size, soft crunchy and quite sweet actually.

The pork rib meat was a tad stiff, though still tender. The cartilage was not chewable (a bit hard).

As Chua had another appointment, he enquired if they can begin serving slightly earlier. The stall holder kindly obliged 👏👏👏 I imagine that the ribs stewed a little longer would be more soft tender, nicer.

The medium body soup was porky, crustacean savoury, salty, sweet and peppery. Chua felt it was heavy on MSG - it's there though still within reasonable range for me.

Chua got the $12 serving.

Shall try their soup versions and fried Hokkien Mee next time. Sumo actually spinned off from their parent's Hokkien Mee stall.

At one time I was a little crazy about Sumo Prawn Noodle during its heyday. Wrote three articles in 2016 - the first one went viral garnering 200,785 blogspot views:

One

Two

Three.

Zhen Jie opens 10:30am to 10pm. If I am around Balestier, it is one of the options I will consider though I won't make a special trip for it.