Jalan Sultan Prawn Noodles

One of the days, we went to the famous prawn noodles shop, Jalan Sultan Prawn Noodles, in Geylang Lorong 1.

The usual orders would be yellow noodles, or bee hoon or both mixed, and you can choose with prawns, or prawns + pork ribs, or just pork ribs. However this visit, I was quite disappointed with the dish. Somehow the soup was not as flavourful as before, or maybe it was just not hot enough.  It did have the traditional rich taste of prawn noodles soup, I expected and which this shop was supposed to be famous for. The pork ribs, however, were well boiled and tender. We also ordered a side dish from the Wu Xiang stall as well, a combination of items of your choice. I usually choose the fried prawn fritters, the reddish looking sausage, century eggs, fried beancurd, fishballs, and wuxiang. Look at the remnants of the prawn shells at the end. At this shop, they sliced the prawns into halves, thus gives you the illusion that there are plenty of prawns. :D

This time, I was more interested in observing the surroundings. The shop is located behind a row of old shophouses. The place was actually not that clean, being situated at the back lane of  old shops and restaurants. There were many black crows stationed around the buckets of waste food, ready to pounce on the leftovers rather inconspicuously. But of course I noticed them. There were also other junk people left lying around, like this signboard of a company. Wow, it was a real old-school signboard. I wonder if the company is still alive? 

Among those shophouses in front, were many shops selling steamboat buffet, especially Chongqing steamboats. They left their tables and chairs behind during the day. See the holes on the tables (for the steamboats)?  During weekends, these restaurants are rampant with locals and especially many patrons from China and foreign workers. Well, they are operated by mostly China owners with China waiters/waitresses anyway. We have never tried the steamboat buffet here even though it is not expensive. Think we prefer those  steamboat restaurants in Bugis instead.