It’s been raining quite a fair bit recently and the cold weather is ideal for hot, soupy noodles. The Wife is a fan of the prawn broth served at Le Shrimp Ramen, and so we headed down to their Paragon branch for lunch.
We used to have a really good hae mee stall in our kopitiam downstairs, but they closed down a few years back. The prawn noodles were Penang-style with rich, hearty and slightly sweet broth that could only be achieved by long hours of boiling down prawn heads and shells.
Despite how good the broth tasted, they never really had long queues, unlike the generic chain store bak chor mee just a few stores down. Maybe the super grumpy attitude of the auntie who ran the place turned people away. It was a pity that they didn’t last.
The prawn noodles at Le Shrimp are different. They are Japanese ramen-style, using a thick tonkotsu soup mixed with deeply-flavoured shrimp broth to make a really good bowl of prawn noodles. The menu is simple and features a small selection of noodles with different toppings plus side dishes and drinks.
The décor is predominantly red, black and white and the walls are painted with powerful murals of big waves crashing down on bowls of noodles. Probably signifying the tsunami of flavour that will hit you on your first sip of the soup. It’s not that dramatic, of course, but the broth is really quite good.
We’ve tried three different types over our two visits so far, and found that the broth was consistently well-made and the prawns, served in dumplings, balls or whole, were fresh and crunchy. The side dishes of bamboo shoots and braised tau kwa also went well with the noodles.
One thing to note is that they don’t serve chili by default and you’ll have to request for it. Make sure you explicitly ask for the chili powder, because adding even just a bit makes a big difference to the taste.
So, how does the broth at Le Shrimp stack up against our previous grumpy-auntie-noodles?
Pretty close, I’d say.
