Prawn Mee With Har Cheong Pork Chop So Popular, It's Sold Out By 2pm Almost Daily

Chef Ang Song Kang is on a roll. Most famous for his one-Michelin-starred Cantonese restaurant Chef Kang's at Mackenzie Road, which he opened in 2015, the jovial 55-year-old with a side-swept mop of grey on his head and a hearty paunch, added a third feather in his culinary hat on October 1 with Chef Kang's Prawn Noodle House, a small 30-seater eatery a stone’s throw from industrial canteen joint Chef Kang’s Noodle House at Jackson Square in Toa Payoh. The latter, a wanton mee stall which opened last September, has been recognised with a Bib Gourmand nod in the Michelin Guide Singapore 2019.

It’s an admirable achievement. More so for chef Kang, who’s been put through the ringer, and then some. The eldest of five children, he suffered through poverty and constant hunger as a child, and dropped out of school when he was 11 to supplement his single-parent family’s income. “I’ve done all sorts of odd jobs in my life,” he recalls. “But I realised I needed a skill that these odd jobs didn’t provide, so I went into F&B. I started at a small restaurant. The pay was very little, but I was just grateful to be given the opportunity to step inside a kitchen. I never thought of being a chef (chushi in mandarin). I wanted to be a lawyer (lushi). But I must’ve mixed up the exams! At least you’ll never go hungry as a chef.”

After years of cooking in other chefs’ kitchens, chef Kang decided to strike out on his own. In 2002, he opened Canton Wok in Havelock Road. Business was purportedly “not bad”. But his personal investments took a hit during the Lehman Brothers scandal and he filed for bankruptcy in 2009. Shortly after, he was diagnosed with kidney cancer, which is now in remission. Undeterred, he tried again in 2011 with Canton Recipes House in Parc Sovereign Hotel, but that closed down after a few years as well. “What are you going to do? Give up? That’s not me,” he tells us. “I’m a fighter. I don’t give up. Ever.”

Chef Kang chalks up his previous failures to “luck and location”, among other things. “It’s like going through hell and coming out the other side. It gives you a certain amount of clarity,” he says. “I’m no longer impulsive when it comes to making decisions. I take time to mull over them. Many people come to me with proposals, but I don’t rush into them anymore. I like a challenge, but I’ll only do it if I can succeed. Failure is not an option. I’m just a regular guy, not a multi-millionaire. I don’t need big successes and it’s not about money. I just want my vision realised and for people to recognise my efforts. After all, money isn’t everything. There are so many unhappy rich people.”

Chef Kang chose to specialise in prawn noodles for his third eatery for no particular reason — “the idea just came to me in the middle of the night.” His menu here is also a throwback to the good old days with a slight twist. There are only two dishes on offer for now: King Prawn Noodle Soup With Prawn Paste Spare Ribs, and Hot Stone Prawn Paste Spare Ribs Rice. The twist is Chef Kang’s take on prawn paste chicken, swapping the chicken for a slab of pork loin from Indonesia, which he hopes will some day put Singapore on the culinary map. “Singapore’s food scene is so small. If there’s nothing special, you’ll quickly become obsolete,” he reasons. “I have to innovate. There’s no point rehashing the same old thing without bringing something special to the table.” He adds that he feels the combination of prawn noodles and prawn paste pork goes well.

Having grown up in Toa Payoh, Chef Kang picked the heartland neighbourhood again to open his prawn noodle stall as a nod to his roots and a way to “reminisce (his) childhood”. The cosy air-conditioned eatery is utilitarian and simply decorated with white-washed walls and black furnishings, sort of like a stripped down modern take on traditional Chinese inns. You order and pay at the counter, then find a seat — your food will be served to you. “I plan to open one restaurant every year,” he tells us. “Each with its own concept.”

As with Kang’s wonton mee stall, it’s first-come-first-served here. The average queue time, according to chef Kang, is 30 minutes during peak lunch hour. So best to pop by soon after the eatery opens at 10am, if you don’t want to wait. Moreover, the food is often sold out by 2pm daily as chef Kang only makes limited quantities.

Chef Kang has fine-tuned his recipes since he first opened three weeks ago. The rich prawn broth, which he personally makes each day, uses 7.5kg of prawn shells and heads, “premium” hae bee from Hong Kong and 5kg of US chicken feet instead of the usual pork rib. “I use chicken feet instead of pork ribs ’cos chicken feet has collagen, which makes the broth smoother. With pork, it’s hard to maintain quality control. If you get a bad batch, the broth will be gamey.” There is also no added salt, sugar or MSG in his broth. The specially made low alkaline yellow noodles are served in a large earthen bowl with a halved deep-sea king prawn bursting with the goodness of the ocean, decadent golden cubes of melt-in-your-mouth fried pork lard and a crispy slab of prawn paste pork chop perched on a tonkatsu net. The broth, which is cooked for 16 hours, is robust and full of natural sweetness intermingled with the brininess of prawn. The chicken feet give the soup an almost milky smoothness while still being light. Although there is no added salt aside from what’s in the dried shrimp, the broth does pack a good salty hit, which does become a tad overwhelming as it starts to cool down. You can also request one top up of broth. Unlike the usual pork-based prawn broths which have a deeper, meatier taste, this one is lighter and sweeter while still being very robust.

Because the pork chop is bigger than the usual har cheong chicken wing, the pungent, umami prawn paste covers more surface area so you get more flavour with each bite. Chef Kang tells us he only makes a $1.50 profit on every bowl of prawn noodles. And he is content to sell out by 2pm on most days even though his operational hours are till 6pm. “When we sell out, we sell out. It’s okay. I don’t need to sell more,” he says. Take note there’s no dry version for his noodles.

According to chef Kang, the Hot Stone Prawn Paste Spare Ribs Rice is inspired by lard oil rice eaten by the poor back in the day. But to us, it’s bursting with so much flavour it’s more like a dish for kings. And it looks like a yummier bibimbap. In fact, this threatens to eclipse the prawn noodles. The simple rice dish is served in a hot stone pot heated on the stove to 300°C with a generous serving of Thai jasmine rice, a prawn paste pork chop, fried lard cubes, spring onions, a raw egg yolk and dark soy sauce. To eat, simply mix everything together. While the hot stone will crisp up some of the rice at the bottom, it’s not meant to develop a blackened crust like claypot rice. It’s really more for keeping the dish warm, which it does long after we wipe the bowl clean. The flavour comes from the richness of the pork lard, which is perfectly balanced with the sweet and salty punch of the soy, the smoothness of the egg and the umami-ness of the prawn paste chop. The pork is succulent thanks to a method that chef Kang uses. He slaps the meat lightly with his hand instead of tenderising it by smashing it to retain its buoyancy for a superior mouthfeel. When you bite through the crispy tempura-based crust, the flavours of the robust prawn paste hit you with the sweetness of the pork. So good.

A simple bowl of hawker-style prawn mee is nudged up another level here, from the addition of collagen-rich chicken feet in the smooth and yummy soup, to the crispy prawn paste pork served on the side that doubles the umami factor of the dish. Looks like chef Kang has another winner on his hands. If only the restaurant is open for dinner as well (and without the queue).

Chef Kang's Prawn Noodle House is at Blk 85, Toa Payoh Lor 4, #01-328, S310085. Open daily except Mon, 10am to 6pm or when the food runs out (safest to go before 2pm). www.facebook.com/Chef-Kangs-Prawn-Noodle-House

PHOTOS: MARK LEE