Prima Taste - Local Food

Local food, I love the huge variety of food we have in Singapore. For all the fine dining and international cuisines available here, I still like local food. Nowhere else in Asia (except for Malaysia) can you get authentic good old stuff like Hokkien Mee, Prawn Mee Soup, Laksa, Char Kway Teow, Fishball Noodles, Mee Pok Tah, Oyster Omelette, Fried Carrot Cake, Chwee Kueh, Fish Meat Bee Hoon Soup, Yong Tau Foo, Rojak, Beefball Kway Teow (Dry) and of course the all-time National favorite - Chicken Rice.

I find I am partial to the noodles and soup dishes. I think I am underprivileged in eating out when young (maybe that is why I am eating out almost everyday now? - sign of rebellion?), so I only know a few dishes then - Wanton Mee, Chok (pork porridge/congee) and roti prata. These were the breakfast dishes I had when growing up (and only on weekends at my aunt's place). Occasionally my mom will buy yong tau foo or the peanut pancake or chwee kueh or chee cheong fun for breakfast on weekend. Yes, I only get to eat hawker food on weekends when mom goes marketing.

Come secondary school, I still only get to have hawker food twice a week. My grandma used to go to the market on Tuesday and she will buy wanton mee for me. So after 2 years of wanton mee, I am off wanton mee. I got so sick of it, and that is the one dish you will never ever see me order (unless there was no choice). I always love prawn noodles soup, actually I like it because of the soup only. Other childhood favorites were fried carrot cake and mee pok tah and chicken mushroom noodle (but only the stall at my interchange, other places do not come close to it at all - and I finally found the place after more than 10 yrs. Haha.)

It was quite embarassing actually when I started working, cos I can't read much Chinese so sometimes I don't know what dishes the stalls have. I never know of a zi char stall before and the fish soup stall until then. But slowly I begin to discover Singapore has lots more food than the usual I always have. Maybe that explained why I am so into food now. Hehe.

Well, back to the topic, I was out with Davis and decided to have dinner at Prima Taste. Prima Taste offers a decent selection local food and I remembered it as not too bad though I only ate there a couple of times a few years back.

Their specialities seemed to be laksa and chicken rice. I saw many tables tucking into that. However, I wanted something soupy so I had the bak kut teh (just for the soup as I don't really eat pork now due to the smell/taste) with you tiao (fried dough stick) and chicken wings while Davis had her usual fave - fried hokkien mee.

The food is good, esp the fried hokkien mee. I had a taste of it. It has a bit of the wok hei taste, plus the broth used to cook in it was very flavorful that it seeped into the noodles. It is not too wet, though gooey sticky. Utterly delicious, I have to order that next time.

The bak kut teh is also nice, not too peppery, just a tad. Definitely not the herbal type. Actually since I rarely have BKT, I don't really know what constitites as a great one. Nevertheless, I like it though you can probably find better one elsewhere. The you tiao is crispy and goes well with the soup. I tried the pork ribs and though it did have the porky taste, it was tender and fell off the bones. The chicken wings are not bad, you can't really mess up chicken wings. Hehe.

Location:
Prima Taste
Centrepoint Shopping Center, Level 2