Entree Kibbles: Zhup Zhup (formerly One Prawn & Co) @ Macpherson in Singapore #michelin

Saturday, August 24, 2024

Zhup Zhup (formerly One Prawn & Co) @ Macpherson in Singapore #michelin

When the Greatest Kon told us he went back to the same eatery twice within a week, it got me curious as the food must have been unforgettably good! And so, here we were at the non-air-conditioned Zhup Zhup, formerly known as One Prawn & Co.

An awardee of highly acclaimed Michelin bib gourmand, their signature would be the prawn noodle, said to be "inspired by the flavours of Penang prawn noodles and Japanese ramen broth".

Time: 8.20 pm and there was still a queue!

p.s. the eatery closes at 9.00 pm.

Thankfully, we managed to secure a table in less than ten minutes.

Always nice to see tissue being provided, for free!

After placing our orders (with recommendations from the Greatest Kon), the service staff proceeded to put saucers of chilli on our table; each serving a different purpose! One was for the hokkien mee, three were for the ngoh hiang tasting platter and another three were for prawn noodle. Wasn't that an overkill!?

Everything was served in one go!

Har Cheong Gai Chicken Wings - side dish said to be a crowd favorite! I have high standards for prawn paste fried chicken as there were just so many good ones around in Singapore.

Significant prawn paste taste - checked. Batter was crispy and not as thin as some of its competitors - checked. I wouldn't say these mid joints were the best but they would not disappoint those having deep fried prawn paste chicken for the first time!

Ngoh Hiang Tasting Platter - my expression said it all when the Greatest Kon insisted we must order this. Why would we be adding more carbohydrates when the signature dish should be the prawn noodle?! To be fair, we went for the smaller portion which was sufficient for 1-2 persons.

To be honest, the items were not bad although I was most happy with their prawn cracker which was like an ultra thick, oversized papadum! The dealbreaker, however, was another item, which was classified as a companion, rather than an ingredient.

The chilli. It was the perfect balance of sweetness and sourness, enhanced with a dollop of grainy paste that could have been grated garlic; terribly amazing, to the extent I would love to get my hand on its recipe! I bet this chilli would go well with any deep fried food!

Claypot Hokkien Mee - piping hot hokkien mee! While the signature dish was prawn noodle, its chef recommendation on the menu proved too hard to resist, especially for a lover of hokkien mee! And I figured I could still steal some prawn noodle soup from Alex later.

At S$14, this definitely didn't come cheap even though I would term it as a luxury version with three large prawns and clams (said to be Japanese Asari clams). Furthermore, anything in a claypot appears to have premium pricing.

This would definitely be placed as one of the best hokkien mee I have in Singapore! Full of flavor and thick of smoky wok hei, I also loved that it was moisturized by the prawn broth said to be made from prawn heads and pork bones that were boiled for 23 hours!

Of course, to be one of the best, you need to have crispy pork lards and the ones here exceeded my expectation by being larger than the usual! In addition, I took delight in the zesty chilli paste! If not for the pricing, I would love to return sooner.

Supreme Prawn Noodle - one of the reasons why I chose hokkien mee over this was the limited choices for noodles as there were only yellow noodles, kway tiao, thin bee hoon and thick bee hoon, and I prefer mee kia / mee poh.

Nonetheless, my aim was the soup served in the claypot! I sent a picture of this to my friend and his immediate response was "you are having curry"?! The color was so deceiving and a result of "boiling 18 kilograms of prawn heads and 30 kilograms of pork bones" to get a 100 liters of prawn broth!

I have never had prawn broth that was so insanely rich, with the full body flavor of prawn heads; that I psychologically felt that I will 101% fail my health check on cholesterol level should I go for screening the next day. At S$6.00 more expensive than prawn noodle, this also came with pork ribs, tobiko prawn balls (love this), lala and sliced pork.

Noodles wise, both the Greatest Kon and Alex selected yellow noodles, and the black sauce was better than the other one, although I still maintain a gripe about the noodle selection. By the way, drink the soup when it was still hot!

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Will be back for sure as I am certain my mom will love the food!

Only thing, I shouldn't tell her the price.

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