HeyMe – Delicious Prawn Porridge Takes the Spotlight in Upper Boon Keng

I’m not much of a fan of porridge, much less prawn porridge. It’s a comforting dish that I usually reserve for days I’m feeling under the weather. That all changed when I headed to Upper Boon Keng Market and Food Centre to check out HeyMe, a new prawn noodle place that recently opened. Keep your eyes out for this almost-elusive stall tucked away at the back of the hawker centre!

A good broth is key when it comes to making prawn noodles and the tempting aroma wafting in my direction assured me things are off to a good start. Interior-designer-turned-hawker-chef Kinstons Sim skilfully multi-tasked between cooking up my order and telling me stories about his prawn stock and how he went about testing it 15 times to achieve just the right amount of flavour. 

The freshly-made broth, which is made with a combination of 10kg of prawn shells and heads and 10kg of pork bones among other secret ingredients, has to be simmered for over three hours.

First order of business was the Specialty Prawn Noodle ($7/9) that came with huge Ang Kar prawns, slices of pork and fishcake. I opted for the dry version with yellow noodles tossed in a homemade sambal chilli sauce made with nine ingredients. It had enough of a spicy punch and didn’t make my eyes water, and went well with the noods. 

The crustaceans themselves were not bad but I’ve had meatier and sweeter prawns so these didn’t exactly make me eager to strip them of their shells. The pork slices were marinated well but a bit too overcooked for my liking. 

Then came the not-exactly dark horse on the menu, the Prawn Porridge ($3.50/4.50). I say dark horse because I wasn’t expecting to fall in love with this dish but man, you should have seen how fast I demolished it. I didn’t go for the Specialty Prawn Porridge ($7/9) which would have come with the same large Ang Kar prawns, and so received smaller grey prawns that came de-shelled (hooray for that). There were also a few slices of pork as well as fishcake. 

Kinstons shared that he mixes two types of grains for the porridge and lets them simmer in the prawn stock, which allows the flavour of the soup to permeate the rice and thicken the dish as a whole. Full of umami and rich in both flavour and mouthfeel, this is my absolute favourite on the menu. I also appreciated how it still stayed warm even after being left alone while I was busy snapping photos. 

There was also a side dish of Prawn Meat Roll ($2.50) that reminded me of the ngoh hiang my grandmother makes. The recipe has been passed down from Kinstons’ own late grandmother, which he then made a few tweaks to. It was certainly homey, and stuffed well with prawns, minced pork and water chestnuts.

I’m not surprised when Kinston told me he had customers coming down all the way from Jurong to frequent his stall. In fact, I’m 100% coming down again for the prawn porridge because it’s just that good. Looks like porridge will be my new favourite thing for a while.

MissTamChiak.com made an anonymous visit and paid its own meal at the stall featured here.

Let’s build a food community that helps to update the food news in Singapore! Simply comment below if there’s any changes or additional info to HeyMe. We will verify and update from our side. Thanks in advance!