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Welcome back to another edition of us trying some of Singapore’s worst-rated foods, according to Google reviews. This time, it’s prata – specifically, Srisun Prata at Punggol Way, just outside Soo Teck LRT station. It’s part of a chain of stores under the same name, but this outlet in particular has the lowest overall ratings.
Srisun Prata currently stands at 2.9 stars at time of writing. Reviews range from poor service (slow, rude, or missing out on entire orders), to the food being subpar. The most alarming review came from a diner who had the misfortune of finding a dead cockroach in the gravy for his takeaway dosa order. The incident was reported on Stomp, and before then, the diner had been a regular customer.
Yikes.
Srisun Prata is located in a small kopitiam in a quiet Punggol neighbourhood, and it’s hard to miss them with their bright sign board and large scrolling LED banner. They also have a tantalising display of fried items and curries.
Despite their low rating on Google, the stall was quite busy, with several customers getting takeaways, and a couple of Grab riders arriving to collect orders, too.
What I tried at Srisun Prata
The menu is pretty extensive, encompassing rice, prata and noodle dishes.
I decided to order the quintessential combo: 1 Plain Prata (S$1.30), and 1 Egg Prata (S$2). I also got a Maggi Goreng (S$4.50), just to see how their non-prata items fared (it was also one of the dishes that got some complaints about taste and portion size).
After I placed my order, the person taking my order told me to “come back in 5 minutes”. 5 minutes? I scratched my head. That seemed an awfully short time to wait. Nonetheless, I did as I was told, and collected my order not long after.
My first impressions of the food were not good. The prata looked quite anaemic, and the food didn’t seem like it was freshly cooked as everything was warm, rather than steaming hot.
The style of prata here is the thicker, more doughy variety – my personal preference is for the super crispy style, like the ones from Chindamani Indian Restaurant. But I’m willing to give these a fair chance.
The accompanying curry gravy was very dark, almost brown. I sampled it and immediately scrunched my face up. It was very sour, and I could barely taste the spices. I do like my fish curry to lean a little sour, but not like that.
Both pieces of prata were rather floppy, and even the browned bits weren’t really crispy. The biggest sin to me was that the pratas were lukewarm. To me, that signified that it had not actually been made to order.
I tasted the prata by itself first. It was a little stale, and had an acrid aftertaste, as if it was burnt. Dipping it in the curry didn’t really help improve it, but at least the Egg Prata was pretty generously filled with egg.
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I look at the Maggi Goreng next. It had a vibrant, reddish hue, and was topped with an egg fried over hard. I poked around in the noodles, noting that there wasn’t much in the way of ingredients between the curly strands – some cabbage, a few tiny pieces of egg. It felt extremely austere.
While the noodles themselves had a good texture, the taste was nothing to write home about. It mostly just tasted salty and slightly spicy without much else. Just like the prata, there was yet again a “burnt” aftertaste. Studded throughout the noodles were black speckles that were the likely culprit.
Final thoughts
Did they deserve their rating on Google reviews? I certainly felt that way, given how unimpressive the food was. The fact that the prata didn’t taste nor feel freshly made was another black mark against them. The food is best described as “edible”, and I guess if you had no other alternatives for Indian food within the area, they would suffice.
Expected damage: S$3 – S$10 per pax
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