Malaysia
Singapore
Thailand
Thailand, and by extension Thai food, has a special place in my heart. It was the first country I visited with my family. So when I heard the newly opened Pots & Prawns in BGAIN 261 Eating House serves Thai-style baked seafood tanghoon with ingredients sourced from Thailand, I ecstatically planned my visit.
Take this as a lesson that social media never tells the full truth. Pots & Prawns shares a kitchen with another Thai stall, instead of having their own. This is not uncommon in the F&B industry.
According to their Instagram page, Pots & Prawns is owned by a tiger woman lao ban. But when I arrived, I was met with a kindly middle-aged auntie. Not what I expected, but she was warm and welcoming all the same. She later explained that the owner hadn’t come yet.
This poor auntie struggled to operate the cash register while receiving instructions from someone via video call, even inputting the wrong order before a man from the shared stall corrected her.
Of course, I held nothing against her. She was doing double-duty, taking orders while managing the blazing stoves behind her. Still, an anxious chill washed over me as I worried about the food.
What I tried at Pots & Prawns
At first, I ordered their LaLa Prawn Tanghoon (S$11.90), which came with big prawns and mussels. But when I collected my order, I noticed there were no mussels! Turns out, the auntie had mistakenly prepared their Big Prawn Tanghoon (S$11.90) instead.
After clearing the mix-up, she apologised profusely and quickly cooked the mussels in a separate bowl, free of charge.
The tanghoon was cooked and served inside a metal claypot bowl. It looked scrumptious, but the bowl was so hot that I nearly burned my fingertips trying to handle it, and I struggled to toss the tanghoon as the round-bottomed bowl spun around. Perhaps they could invest in something to wrap the bowl in to prevent this from happening.
The translucent tanghoon shone a bright yellow under the harsh lights of the coffee shop, with bits of dried chilli flakes and garlic clinging to it. The tanghoon itself was soft and not too chewy, absorbing the broth very well.
It might sound crazy but the tanghoon tasted exactly like AGV Vegetarian Barbeque Sauce. Growing up vegetarian, I recognise that oily soy sauce flavour like the back of my hand.
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Knowing I was served big prawns instead of regular-sized ones, I’d say these prawns deserve that title. There were 4 in the bowl, all similarly sized.
De-shelling prawns isn’t my forte, so I ended up biting the entire prawn and spitting out the shells in a prawn shell graveyard off to the side.
The prawn meat was the right amount of tough and chewy, no complaints there.
I also doused the prawns in their seafood chilli sauce, giving it the signature tangy spice that many Thai dishes have.
As for their mussels, they tasted rather bland when eaten on their own. The dried fish flakes sprinkled on top gave them a flavour similar to ikan billis. Once more, the seafood chilli sauce saved the day, enhancing the mussels into something more palatable.
I do wonder if the mussels were not cooked properly, as the auntie did seem a bit panicked and hasty after I informed her she didn’t include them in my initial bowl.
Final thoughts
Pots & Prawns has genuinely great Thai-style seafood tanghoon, but they just need to work out a few kinks in their service to truly shine. Again, I hold absolutely nothing against the lone auntie manning the stall when I visited. In fact, she truly impressed me by running the show alone.
They just need to hire another staff member or two to alleviate her workload, and invest in some baskets or aluminium foil to wrap their bowls in so customers won’t burn their hands like I did.
Expected damage: S$8.90 – S$11.90 per pax
Order Delivery: foodpanda
