Checked out King of Prawn Noodle’s latest outlet at the Koufu Food Court at Woodlands Mart — just one of the few neighbourhood malls situated within the housing estates of Woodlands; this one is located just a short walk, or a couple of bus stops away from Admiralty MRT Station.

While King of Prawn Noodles currently do run other outlets at Hillion Mall and E!Hub at Downtown East, the Pao Fan items are exclusively available at Woodlands Mart (lucky us!). There are other variants, such as chicken cutlet version, and even one version that comes with king prawn, but the Seafood Pao Fan was the one we went for — a simpler version that came with regular prawns, clam and a strip of fried beancurd, while the crispy rice pops come on the side to be added when one digs in.

First spoonful into the Seafood Pao Fan and immediately notices the rich seafood stock that comes with this rendition — immensely flavourful with evident sweetness from the prawns used for the stock; incredibly umami and something which those who loves heavy stocks would like. Coming with rice within, the rice within the stock and the crispy rice puffs provide a contrasting texture; the crispy rice puffs even carrying a good crunch despite being soaked within the stock for quite a while. The prawns that came with the Seafood Pao Fan were fresh; naturally sweet, while my favourite was the clams — not only just suitably briny, but I loved it especially when the shells of the clams traps the stock, rice and crispy rice puffs, which makes it especially umami when one slurps up everything at one go from the shell.

I hadn’t quite jumped on the Pao Fan bandwagon ever since it had started — still have yet to try the more notable variants at San Pin Pao Fan, King of Pao Fan and Chao Ting Teochew Pao Fan, but King of Prawn Noodles’ version is one that prawn noodle lovers would especially love for its thick and rich stock, while the other elements were also well-executed with finesse. Whilst I am not much of a person who enjoys crustacean-based stocks and broths, the Seafood Pao Fan here was one that I was pretty impressed with — worthy of a visit to check out!