of mojitos and other madness: hawker rocker 114

not many people are aware of this new sister outlet opened by the folks that run the tight ship over at the beach road prawn noodle place along east coast road. there wasn't much fan fare and even with it located just outside from my place, i didn't really notice the new joint until my recent trip for beach road prawn noodles that i noticed the blown up lifestyle newspaper cutting introducing xin ba li as its more modern, up market sibling.

with the gang left for melbourne already, it was just me and pak law for dinner before he too joined the gang down under, so i suggested we scout out xin ba li to see if it was any good. the menu mirrored that offered at the beach road outlet with the addition of the crayfish and clam variation of the classic prawn noodle. and yes, they do serve the ngoh hiang and lime juice keeping in line with the synergism of the dishes and the drink, although you won't be able to have fun picking and choosing what you would like to make up your ngoh hiang mix with!

the low down on the food? basically no different from the beach road outlet....same classic stock and fresh ingredients. i honestly expected a bit more oomph with the crayfish prawn noodles but was a little let down as it basically was just a bowl of noodles but with crayfish in place of the prawns. at a price of $13.80 a bowl, (and an average of $7 for the prawn versions) i would recommend roughing it out at the original corner coffee shop where the service is a lot more efficient, the food just as good and at a lower price. not forgetting of course the heartlander vibe to it all which is really quite priceless!