Lunch at Royal Noodle Restaurant (皇帝面) along Circular Road

27 Circular Road, Singapore 049383

Tel: 9669 9994

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/royalnoodle

A very imperial-style Chinese restaurant done a la Tang Dynasty era has opened up amongst the row of eateries behind Boat Quay - a bustling area where the CBD-ians dine or wine along. Royal Noodles Restaurant got our attention because it was new, and the friendly staff was outside introducing passerbys to their cuisine.

Piqued, three of us headed in, and looked through the rather limited, but specialised menu selection. You may choose to order the La Mian (Chinese "pull" noodles) at SGD$6.00 a bowl, with the choice of dry or soup noodles, spicy or non-spicy. You may also choose to order the set at a mere SGD$9.50, consistng of a bowl of La Mian, a braised egg, a soup and a side dish.

Everything here was self-service, so head to the cashier's to place your order and then head to the counter to collect when the beeper vibrates.

We chose the set meals, of course. The braised eggs were soft with somewhat runny yolks - many people prefer it this way, but I prefer the hard-boiled version - and the interior was very white, with no hint of the braised sauce.

The soup was tasty, and contained pieces of soya beancurd- so soft, so smooth, they could not have been normal tofu-styled beancurd; these slimy pieces of beancurd were definitely "tau huey" - soya beancurd. It gives a new texture to the soup, sliding down the throats beautifully, like clouds drifting past the palate enroute into the throats/

For sides, we shared the Seafood Rolls, Sugar Cane Prawns and Deep-fried Spring Rolls. The sugar cane prawns were very lovely - sweet, succulent and tasty with a firm texture. I thought the seafood rolls were not bad too - mysterious seafood items wrapped in a crispy golden skin. We did not get to try the other side  - butterfly prawn wanton (prawn dumplings).

Finally, the noodles. All three of us ordered the Dry version, all selected "spicy" options.  We had some rather springy noodels tossed with a savoury gravy, button mushrooms, minced meat, peanuts and spring onions - all the allure of different textures tossed together so that every bite brought out the springy-ness of noodles, chewy-ness of meat and crunchy-ness of nuts.

The meal was rather satisfactory and very value-for-money. I will come back soon to try the soup version of this La Mien noodles. They also use really interesting tableware customized to the restaurant's name / logo, i.e. the boat-shaped bowls.