{"id":234,"date":"2006-10-05T00:40:20","date_gmt":"2006-10-05T00:40:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chekyang.com\/musings\/2006\/10\/prata-pleasures\/"},"modified":"2006-10-05T00:40:20","modified_gmt":"2006-10-05T00:40:20","slug":"prata-pleasures-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/2006\/10\/05\/prata-pleasures-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Prata pleasures"},"content":{"rendered":"

Roti prata @ Banquet<\/a> (Ang Mo Kio Central<\/a>)<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

At the onset, I\u2019ll note that the best, and most unique, prata I\u2019ve had is the prata shop along Casaurina Road. Passerbys of Upper Thomson Road would have seen this shop before. It has a banner proudly claiming that its prata is \u201cSingapore\u2019s answer to the Croissant\u201d. That said, there\u2019re many other prata shops of varying quality. Most of them are situated at the hawker or corner coffee shops in the heartland area. More recently though, prata shops have made their appearance in air-conditioned foodmalls.<\/p>\n

\"dining-088.JPG\"Roti prata, for the uninitiated, is a flat pancake made of fat, flour, and water; and depending on its variation, it may be mixed with eggs, onions, minced beef, strawberries, chocolate, cheese, chicken, bananas, even ice-cream. The cheapest ones are still the plain or \u201ckosong\u201d (Malay for \u2018empty\u2019) pratas. My personal favourites are the ones with eggs, although Ling prefers the \u201cKosong\u201d ones. The pratas always are served with curry, which in itself could be one of many varieties.<\/p>\n

The one at Casuarina Road<\/a> is a pretty famous outlet; but my first entry on pratas comes from a fairly new foodcourt at Ang Mo Kio Central<\/a>, called \u201cBanquet<\/a>\u201c. From what I\u2019ve observed, it\u2019s really a halal eatery comprising many stalls manned by Malay muslims. As a result, the eatery is hugely popular with them, and we see Malays of all ages and families hitting the place. The eatery as we visited on Sunday evening saw a sizable number of Chinese too, all without doubt going there to enjoy the great food. There was even a group of police constables who joined in the long queue at the chicken rice stall.<\/p>\n

On the food itself, that\u2019s a plate of 3 pratas with egg, at a fairly low asking of $1.20 a piece. The pratas were of the common type (the Casuarina Road<\/a> whips up crispy pratas), but the curry that came with the set sparkled and made the big difference. It was of the right viscosity – not too watery or too thick – and had a pleasant and very mildly sweet flavour to it.<\/p>\n