328 Katong Laksa is well known in all the guide books as being one of the best Laksas in Singapore and I had tried their branch in Novena a couple of years back but hadn’t really been too impressed. As I was in Katong the other day with a friend who had never tried the 328 Katong Laksa before, I decided to give it another go.
This is the Laksa which one of my culinary idols Gordon Ramsay came to Singapore in 2013 to compete against and try to cook a better Laksa than hawker chef Ryan Koh from 328 Katong Laksa but unfortunately lost by 19% of the votes. You can see newspaper clippings of the competition as well as articles, awards, photos and reviews of this famous Laksa all over the walls of the restaurant.
The Laksa comes in two sizes – either a small ($5.35) or large ($7.50). They also sell Nasi Lemak ($1.95) and Otah ($1.40). I got a small Laksa as well as a Nasi Lemak to take home for later and my friend got a big Laksa and an Otah.
The place was pretty crowded when we were there during lunchtime on a Sunday but the restaurant is self-service, the staff are efficient and most people just have a quick meal and leave so it was easy for us to find a table. They also have tables outside if you can stand eating a hot spicy curry laksa in the heat.
The laksa in my opinion wasn’t bad but definitely not the best I’ve had. I found it to be a little watery and it didn’t have enough depth of flavour. Adding the sambal chilli paste that they give you to the laksa does help improve the flavour though. My laksa had a couple of prawns, fishcake and cockles in it and the thick rice noodles were cut up pretty small so you actually only need a spoon to eat it with and they don’t provide chopsticks. It did get a bit messy though as some of the noodles weren’t cut that small and as both my friend and I weren’t used to eating laksa like this it took us a looong time to try to finish our bowls.
I tried a little bit of my friend’s Otah (spicy fishcake wrapped in a coconut leaf) which was quite nice but I wouldn’t recommend getting the Nasi Lemak. I guess you can’t really expect a great Nasi Lemak for $1.95 but all it consisted of was some coconut rice, a small fried fish which was hard and had tons of small bones which was a pain to eat and some ikan bilis (fried anchovies). I expected at least an egg as well some peanuts and maybe cucumber in there which is what you would normally find in a Nasi Lemak but unfortunately these were all missing and I think they’re vital to the dish. The sambal chilli paste that they provide to eat with the Nasi Lemak is really good though.
All-in-all I don’t I’ll be back in a hurry to eat their laksa or any of their other food sadly.
328 Katong Laksa
Address: 51 East Coast Road, Singapore 428770
Tel: 9732 8163
Opening Hours: Daily 9am – 10pm
Hope you’ve enjoyed my 328 Katong Laksa restaurant review, please feel free to leave a comment below with your own review or if you have any questions!
