Tomato soup mala tang ($14.50) @ Zhang Liang Mala Tang, PLQ Mall!
Zhang Liang Mala Tang at PLQ Mall, Paya Lebar: a pick-your-own tomato soup base bowl, $14.50, with wide noodles, sliced meat, fishballs, long beans and greens.
A bowl of tomato soup base mala tang from 新加坡张亮麻辣烫 Zhang Liang Mala Tang at PLQ Mall, $14.50. 🍅🍜😋
What we had ($14.50):
- Mala tang, tomato soup base, $14.50
Zhang Liang Mala Tang is the Singapore arm of the mala tang chain out of China, and this outlet is down in the basement of PLQ Mall in Paya Lebar, handy if you are already at the mall or coming off the MRT. It works the pick-your-own way: you take a basket, load up whatever ingredients you want from the chiller, choose a soup base, and it gets weighed and cooked to order. The bill depends on what you put in, which is how this one came to $14.50.
Not every visit has to be the numbing mala one. The tomato soup base is the friendlier option, a bright orange-red broth that is tangy and lightly sweet from the tomato, savoury underneath, and warming without setting your mouth on fire. It still has a bit of a kick to it, just nothing that needs a glass of milk afterwards.
Into it went wide flat noodles, slippery and good at carrying the broth, plus thin slices of meat, rounds of fishball, long beans, leafy greens and mushrooms. Everything comes out cooked in the same soup, so the vegetables end up tasting of tomato too, and the noodles turn a light orange from sitting in it.
The nice part of mala tang is that you decide the bowl: more greens, more noodles, less meat, whatever you feel like that day. Comforting, customisable and easy to share.
Overall: 4.1 / 5. 😋👍🏼 Tangy tomato broth, springy wide noodles, and you get to build your own bowl. Would re-order.
