1030 Breakfast Shop 一零三零早餐店 (Chinatown Complex Market & Food Centre)

1030 Breakfast Shop 一零三零早餐店 is one of those hawker stalls that we only got to know when we were going through Chinatown Complex Market & Food Centre on another occasion; there does seem to be quite a fair bit happening around the food centre, considering how there are a few new tenants that have recently moved into the food centre — other establishments that had found home in the food centre recently would be Thai Banana Snack, as well as New Hope Noodles 新望云吞面. 1030 Breakfast Shop can be found within the blue zone of the food centre; these folks can be found around the same area as where one will be able to find Chef Leung's Soup Dumplings 梁师傅灌汤包. 1030 Breakfast Shop should be a stall that isn’t too difficult to locate; the stall bears a signboard with a white background with its Chinese namesake in stylised fonts — the contrast of yellow and orange in its logo also gives the stall a young and cheerful appearance as well. These folks seem to be an establishment that is centred around Taiwanese fare; Taiwanese-style breakfast specifically — the menu being segmented into categories such as Egg Omelette, Toast, Rice Millet / Rice Bowl and Rice Rolls.

Whilst 1030 Breakfast Shop does not describe the elements featured in their dishes, we had enquired them on what are the elements included with the Signature Toast — the staff at the counter informed us that it consists of egg, cheese, pork chop, luncheon meat and peanut butter; all that in between two slices of toast. The food at 1030 Breakfast Shop are made fresh-upon-order and patrons will be passed an electronic buzzer after making payment, which would be used to page the patrons to collect their order from the stall once the food is ready for collection. The bread for the Signature Toast at 1030 Breakfast Shop is lightly toasted; taking a bite into the sandwich, one would notice the heft of the sandwich considering how u it comes with multiple layers of meat within. The toast does provide a light, toasty crispness on the surface, though we especially like how the bread is pretty light and fluffy here that keeps things from being jelat and does not attempt to steal the show away from the other elements that the Signature Toast comes with. The slice of pork chop does seem to have come tenderised and brined for a savoury note; all that whilst carrying a bite without being particularly tough and with the juices of the meat being locked in — there was no undesirable porky stench that came along with the pork chop. There was also definitely that slight savouriness that one would expect out of the inclusion of cheese with the sandwich, while the slab of luncheon meat added was pretty chunky — it seems that whilst most establishments would have seasoned the pork chop with pepper to enhance the flavours of the pork chop, 1030 Breakfast Shop went the way of doing the pork chop as-is, whilst opting for black pepper-infused luncheon meat where the peppery notes takes away some of the saltishness inherent in the processed meat. Despite the thinness of the egg omelette, the omelette was soft and fluffy — all that whilst the spreading of smooth peanut butter on the undersides of the toast does add a slightly sweetness and nuttiness that seemed to gel all of the elements together in a rather intriguing way.

Knowing that 1030 Breakfast Shop also serves up Egg Omelettes, it was needless to say that we were enticed to find ourselves going for one of such offerings that was listed on their menu. The recommended Egg Omelette item per their menu would be the Ham Cheese Egg Omelette — much like how one would expect for the typical Taiwanese egg crepe, the crepe does come a little chewy whilst encasing the soft and fluffy egg omelette that features ham and cheese rolled within; both elements giving the dish an additional touch of savouriness in different dimensions, with the cheese being the element that binds everything together. The Egg Omelette also comes with a brown sauce that comes lightly savoury — also provided a bit of moisture to the egg omelette for some whom might find it a little dry. It does seem that Taiwanese-style breakfast had become something that has been more accepted by locals here as compared to in the past; perhaps thanks to establishments such as that of Fong Sheng Hao 豐盛號, True Breakfast 初早餐 and 早餐好了Breakfast Hola that had popularised such fare to the mainstream audience in the last couple of years — 1030 Breakfast Shop being one of the very first of such establishments to have found their way into the hawker centres here. We do find their food to be pretty satisfactory; prices of their Toast offerings range from $2 for the Kaya Butter / Black Sesame / Chocolate Toast all the way to $6.50 for the Signature Toast, while the Egg Omelette offerings are priced starting from $3 for the Original to $6 for the Hashbrown Bacon / Pork Chop Cheese. It will be interesting to see if Taiwanese-style breakfast concepts like 1030 Breakfast Shop would be viable in a hawker centre setting, though it does certainly make them an interesting stall to check out at Chinatown Complex Market & Food Centre for those looking for something different to have.