Hawker Fares 🇸🇬

Wontons were silky but char siew was dry. Aunty batted our request to upsize away: this dish was a literal one size fits all. I would not have much to shout about – if not for the sauce. Straight crowd pleaser. My noodles were wet and suffused with flavour. Didn’t think wet noodles would ever work – consider me surprised.

🏅 8/10
💭 Small portion, delicious sauce, can try!!!

Not a fan, sorry. The cheap chicken rice black sauce was stark as a sore thumb. Too salty, way too much black sauce. No harmony in the flavours at all. One of the worst carrot cakes I’ve had.

🏅 1/10
💭 Forget it

I cannot begin to describe how good, how delightfully toothsome this carrot cake was. The white radish cubes were mantled by a thin, fried egg exterior, which was smoky and crispy right down to its edges. It’s rare that any carrot cake achieves such an even texture – the fried egg usually comes in scattered chunks. I quickly discovered that this was achieved by tossing the white radish in the egg mixture before spreading it over a wok and frying over high heat. What a decidedly simple but clever tack, and no less effective.

Without intending to carp, I might have been a little put off by the 45 minutes wait and the surly owners. But all it took was one mouthful to tell me this dish was worth the wait.

🏅 10/10 A+ first class honours
💭 DIE DIE MUST TRY

Alone, the soup was light, sweet, and well-populated with ingredients. I loved that the mee sua made the soup so viscous that I no longer needed carnation milk. (Lower cals than thick bee hoon btw.) Also loved that the fish slices were soft, evenly cooked, and absolutely devoid of piscine odour.

🏅 10/10
💭 Must try

This might be a pedestrian dish, but I’m impressed by the depth of flavours – amplified by a delicious pork-based sauce. It was savoury with a meaty aroma and resembled, in a way, Thai wonton noodles. I found sizeable gobbets of pork filling nestled in my dumplings, which were soft and silky albeit a tad salty. The egg noodles were a clear winner: starch free and soused with sauce. Cheers to new-age hawker delicacies!!!

🏅 8/10
💭 Must try!

Who would’ve thought that you could find in this unassuming place with decrepit furnishings and rickety chairs Singapore’s BEST PRAWN NOODLES? (Yes, I said that.) Perfumed with garlicky crustacean umami and sweetened by pork, this broth is sapid, flavourfully complex, and peaks taste-wise when you get to the bottom of the bowl with the sediments of seafood, diced garlic and pork bone. The perfection went right down to the pork ribs: juicy, easily detachable hunks of meat smacking of prawn broth. I’m in love.

🏅 10/10
💭 DIE DIE MUST TRY

At 9.00pm, while most eateries wound up for the day, this stall at the J99 Eating House continued to draw swathes of regulars. The soup was a true source of comfort: light, sapid, and sweetened by the plenitude of cabbage slices. The addition of E-Mian and ikan bilis made it all the more flavourful, with subtle notes of starch and oil permeating the distinct fish and pork base. The only weakness lies in the fish: while they were gills-free and generally free of piscine odour, some slices were over-cooked and tougher than others. Even so, I’d say this is worth a try, and worth the bucks especially when you feel under the weather.

🏅 7/10
💭 Can try when in TPY!

The title of “best popiah” elicits variegated responses but I like to call this (at the very least) the gold standard. There’s a whole lot of goodness packed into a singular roll, bound by a fleetingly sweet black sauce and encompassed by a layer of wafer-thin wrap (包饼皮): crispy garlic bits, sliced eggs, and savoury preserved radishes which moisten but not drench. Every roll is unabashedly lavished with fried garlic and finishes off with a lingering, defining fragrance.

Cosy Corner is also famous for its array of authentic Peranakan cuisines, but its popiah alone is enough reason to pilgrim to the West.

🏅 10/10
💭 MUST TRY

Fish soup doesn’t need to be just sick food—bland and boring—for the indisposed. The soup was liberally populated with fried garlic flakes and ginger hash. While immensely flavourful by itself, the addition of evaporated milk took its richness up several notches. Most crucially, the fish slices were soft and free of any nasty piscine odour. I’m confident that this dish will pander even to the most demanding of tastebuds.

🏅 9/10
💭 Must try

The moist noodles were daubed amply with sweet seafood broth and bedecked with clams, prawns, and collops of succulent roast pork capped by a delightfully brittle skin. The aggregate: a powerful confluence of crustacean and meaty umami. But it doesn’t stop there: every bite peaks with an irresistible whiff of wok hei. No question that this is my favourite Hokkien Mee.

🏅 10/10
💭 MUST TRY

The big prawn mee kia ($20) comes steeped in broth, flanked by a serving of soup and a shower of pork lard. The respectably-sized prawns were fleshy and succulent. Noodles were completely starch-free and their bouncy texture made the slurping much more enjoyable! What stood out most for me was the soup. It smacked strongly of seafood and was sweetened by the addition of prawn shells (at least 4 variants) and clams. Oddly though, the broth carried a slightly different taste, which wasn’t objectively bad, but just nothing as thrilling as the sharply-flavoured soup.

My boyfriend, who all but forswore seafood, tried the regular prawn mee ($6) with yellow noodles. I ended up finishing his three prawns and honestly, I don’t think I tasted a difference between his prawns and my prawns leh. So the $14 differential was for… one more prawn???

To be sure, I haven’t many gripes about the food here. But I’m not wholly sure that the air-conditioning (you end up smelling like seafood) and iPad service justifies a price hike of $2-$3, especially considering how badly illuminated the place was at night. Might be better to just visit the Pek Kio stall: for the unadulterated original, and for aunty’s infectious jollity.

🏅 8/10
💭 Must try

This gravy is a superstar – thick, herbaceous and wonderfully fragrant. I could taste the five spices, with a stronger hint of star anise, and a robust beef flavour. The soup, a watered down derivative, was equally ambrosial. Beef slices were tender (if a bit fatty) and came in generous quantities. Some greens (kang kong?) would have been lovely but all in all, an excellent meal.

🏅 9/10
💭 Must try!