Hawker Finds

The chendol stall is definitely one of the highlights at Beauty World Food Centre and you will almost certainly find a queue at this stall. The stall sells chendol with a generous serving of pandan-flavoured jelly, topped with a decent amount of gula melaka syrup, which makes for a sweet ending to your meal at the hawker centre. We paid an additional $1.50 for the scoop of D24 durian, which was a legit scoop of durian puree that you should definitely consider if you love durian. We will definitely go for this stall when we have a meal at this hawker centre. 😋

Hai Nan Xing Zhou Beef Noodles is definitely one of the stars of Kim Keat Palm Hawker Centre and many websites would recommend this as a must-try if you dine here. We were bigger fans of the dry beef noodles and hence, we decided to order the dry version, which costs only $5 if you want only beef slices. The prices will be slightly higher if you want to add other items, such as beef balls or tendons.

We felt that the most unique feature of the beef noodles here would be the gravy, which is generally sweet but has a slightly salty taste to it. Perhaps the broth was prepared with a little bit of 咸菜? Squeeze some of the lime to add a slight sourish tinge to the broth and it's definitely going to be one of the most distinct bowls of beef noodles you ever had. Beef slices were generous and they were cooked nicely, as they were not overly tough to chew.

We visited the hawker centre on a weekday afternoon and were decently pleased to find that there wasn't a queue at the stall.

We were checking out the famous stalls during our first visit to Kim Keat Palm Hawker Centre, and Old Long House popiah came out as a must-try stall! We ordered two popiahs from them, one spicy and one non-spicy, as we wanted to try out both flavours. Each popiah costs $1.80 now, which is the standard price across many stalls these days.

We liked that the popiah had some fried crunchy bits in them - this probably sets it apart from many other popiah sold elsewhere in Singapore. In addition, the turnip was fairly dry, which means that the skin will not be soggy and your popiah is a lot less likely to disintegrate when you pick it up! We also like the chilli, which added quite a bit of flavour to the popiah. While the chilli isn't that spicy, it may pack a kick to those of you who can't take spicy food. 😨 Do expect a long queue on weekends as each popiah is made to order!

Xiong Kee is a pretty renowned carrot cake stall at Tampines Round Market hawker centre and it's run by a father and son duo. We bought from the father's stall (#01-17) and decided to order the large serving of black carrot cake! The large serving was only $4.50 but it had a very generous serving of radish cake and eggs and surprisingly, there was more-than-expected cai por in the dish too.

Do note that for the black carrot cake, the taste of the eggs and radish are a lot less obvious as they are generally overpowered by the sweetness of the dark soya sauce. However, we really like the sweetness of the dish. For those of you who really want to taste the radish cake, we suggest you get the white carrot cake instead, which is priced the same and seems to be more popular among the breakfast crowd.

One thing to note if you are planning to order the spicy version is that their chilli is rather spicy. Hence, you may wish to tell them to reduce the spice level if your tolerance for spicy food isn't that high. 😰

We ended off our meal with beancurd from Pure Soya Bean, which was a stall near the middle of the second level run by two fairly-young hawkers! We paid $2.50 for a bowl of beancurd with gingko nuts and we love their beancurd as it was served warm and the texture was fairly soft. Most importantly, you can taste the soybean in their beancurd as the sugar syrup used wasn't too overpowering. :)

While the serving size was really generous, we felt that the gingko nuts were a little hard and quite a few of them were rather bitter. We might get the beancurd with another topping again in future!

This was one of the stalls that appeared to have no queue but when you place your orders, the auntie tells you that there is a one-hour wait! 😱😱😱 The wait is well worth it, however, as Chye Sua serves an amazing plate of carrot cake! The stall only serves the white version of carrot cake, and the dish comes with white carrot cake on the underside, which are stuck together by a layer of deep-fried egg and flour on the upper side that makes the dish look more black than white!

Don't be mistaken, however, as the layer of flour and egg was really crispy and comes with a slightly burnt flavour which we really love! The chilli is in this layer, so it can get a little spicy after a while. Hence, we suggest you alternate between this layer and the carrot cake underneath, as the carrot cake could get pretty plain if you eat it alone without the deep-fried surface later!

We also love the carrot cake as the cubes of radish remained soft after frying, although we were surprised that their shape remained fairly intact as well. We will definitely want to try this again although the queue will definitely be a deterrence on most occasions!

We saw a fairly decent queue at Teochew Handmade Paus and decided to give it a try since everyone loves paus for breakfast! One thing to note is that the paus served here are really small; they can be finished in around four mouthfuls so this is something to take note of if you are planning to buy from this shop.

We ordered two char siew, two tau sar and two lianrong paus to try! The pork filling used for the char siew pau was rather lean and there were few fatty parts in it. However, we thought it wasn't exceptionally yummy because we felt that the meat was a little too shredded, which made for a strange texture for a pau filling.

The Tau sar and lianrong paus were great though, because the red bean and lotus paste fillings respectively were very smooth and they were pretty concentrated as well! We love the pronounced flavours within the filling of both paus!

Each pau is priced at 90 cents, which is honestly pretty expensive given it's small size. That being said, we may want to come back for the tau sar and lianrong paus again!

We are continuing our hawker food hunt and this brought us to Toa Payoh West Market and Food Centre! Despite it's name, this hawker centre is nearer to Caldecott than to Toa Payoh MRT. More than half the stalls were open on a Sunday morning and we were able to find seats easily.

First up, we ordered the dry version of the shredded chicken noodles from Lau Sim Shredded Chicken Noodles. This was a bowl of mee kia tossed in vinegar and some chilli paste, topped with shredded chicken and mushrooms. This was the small serving and the amount of noodles were fairly little, and it might be just enough for one person. We thought the stall could have been more generous with the chicken given that it is the mainstay, though we felt it was still a great dish.

The soup came with 2 dumplings and 2 fishballs and it was fairly comforting on a cool morning, although the soup itself was a little salty and we didn't finish drinking the entire bowl as a result.

For our mains, we ordered a plate of duck rice from Long House Soo Kee Duck Rice, and we were served a plate of messy-looking rice, topped with duck meat with a hard-boiled egg served along the side. However, the dish was awesome! 😋 The duck meat was really tender and there were no bones at all, so it is not a hassle at all to finish the duck meat. Furthermore, we love that some of the duck meat still has a layer of skin/fats on them, and we really love those chewy portions too!

However, what we thought really differentiated this duck rice from other duck rice is the rice itself! Soo Kee's version drenches the rice in a sweet gravy that was full of flavour. As a result, the rice doesn't taste dry and boring at all, unlike that at many duck rice stalls around Singapore! There is chilli served along the sides, and it is only slightly spicy and has a tinge of sourness to it as well (probably from lime), but we thought it adds another type of flavour to the rice if you like it!

This is one of the tastiest duck rice that we have had in Singapore and for only $4++, you should definitely try it out if you are planning to have a meal at Balestier Market. 😋😋😋

We were looking out for cheap food options in the Novena area and we chanced upon Balestier Market! To start our meal, we ordered two popiahs from Miao Sin Popiah, which cost around $2 each. One highlight for us would be the generous serving of peanut crumbs, which makes the filling really crunchy! While the skin was a little thicker-than-usual, we felt that it was useful because the turnip from Miao Sin was a little wet. Thankfully, the Popiah skin didn't break easily but it would have been nice if the turnip were a little drier. The spicy level at Miao Sin Popiah (if you indicate that you want spicy Popiah) is pretty mild, so if you really want your popiah spicy, you should indicate that you want more chilli.

Surprisingly, Miao Sin Popiah also sells other fried items such as carrot cake, and we will be sure to try that in future as we saw good reviews about those too!

Balestier Market was pretty empty on a Saturday afternoon, and given that there are air coolers in this hawker centre, it actually makes for a decent environment to have a conversation with friends! The only downside is that it is not really near any MRT station, and you probably need to take a bus to get there.

Ghim Moh Hawker Centre was really crowded on a Saturday morning and we decided to try out luck with Kong Shang Hua wanton noodles, which had a moderately long queue. For as low as $3, you can get a plate of wanton noodles, so you can be rest assured that the stall generally prices it's dishes very affordably.

The above shows the $3.50 serving, which comes with a generous serving of char siew and chillies placed at the side. This stall serves char siew that is pretty lean, so this is great for those of you who do not like fatty meat! However, we thought the noodles were a little soggy and the sauce that the noodles were served in could have been more flavourful. In fact, do remember to toss the noodles really well or you will actually find that the noodles come with the slightly alkaline taste that reminds me of the thick yellow mee. :(

There is also a serving of wanton soup along the sides, which comes with four small wantons. While the soup was served piping hot and it was nice to drink on a gloomy warming, we felt that the wantons in the soup were a little too hard. Nonetheless, we think it was still a decent dish given the price point.

Ghim Moh was really crowded and you may need to share tables with other patrons, otherwise you may take a really long time to get a seat!

Eddy's has shifted from the row with Ji Ji Wanton Noodles to a row nearer to Outram Park Fried Kway Teow, yet the stall still serves great and affordable Western fare! Today, we decided to try something new - the mala prawn spaghetti. As it's name suggests, the dish uses spaghetti as the noodle base and includes around 5 prawns, broccoli, cherry tomatoes and a pretty generous serving of hae bi hiam (spicy dried shrimp). Everything is tossed in a mala paste, which gives the whole dish a pretty fiery and numbing taste.

To be honest, we thought spicy Western fare generally wouldn't be spicy by Singaporean standards, but we were so wrong! The mala paste is actually pretty spicy so we suggest you don't order this if you can't take spicy food, or you could suggest to the stall to make this less spicy. The paste is also more spicy rather than numbing, which we would have preferred instead.

The dish costs close to $10 which is expensive by hawker standards, but is pretty affordable compared to the pastas served in restaurants (some of those are less yummy than what Eddy's dishes out). 😋 This was an interesting Western-Chinese fusion dish and we would be interested to try their other dishes, including some of their other rice bowls, in future! 😁