Welcome to Chinatown. Looking for Cheap & Good places?

The Chinatown Complex Market & Food Centre in Singapore is a food lover’s paradise, with a dizzying array of delicious stalls. It’s home to some of Singapore’s one-Michelin-starred affordable eats and numerous top-rated local delicacies. Each visit feels like a treasure hunt.
Cheng Ji’s Sauce Steamed Pine Fish Head is a favorite of mine, having visited over 20 times. Both my grandmother and I love it and often bring friends along. The fish head is fresh and tender, perfectly complemented by their signature sweet and sour bean sauce. Their dry-fried prawns are also a must-order.
Maria’s Virgin Chicken requires advance booking for the whole chicken due to my grandmother’s age. Zhao Ji’s Hainanese Chicken Rice is quite good, with both the yellow and white chicken being very tender. I usually go for the yellow chicken leg rice, and my friend had one of the best chicken rice experiences here.
An Zhen’s Thin Pancakes are recommended by Michelin. The pancakes are slightly sweet, but you can ask them to reduce the sugar. Their little golden cups are a must-try.
Xi Jie’s Fried Kway Teow has a 20-minute wait, and while it’s quite tasty, it’s not the best I’ve had. Jia Ji’s zongzi (rice dumplings) are quite famous, especially the mung bean and salted egg zongzi, which can rank in the top three. The regular salted egg and pork zongzi must be thoroughly steamed to be delicious.
Quan Neng Qiao Ma Ma’s Laksa has a great flavor, and their Bak Kut Teh (pork rib soup) has a very rich broth. There’s also a video from my visit in 2022. That day, I ate at Yue Lai, one of the best claypot cooking restaurants in Singapore. Mr. Jerald Chua has visited twice, and every dish there is a masterpiece.

I didn’t realised this Malay food stall at Hong Lim Food Centre has been here for very long since 2002, Dapur F. Faiz serving variety Malay cuisines.

Decided to try this stall after so many years working in Chinatown. I came late lunch time and only a few options left, which mee soto still available.

Their price is consider affordable for now. Their mee soto comes with slices of shredded chicken and noodles. Tasty and enjoyable.

Took the coffee. Indeed nice, with a unique and powerful flavour. Too sweet tho. Need to ask for less sugar. The tea is ordinary.

The Peranakan food stall has long gone, which I still miss it so much till these days.

And just very recently, the formers stall has been taken over by this new Nasi Padang stall.

Nasi Padang Beach Road said to have another stall along Beach Road, which I couldn’t identify which one of it.

But their new stall here serves pretty decent dishes with their Nasi Padang.

Love their Ayam Rempah here with the prawn cracker.

Decided to try something new again at this food centre, from this stall called the 中華面莊 Zhong Hua Mian Zhuang. Specialise with their Chinese style of noodle dishes.

Lots of options here and I went for their sliced noodles, which you can choose to go with either beef, pork ribs or chicken.

Simple and tasty soup with great texture of hand sliced noodles.

The French Toast is the most expensive breakfast item on Tong Ah's menu.

I will probably order this dish rather than the kaya toast because they are topped with a couple dollops of kaya and slices of butter which allow you to better taste the kaya.

The French Toast itself is decent with a nice crepe-like layer of egg coating the bread but there is (of course) not going to be enough kaya or butter to spread on all of the French Toast.

I hate to say so but Tong Ah's horribly overpriced. Yes, rental is mad and inflation is painful but Tong Ah does its food no justice with how they try to cut corners and save costs.

I personally prefer the 'non-traditional' crispy thin kaya toast for its wafer-like crunchy texture.

I cannot recall if they charge extra for butter with their kaya toast but the interesting thing is that they would cut it into thin slices and place it in a bowl of ice water to keep it cold and ensure that it keeps its form and does not melt completely when it is served. A lovely touch but my gripe is that the thin stripe of butter was so small that it was as thin as (and if not thinner) than the thin toast itself and left me thoroughly dissatisfied.

I can't help but feel that I'm paying more for the old school atmosphere than for the food itself, seeing how they seem to 'stinge' on their ingredients...

Tong Ah Eating House might not have the same name recognition as Yakun but I am sure everyone knows the iconic white building at the junction of Keong Saik Road and Teck Lim Road. which bears its name in red.

The coffeeshop has shifted down the road but continues to retain its old school charm and is most famous for their kaya toast and tze char dishes.

Their signature traditional kaya toast features thick soft toasted white bread with kaya spread in between. I knew I was in for a treat as the kaya was a dull greenish grey instead of a pandan green colour. This usually means that the kaya was made in house, fresh and without the use of food colouring. I liked that their kaya was subtly sweet with a nice strong pandan note.

My only (big) qualm was that they spread the kaya (very) thinly to the point that parts of the bread seemed to be untouched. For those who are counting, they are charging the same (or similar) to Toastbox (which has attracted some negative press for their pricing). I therefore find it quite hard to categorise it as "cheap and good" as burpple seems to have done.

Among the many high end restaurants and bars located around the area, lies this inconspicuous zi char restaurant that was really pretty decent, while being relatively affordable!

Their Fish Meat Soup ($20 for medium) is one worth commenting on. The soup itself is light, not multidimensional but still decent. What's good is their fish chunks which were huge and fresh! Many pieces were given as well. Love how meaty and flaky the pieces were!

Their Yang Zhou Fried Rice ($15 for medium) came generous and I loved how fluffy the rice was. This has loads of wok hei and charred bits which flavoured the rice well.

The Claypot Bringal with Minced Pork ($18 for medium) was also another dish we liked. Loved how the dish had so much umami flavours and that the bringal was really soft! Best paired with rice.

Prawn Paste Chicken ($15 for medium) was unexpectedly good. Honestly, the colour of the fry was pale and we didn't expect it to be delicious. However, the outer crust was so crispy, and so full of umami flavours! The chicken was well marinated, as the seasoning penetrated the chicken well. Darn addictive!

The Poached Chinese Spinach ($21) is a good vegetable option, as it not only came with salted egg and century egg, it came with flowy poached eggs too 😍 Flavourful but not too salty, this is a good break from all the rich meat dishes.

I wouldn't say that the dishes were particularly mind-blowing, but they were definitely comforting. A zi char restaurant I will come back again for!

braised duck noodles was mid :/ duck was q gamey. soup was oily but tasted q good and had some pork in it which was a surprise

curry was delicious and they gave lots of taupok which i love! chicken was also vv tender but they gave q little chicken. this was on food king and i think usually they have a much longer queue but thankfully i didn’t have to queue v long 🤭🤭

From a random stall. As expected, a so-so meal.