Hey Hive!
After a short break to celebrate the lunar new year and go on a short vacation, we're back with another foodie post! Now that there are close to zero covid restrictions in Singapore, we are completely free to try out different food places again!
We're back with more of our hawker adventures - trying out different stalls in different hawker centers to find which are our favourites!
If you've never patronised a hawker center before, they are typically non-air conditioned buildings that house all kinds of food stalls specialising in one or two signature dishes. They're ubiquitous here in Singapore and Malaysia and are known for delicious and affordable food - the perfect combination!
They're one of our favourite places to eat because the food is tasty and affordable; in fact, quite a few of the hawker stalls in Singapore have even been awarded Michelin stars! We were in town the other day and decided to check out one of the biggest hawker centers in Singapore called Chinatown Complex!
I think Sean knew about this place and I'd only heard about it, but apparently it's really famous and some youtubers did a video on it showing more than hundreds of stalls inside here which instantly intrigued us!
Apparently it was built on 1 October 1983 to rehouse roadside stalls run by travelling hawkers and was later put on the global map when one of its cooked food stalls, Liao Fan Hong Kong Soya Sauce Chicken Rice & Noodle, was awarded one Michelin star in 2016 and listed in the inaugural Singapore Michelin Guide!
Source: Time Out
Anyway, we were really excited to check out Chinatown Complex and the first floor the building is this market selling all sorts of goods from decorations to apparel and antiques.
It definitely had the feel of an older, traditional hawker center. But thankfully it was still clean and tidy.
There were even some old style lamps on the first floor that looked like they were here since the 80s!
We took the escalator upstairs to where there were over 260 food stalls to go check them out and see what we could get. Unfortunately we also went by quite late in the afternoon since we wanted to dodge the lunch crowds but there might not be many stalls open left.
This was the directory for the entire second floor and each number was a food stall! There were 4 different coloured sections all with their unique hawkers and wallways connecting the sections.
Unfortunately there really weren't that many stalls left when we went by late in the afternoon. But we did manage to find a couple that looked interesting. I would say a better time to go would definitely be in the morning-noon period around 11am-1pm but you'll probably have to squeeze in with the lunch crowd. Thankfully there are plenty of stalls though so it shouldn't be too bad?
One stall we found had quite a queue even at 4pm because it was offering some snacks so we decided to give it a try!
It's this stall called Jia Ji Mei Shi and they specialise in glutinous rice dumplings, chee cheong fun (rice vermicelli noodles) and porridge.
It was way too hot for porridge so we decided to try their dumplings and chee cheong fun, which also came with some steamed yam cakes as well!
It was quite different compared to other chee cheong fun I've had but super tasty! The vermicelli was so smooth but still held together in its own piece and doesn't unravel like some others. And the chili sauce that accompanied it wasn't too sweet and still had some spice to it, which was perfect for me. Usually the chili sauce that comes with chee cheong fun tends to be too sweet for my liking.
I really enjoyed the yam cake as well! It wasn't too starchy and was nice and moist while having a smooth texture as well. It's slightly firmer than the chee cheong fun of course but still equally yummy, if not more so!
There was also the glutinous rice dumpling which I wasn't a big fan of just in general because I find the rice too sticky for me, but it was still pretty good for this kind of dumpling.
We were still pretty hungry after that so we looked around and of the limited stalls left open at the time this was one of the few that were selling something of a meal.
There were a few similar "Chicken Rice Masters" in the hawker center but we had heard from one of the other customers that this was good so we decided to try it. We ordered the soy sauce chicken rice and this was what we got:
Tbh it looked kinda disapppointing for 5 bucks, and for him to claim himself to be the "chicken master" it wasn't that great. But I guess he said chicken and not chicken rice, per se.
I feel like the only thing good about this dish was the chili sauce which was kinda spicy but it gave more flavour to the rice which wasn't the traditional chicken rice, and granted the chicken was okay but I felt lacked some seasoning. The soup was pretty good too but overall I'd say this chicken rice is kinda sad.
There are definitely better chicken rice shops out there so I wouldn't patronise this stall again. We were suspecting that the customer who recommended this shop to be the stall owner's friend and it seemed that way since they were chatting together. I felt like we kinda got scammed but we didn't have many options at the time.
We decided to get a drink to refresh ourselves since it was getting really warm.
And I think we ordered the cheapest drink they had which was the fresh lime juice for $1.70 or smt. It was just a little bit sour and was really refreshing and a perfect palate cleanser.
Although the chicken rice was kinda disappointing, it was still a good experience to visit this huge hawker center! Kinda sad we didn't get to try more stalls since it was too late but we'll definitely visit again in the future and try the better stalls for sure!
If you're ever in Singapore this is definitely a must-visit place for food and just taking in the sights! Chinatown here is really accessible and has a ton of stuff to see and truly get the Singapore experience.
Thanks so much for reading!
To find out more about me, check out my intro post here!
[//]:# (!pinmapple 1.28267 lat 103.84308 long d3scr)
Check out my previous post in this series!
