Hey Hive!
Now that a lot of people here have already gotten vaccinated, I'm very happy to hear that Singapore is now allowing in-house dining again but obviously you have to be vaccinated. But since there aren't any restrictions this allows us to try out different food places again!
So if you missed my post last week, we started going on another hawker date but to a different hawker centre! This time it's to Hong Lim Market and Food Centre near Chinatown!
Source: danielfooddiary
Sean used to frequent this hawker centre quite a bit when he was working in the area but that was years ago now, so it's been a while since we've come by this hawker centre. It still looks very similar though.
I feel like the design of hawker centres has really changed in recent years as the government is pushing towards developing Singapore even further to be more modern and keep up with the times. You'll see what I mean when I share more of the newer hawker centres we've visited.
But anyway, what we like to do on hawker dates is try a few dishes from a few different stalls according to what takes our fancy, and depending on how much we can actually stomach.
Last week, we tried this pork noodle stall and got a dessert but we actually did buy a few more dishes before having dessert, like this Hainanese Chicken Rice!
I think this stall is pretty well-known for those who frequent this hawker centre and I might have tried it before when we visited the first time but I couldn't recall. Luckily we didn't have to wait long and Sean bought the roasted chicken rice and added an egg. And of course it also came with a bowl of soup made of their special chicken stock!
It looked and smelled so good! The rice was nice and fluffy, though not as full of the chicken rice flavour as some others that I've had. The chicken was tender and juicy and while not crispy, the skin was still really delicious and savoury. The egg was average but still nice with the chilli sauce.
If you didn't know, chicken rice is known as Singapore's national dish since it's so prevalent here and got famous here too, even though it is of Hainan origin. It is a dish of poached chicken and seasoned rice, served with chilli sauce and cucumber slices on the side.
Overall, I'd say this chicken rice was really good! I don't really have a go-to favourite chicken rice stall but I can name a few that I like. This stall is probably going to be one of them from now on.
The other dish we really wanted to try is this famous Char Kway Teow from this stall called Outram Park Fried Kway Teow Mee! It's probably the most famous stall in this hawker centre and there's always a long queue. In fact, it's so popular that they're always sold out by 2pm everyday!
We thought we were too late by the time we came by since there was quite a queue already and it was past noon, but Sean quickly went to queue after we had 2 dishes and he actually managed to get the very last plate of Char Kway Teow! How fortunate! I think there were some other people behind him who unfortunately weren't as lucky.
If you're unfamiliar with Char Kway Teow, it consists of stir-fried rice noodles with garlic, soy sauce, chilli paste, cockles, chinese sausage, bean sprouts and fish cake! Different stalls also have their own homemade sambal belachan they use which makes every char kway teow stall taste unique!
Since this stall is so famous, they have to cook the char kway teow in bulk and we got the very last plate which means ours would be soaked in the very flavourful sauces and gravy they use!
And although we had to wait like 15-20 minutes, it was really worth it! We could taste so much of the wok hey in our plate, and it was so full of flavour! The blend of the sauces was just perfect too, so it was savoury and spicy in the same ratio in every bite! It was so delicious!
I think char kway teow with me is the same with chicken rice. I don't really have a go-to stall for char kway teow because we don't really eat it that much tbh but this one is definitely up there. It's always good every time we come by and the long queues definitely prove it too.
Most of the stalls after that were closing since they normally only stay open around lunch time to cater to the office workers there. So there were only a couple of stalls left after we finished.
But no matter, we were sufficiently satisfied and it was time for a nice refreshing drink. So we went to the juice stall there to get a nice and healthy juice, which served as a nice palate cleanser and a little detox after all that heaty food. I don't think I actually took a photo of the juice but it was a nice apple banana smoothie.
Well that's it for this hawker date! Tune in next time for more foodie adventures!
Thanks so much for reading!
To find out more about me, check out my intro post here!
