[The Straits Times]

Singapore’s reputation as a food heaven is well known and is also a source of pride among her people. One can easily find cheap and delicious Chinese, Malay and Indian cuisines at the many hawker centres and food courts, as well as international cuisines all over the island. They say that a Singaporean’s favourite pastime is to eat, and you’ll be hard pressed to find a local who would disagree with that. Today I would like to introduce the brief history of Singapore’s hawker centres, as well as a few famous hawker centres in Singapore not to be missed.

At the centre of Singapore’s food culture is the ubiquitous hawker centre. Not to be confused with a kopitiam or food court, a hawker centre is an outdoor venue used solely for selling food and housing a good number of food and beverage stalls under one roof(some in the hundreds). A kopitiam is instead usually found within HDB estates, with around 10 stalls or less. A food court could be seen as a more modernized version of the kopitiam, as they are usually located indoors, within shopping malls or office buildings and are mostly air conditioned. Hawker centres first sprang up in the 1970s, when rapid urbanisation led to the then authorities having to find a solution to the growing problems of unhygienic and unlicensed street hawkers hawking their food all over city. The authorities decided to house licensed hawkers in a central location where hygiene and the cleanliness of the food could be constantly checked for and maintained. As a result, the first hawker centre Yung Sheng Food Centre at Jurong was opened and it soon proved to be a huge hit among the locals. The number of hawker centres in Singapore soon ballooned to a mind boggling 140 at one point in the mid-eighties, though resettlement and less-than-stellar reception at some hawker centres saw the number drop to the current 100 or so.

Today, hawker centres are known to be one of the cheapest places, if not the cheapest place in Singapore to have a meal. A typical meal could start from just $2.50, though most are in the range of $3 to $5 nowadays. Think of Singapore delicacies and what comes to mind? Probably the usual suspects such as chicken rice, satay, chilli crab, roti prata, mee rubus, prawn noodles etc. You will probably not be able to find a hawker centre that would not have all of the above-mentioned delicacies! As of 2016, two Singaporean food stalls became the first street food vendor to be awarded the Michelin Star for excellence in eating! These two stalls are namely Hong Kong Soya Sauce Chicken Rice and Hill Street Tai Hwa Pork Noodle. Till date, their prices are still relatively cheap and their shops are expectedly, usually filled with patrons.

Do you know where some of the more prominent hawker centres in Singapore are located at? The first one that usually springs to mind is of course, Lau Pa Sat (old market) at Raffles Place. Lau Pa Sat was in fact, Singapore’s first ever market and it was called Telok Ayer Market back then. The market was dismantled in 1984 due to ongoing tunnelling works of the MRT system. More than five years later the market was reopened in the form of a hawker centre and renamed Lau Pa Sat.

Other well-known and popular hawker centres in Singapore include Maxwell Road Food Centre near Chinatown, Newton Circus Food Centre at Newton, Chomp Chomp Food Centre at Serangoon Garden, East Coast Lagoon Food Village at East Coast Park, Changi Village Hawker Centre at Changi Village, Golden Mile Food Centre at Beach Road, Old Airport Road Food Centre at Dakota, 85 Fengshan Centre at Bedok and Clementi 448 Market & Food Centre at Clementi. Check out the list below for what to eat at these hawker centres!

1.   Maxwell Road Food Centre – Tian Tian Chicken Rice, Zhen Zhen Porridge, Huang Ji Wanton Noodles

[CNA]

2.   Newton Circus Food Centre – Alliance Seafood (Chilli Crab), Kwee Heng Roast Meat

[The Straits Times] 

3.   Chomp Chomp Food Centre – Ang Mo Kio 409 Fried Carrot Cake, Ang Sa Li Satay, Ah Hock Fried Hokkien Mee, Hai Wen Yuan BBQ

[TODAYonline] 

4.   East Coast Lagoon Food Village – Stingray Forever BBQ Seafood, Han Jia Bak Kut Teh Pork Leg, Lagoon Leng Kee Beef Kway Teow

[NEA.gov.sg] 

5.   Changi Village Hawker Centre – International Muslim Food Stall Nasi Lemak, Changi Village Fried Hokkien Mee, Changi Village Best BBQ Chicken Wing

[iproperty] 

6.   Golden Mile Food Centre – Yew Chuan Claypot Rice, 91 Fried Kway Teow Mee, Kheng Fatt Hainanese Beef Noodles

[Street Directory] 

7.   Old Airport Road Food Centre – Dong Ji Fried Kway Teow, Wen Wen Pork Rib Big Prawn Mee, Xin Mei Xiang Lor Mee, Hua Kee Hougang Famous Wanton Mee

[NEA.gov.sg] 

8.   85 Fengshan Centre – Xing Ji Bak Chor Mee, Sneg Hiang Bak Chor Mee, Ah Poh Minced Meat Noodle, Chan BBQ Sambal Stingray, Bedok 85 Fried Oyster Omelette

[yelp] 

9.   Clementi 448 Market & Food Centre – Clementi Fish Soup, Nam Kee Hokkien Mee, Yong Fa Hainanese Curry Rice & Curry Fish Head, Bedok Chwee Kueh, Tanglin Halt Western Food

With so many different places to check out and so much good food to savour, hurry down to the nearest hawker centre today and try out these local delicacies! No matter whether you stay in the north, south, east or west there is bound to be one prominent hawker centre near you! What better way to immerse yourself in the local culture than to eat like a local?