Maxwell Food Centre

You want to sample local food in Singapore. You only have time to go to one place. Just where do you go? The Maxwell Road Food Centre, of course.

Don't be fooled by the unattractive, almost non-descript look of this place. There's a reason why so many tour buses stop over here. Of all the hawker centres in Singapore, this is my favourite by a mile.

Allow me to tell you why the Maxwell Road Food Centre is worth every minute of your time:
It is located in the heart of Chinatown. It is near to all the major sights. And it can easily be a fuel stop on any Chinatown walking tour. You don't have to travel very far to enjoy great food.

It offers one of the widest ranges of local Singapore food at one place.In fact, there are over 100 stalls here. I walked around and tried to see if there were many stalls selling the same thing. I found great variety instead - each stall, it seemed, was different from the next.

It's not only the variety that's amazing. The food is also disgustingly delicious. Competition is keen and the vendors have really upped the quality of their food. It's unfair to list one stall and leave out the next. But you basically cannot go wrong with the following:

• Stall 99, Guangdong Wan Ton Mee - Noodles with dumplings and roast pork, dumpling soup, etc.
• Stall 64, China Stree Fritters - Deep fried prawn fritters, fish cakes, ngoh hiang (local sausages), etc.
• Stall 54, Zhen Zhen Porridge - Congee with a selection of ingredients: pork, century eggs, fish slices, etc.
• Stall 48, Lau Pa Sat Bak Kut Teh - Pork rib soup with rice, other innards on request.
• Stall 35, Marina South Delicious Food - Char Kway Teow (fried noodles in soya sauce with cockles and eggs).

Apart from these 'filling' dishes, there are also numerous other stalls selling what may loosely be called 'finger food' - oyster fritters, radish cakes, sesame-coated red bean balls, etc.

You could go to one stall, pick up whatever you fancy, munch on it and move on to the next stall, and then the next. Isn't this fascinating?

Unlike the highly over-rated Newton Food Centre, the Maxwell Road Food Centre offers true value. When I last visited in late October 2008, I was pleasantly surprised that most of the stalls have not raised prices. And they have not cut down on the portions either. This is in spite of all the rising costs we see swirling around us.

The drink stalls, for example, are charging between 10 to 30 cents less than some hawker centres and coffee shops in the outlying areas. But the figures are immaterial. What I'm basically saying is this: in an age of profiteering, there is still a sanctum like the Maxwell Road Food Centre where hawkers over-deliver on the prices they charge.

So these folks have earned my affection. Please patronise their stalls. Make them successful. Let them be the beacons of what's good about Singapore.

Getting There:
Location: Maxwell Road, Singapore
Nearest MRT: Tanjong Pagar MRT Station/Chinatown MRT Station
By Bus: SBS: 80, 145; TIBS: NR5