Hawker Centers

Our family eats at a Hawker Center an average of 3-5 times a week this is the Singapore way.

  Hawker Centers are like a food court in the U.S. but instead of "chain restaurant stalls" Hawker Centers consist of little Mom and Pop stalls with frequently the whole family working the stall, this means there is a lot of variety in the quality and taste of the food.  Chicken Rice, the Singapore national dish does not taste the same at any two stalls as each cook has their own special way of making it.  We each now have some favorite stalls at the various centers.

We have enjoyed our local Hawker Centers, there are three that we frequent, Adam Road, Empress Market, and Holland Village.

 Tonight we decided to go to the Newton Circus Food Center which is listed in the guide book we have as one of the top five Hawker Centers you must try while in Singapore.  So we boarded the 48 bus and off we went.

Hawker Centers are usually open to air, most have some roof sheltering you can go under with some fans blowing but really it is an outdoor eating experience. There are many tables and sometimes it is packed so it is important to secure your table prior to finding your food. 

We get our table as a family and secure it by placing a pack of tissues on the table.  Each table has a number on it, we had table 209, when you order your food at the stall, you tell them your table number and then they will deliver your food to your table, you pay them cash upon delivery.

We have found that the easiest thing to do is to just give everyone money and let the boys go off to find their food and meet us back at the table.  We also have found that many times we can share food.  For example tonight we got a whole plate of cockles for just $3.50.

Everyone shared the cockles except for Randi who really, really does not like rubbery food, so Caleb and Randi shared some lemon chicken, Keegan got some chicken satay with spicy peanut sauce and Scott had some fried rice.

Caleb enjoyed eating the cockles, he really has become adventurous in his eating while in Singapore.

After tasting the fare it was unanimous that we all prefer our local Hawker Centers, the food is better it is cheaper and we are making friends with the stall owners of which we frequent.  A few nights back Scott and I went out to pick up some food to bring home for the boys, the juice stall guy specifically asked where his friend, my son, he was so sad that we left the boys at home.  The next time we came in, he told them that they were missed.