Taiwanese Cuisine

Quite surprised that this hawker centre has lots of seats during lunch hour on a weekday. Some stalls are indeed very popular so expect to queue. As for the halal options, I only saw one that was open, but then again I have yet to discover this huge hawker centre. Besides selling local favourites, they also have stalls that sell fusion and even Japanese food. Good for tourists.

Our favourite hawker in Singapore. I would give this 6 stars if I could. There plethora of food in this maze is amazing! Choices are endless and even the fussiest would find something. Drinks, cultural foods, desserts, pastas, coffee, cake, baked goods, vegetarian, soup just to have a few. There are 4 colour zones in case you get lost.

One would be hard put to have a bad meal at Chinatown Food Centre. It is, after all, the largest food centre in Singapore with more than 260 individual stalls. All stalls will have a minimum selection of 5 dishes and some, the cze char stalls , up to 50. So just taking a low average of 10 dishes per stall, there are a staggering 2, 600 dishes to choose from. One can use the bench mark of Michelin star or Michelin Bib to start the testing experience. Or go for recommendations of food bloggers. Remember that the FC is divided into 4 colour zones-red, blue, yellow and green . This is a good guide to identify the location of the stall and various exits and entrances as well .

Beyond the usual suspects at Chinatown Complex Hawker Centre, a journey was made here to try out the offerings from other stalls. Started out at An Ji and they specialise in Zhi Char dishes. They are known for their range of Cantonese dishes and especially their steamed fish. Online food reviews has their Fish Head Bee Hoon and Beef Hor Fun highly recommended. Decided to try these 2 dishes to see if they are any good. Alas, not only were their prices higher than most Zhi Char places the flavour of the dishes were a little too salty. Sigh. Another place where the online food bloggers are not truthful with their reviews. Next up was Chinatown Fried Dough Stick, a long time stall at this hawker centre. Their Fried YouTiao is highly popular and even handles daily orders from the various other shops at the Hawker Centre for use as part of their ingredients such as the Rojak and the Porridge shops. The YouTiao is crispy on the outside and fluffy on the inside, plus it tastes nice and not oily. Lim's Cafe over at the Yellow Zone makes a mean cup of Coffee. Through the use of an espresso machine to prepare its traditional local coffee the Coffee prepared by Hawker Lim is fragrant smooth and robust and all for an affordable price. Definitely a favourite for the many coffee aficionados out there. Tucked away at a corner of the Hawker Centre, Er Gu Desserts serves up traditional Chinese (race not country) desserts. A highly popular stall, it has many long time customers and fans who make the journey here just to enjoy their offerings. It sells traditional desserts such as Sesame Paste amongst 9 other desserts. With many of such traditional food places disappearing due to foreign influences, it is great that Er Gu Desserts is still keeping the mantle and providing lovely traditional desserts to all of us. Over at the most obscure part of the Hawker Centre, Pan Ji Cooked Food makes traditional Chinese (race not country) snacks. With many places switching to the use of factory prepared snacks, Pan Ji still makes its snacks by hand and thus preserving the original flavours and taste. This shop is best known for their Sachima. Just next to it is Chai Wee Cuttlefish. Another shop making traditional Chinese (race not country) snacks is Chai Wee Cuttlefish. They specialise in sugared BBQ cuttlefish and Ear Biscuits. A crowd favourite, the Ear Biscuits are only available on a seasonal basis from mid-February to early-November. From this day's visit, it was clear that the online food bloggers and mainstream media or magazines are getting their recommendations revealed to be anything but what they written and one wonders how truthful they really are or have they been actually paid to write those reviews. On another note, it is great to see some of the traditional food still around to continue providing us their comfort dish