When i was researching the Singapore leg of my trip I knew that I wanted to have quite a few meals at hawker centres in the city however with so much choice I wasn’t sure where was the best. After looking around some various blogs I found that the old airport road hawker centre is consistently in the top hawker centres of Singapore. With this in mind i boarded Singapore’s's excellent public transport system on my way there one morning.
I didn’t realise that the old airport road hawker centre was actually a fair distance from vivo city, I was on the bus for nearly an hour and this thought in my head was wondering if it was all going to be worth it. As soon as i got off the bus i knew that i had made the right decision! There was fantastic food all around me, I was spoilt for choice here! I saw in the distance a sign advertising char kway teow and in front of the stand about 6 or 7 people standing in line. I knew that this was a good sign as Singaporeans don’t stand in line for crappy noodles!
I joined the queue and struck up a conversation with the auntie in front of me who was impressed that I was going to enjoy a traditional Singaporean breakfast. When i got to the front of the queue i have to admit she did help me a little bit with translation to order my plate of noodles. What i saw next I found absolutely fascinating, a man that would have been in his early sixties preparing all my ingredients and then throwing them in a wok and then giving them a quick stir fry then immediately going onto the next order. There were two things I found fascinating, One was the energy that this man had and how he was consistently serving up delicious noodles, the second thing was the fact that he was so dedicated to char kway teow that he doesn’t have a single other dish on the menu.
After a short wait i collected my bowl of noodles and sat down at a nearby bench. The next thing I did was take a moment to inspect the char kway teow, there are quite a few differences between a Singaporean char kway teow to the standard Australian version. The main difference is the size, Australian char kway teows are a lot larger with a lot more toppings where the Singaporean rendition has a far stronger flavour. The other difference is the cockles, Singaporean char kway teow has fresh cockles added in the last couple of minutes of cooking in addition to some of the cockle juice. The addition of the cockles adds a really nice fresh seafood flavour to the dish which makes i really liked however after speaking to other people i realise that the addition of cockles isnt for everyone. 9.5/10
I wash down my char kway teow with a big glass of lime juice and reflect on how much i love the hawker centre culture in Singapore.
