Learn More About Popular Hawker Cuisine in Singapore

Hands-on Singapore Hawker Favorites Cooking Class

While visiting Singapore, you are bound to stop and enjoy the copious amounts of amazing ethnic foods that are served at the notorious open-air food markets known as hawker centre.

There are many hawker centers in Singapore and the popular ones are:

• Newton Hawker Center at Clemenceau Avenue (Newton Circus)
• East Coast Lagoon Food Village at 1220 East Coast Parkway
• Old Airport Road Food Centre at 19 Old Airport Road
• Chomp Chomp Food Centre at 20 Kensington Park Rd (Serangoon Garden)
• Maxwell Market at 1 Kadayanallur Street
• Lau Pa Sak Festival Market at 18 Raffles Quay (1 Boon Tat St.)

These centres are massive with huge varieties of affordable and delicious foods.

This can become quite overwhelming for a newbie to know how to navigate and choose the best foods for the best experience.

There are many online guides that will offer direction when choosing a hawker centre and can help narrow down the options by neighbourhood, cuisine and price.

When visiting a hawker centre, you will find that the locals are very friendly with tourists and will offer information and advice without any hesitation.

The locals take their food very seriously and are passionate about it. They will be happy to help you have the best food experience possible.

Here are some of the hawker favourites:-

Chilli Crab – This delectable seafood dish consists of a whole crab either peppered or flavoured with chillies.

The crab is boiled first and then fried, so the meat falls off of the shell.

The chilli crab is served with buns to sop up the delicious sauce. The spicy version is served with a sweet and spicy tomato and chilli based sauce.

Another cooking style for this dish is using salted-egg, buttered or simply steamed.

Bak Kut Teh – This infamous soup is a pork bone tea. It is derived from a poverty-stricken butcher creating a dish for a poor beggar out of cheap ingredients from his shop.

The bones from butchered pork are simmered with star anise and pepper and resemble the colour of tea, which is how the name came about.

Below is a list of some of the most popular dishes among locals and tourists alike:

Wanton Mee – This dish consists of wanton noodles and is served with slices of pork char siew and pork-filled dumplings accompanied by a small bowl of soup.

Chillies are optional for a spicier variety, or tomato sauce can be mixed in for the less brave.

Fried Carrot Cake – In contrary to the sweet carrot cake dessert that is known in America, this dish is fried and made with a radish flour cake and preserved radish with eggs.

There is no actual carrot in the recipe; the radish flour cake resembles a “white carrot” which is how the name came to be.

Dim Sum – The dim sum is a small serving of bite-sized steamed food and is usually not the main course dish. The traditional dim sum is known as a steamed bun that is filled with various ingredients such as meat, seafood, or vegetables.

Fried Oyster Omelet – this dish is a local and tourist favourite and is typically served by vendors who also make fried carrot cake.

This recipe calls for eggs, potato starch for a fuller body, and unique vinegar chilli that is served exclusively with the omelette. BBQ Big Prawns – This is one of the most loved BBQ seafood dishes. A very large prawn marinated with seasonings is grilled until slightly charred and fully cooked. A lovely dish is ready to be served with a squeeze of lemon juice.

And Many More…

• BBQ Stingray
• Big Pawn Noodles
• Singapore Laksa
• Hokkien Mee
• Fried La La (Clams)
• Hainanese Chicken Rice
• Duck Noodles
• BBQ Satay
• Steamed Crab
• Tiger Beer!! (Local Beer)
• Lime Juice or Barley Juice (Homemade Beverages)