Ming Kee Fuzhou Fish Balls:
It was reported that a recent poll done by Shin Min newspaper voted Tampines Round Market the Best Hawker Centre in Singapore. OK, I agree Tampines Round Market has got a pretty good selection of Hawkers but I was suprised that it was voted the best. If you ask me, I think Old Airport Road Food Centre should be one of the contenders for Best Hawker Centre. The other contenders in my books would be Maxwell Road and Golden Mile Food Centres.
How would you judge a great food centre? For me it is mainly based on the number of great stalls around and the variety of food that you can find there. So, on one of those "Don't know what to eat days" you should be able to just pop down to the Food Centre, have a look around, and end up with a table full of great eats. And for me, Old Airport Road Food Centre is just one of those places. There are lots of good stalls around and I think you can find almost any hawker dish there, even uncommon ones like this Fuzhou Fish Ball noodle. And it is not just that it is available, this particular stall also happens to be quite popular and there is almost a perpetual queue till around 11pm when they close.
If you are looking for something warm for a light supper, this Fuzhou Fishball and Meatball soup might just do the trick and it is quite good value too! For $3, we counted at least 4 of each type of ball. The Meatball is a bit unusual and is sort of like a big Wanton that is filled with a pork filling. It has quite a special taste and is something you don't come across very often because it is imported from China (which might not be a good thing nowadays, but I still quite like it).
The Fuzhou Fishball is specially made in their factory and for those who might not have come across it yet, it is basically a fishball filled with meat. Fuzhou style fishball has quite a different texture to Teochew fishball as there is a higher ratio of flour to fish meat. So it is more doughy rather than springy to the bite. The soup is tasty (?msg++) and full of protein precipitate. 4/5
Unfortunately, most of our kakis found the Bak Chor Mee so so only. Nothing exceptional but an above average Bak Chor Mee which you can find late at night if you are hankering for this dish. 3.75/5
Conclusion
I am not really familiar with Fuzhou food. Any Fuzhou people out there who would like to recommend other Fuzhou places to eat?
Meng Kee Foo Chow Fish Balls
Old Airport Road Food Centre
Stall 103 (Facing Main Road)
7am to 11pm daily
Closed on Sundays
14 comments:
I am equally surprised that the Tampines round market is voted the best hawker centre around.
I mean the food centre offers good treats but it is not the best in my opinion.
I count the Bugis Albert Street Hawker Centre as one of the Best in Singapore too: the curry mee (the one on the fringe facing Bugis junction direction)and the black soya carrot cakes are a must to eat there.
the choice surprises me. i have been to the round market after reading about it in your blog and i must agree that there are a few good eats there but the centre attracts mainly people from tampines.
i can think of at least 8 contenders. they are: abc bukit merah, amoy st, changi village, maxwell road, old kallang airport, chomp-chomp and tiong bahru. how about our hawker centre icon - newton food centre? my personal favourite is redhill food centre.
the best food centre must offer a variety of good food and it should be patronised by singaporeans from all over the island.
not many people outside tampines are aware of the existence of the tampines round market?
And Chinatown FC too. I just went to Tampines Round Mkt for lunch. Really nice makan stalls there. I would instead vote it the best heartland FC.
Ming Kee is a nice healthy option for supper at Old Airport FC.
Should be 7pm, dont think they open in the morning.
tried some of this ming kee the other day and I really liked it. The soup was really tasty :)
Like the way the meat is in the fishball. In fact that means extra hard work. What would be the reason why Tampines is voted the best hawker center? Was it solely based on the food?
I think one of the reasons could be that for a relatively small FC (compared to Amoy, Old Airport, Maxwell, Chinatown, etc), they seem to have one of the highest ratio/ percentage of really good stalls. In my opinion, only Hong Lim beats Tampines Round Mkt that way. Go check the FC out, you'll be in for a treat.
But I think in terms of standout stalls or number of good stalls, those in the bracket would win.
I tried the FuZhou noodles soup the other day, despite the long queue, well, it's worth the wait! Nice soup base and springy fishballs. I finished the entire bowl.. ha.. Actually there are some other nice food at that market.. Wee Lee Otak still maintain its good 'O standard after being ard the scene for awhile. Oh, and there seems to be a new entry to the FC called hotpot cuisine, don;t remember seeing it the last time we went there in Sep. my husband ordered the fish head assam curry. Mamamia! The piping hot soup base for the fish head had us raved over it for the whole trip back. Simply appetiting! shd give it a try if you love spicy stuff!
I tried the FuZhou noodles soup the other day, despite the long queue, well, it's worth the wait! Nice soup base and springy fishballs. I finished the entire bowl.. ha.. Actually there are some other nice food at that market.. Wee Lee Otak still maintain its good 'O standard after being ard the scene for awhile. Oh, and there seems to be a new entry to the FC called hotpot cuisine (just beside the otak stall), don;t remember seeing it the last time we went there in Sep. my husband ordered the fish head assam curry. Mamamia! The piping hot soup base for the fish head had us raved over it for the whole trip back. Simply appetiting! shd give it a try if you love spicy stuff!
There's a Foochow eatery along Sultan Gate, between Beach Road and Pahang Street. I can't remember the name, but it does serve the usual Foochow comfort food like red yeast rice chicken soup/meesua; foochow fishball noodles, foochow style lor mee, nian gao, etc. The price is reasonable and the food reminds me of what grandma made. It's a family-run business and has been around for yonks. True blue Singaporean Foochows there.
If I had to vote for best hawker centre I would unabashedly vote for Old Airport Road. Even while I was still living in the east (Changi) and relatively nearer to the Tampines round market I would still make the trip to OAR instead. Maxwell is a close contender but if I am not wrong, it doesn't have a huge variety of Nalay and Indian cuisine, mainly Chinese. Not too sure if OAR has Indian food but they definitely have more Malay food stalls. Hence as a hawker centre it has more variety.
And I do love the fuzhou fishballs at Ming Kee too! But I find the soup a little too oily to be drinkable at times.
Thanks , i love ieatiblogipoost blog.
This store are highly rated, i like to eat at there with my girlfriend
I think Tampines Round Market was voted best hawker centre because of the proportion of good stalls relative to the number of stalls. The average standard is higher than most hawker centres too. Besides the ones recommended in this blog, there are other nice stalls like Lucky Kway Chap, the Lor Mee stall and the fried carrot cake (Xing ji Ang Mo Kio CTK) are nice too. Even the other wanton mee stall Xing Ji is not bad, though not great. Overall if you just hantam and eat from any stall over there, unless you are really suay, the quality will generally range from acceptable to very good.
Ther's a foochow fishball stall at 56 Zion Road. Not sure if it's still around. Haven't tried that, not a fan of foochow food.
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