Tian Tian Hainaness Chicken Rice, Maxwell Fuzhou Oyster Cake, Hoe Kee Porridge & Zhen Zhen Porridge @ Maxwell Food Centre

   Due to my disappointing YouTube review of my favourite chicken rice stall, due to soggy rice, I mentioned that I would do another review on another day. Which I am going to do today. If you want to see the first review, click on this link, https://youtu.be/IYBCwAKY75c

   So today, we are at Maxwell Food Centre, a very popular food centre in Singapore. Lunch time, here, especially during the work week, is abit busy, with long line for all the popular foods. This food centre, does alot of their business during lunch hours and serve the office worker crowd, and so, most of the stalls here, will be ready to serve their food at least before 11am. So if you do want to beat the lunch crowd, you can come here slightly before 11am and you should be able to get what ever you want to eat, with out having to queue up to long.

How to get there :-

Address

1 Kadayanallur Street

 

Nearest landmark

It is near the Jinrikisha Station along Tanjong Pagar Road and across the street from the Buddha Tooth Temple in Chinatown

If you are at Tanjong Pagar MRT station, head towards Exit B. Once you get out of the MRT station at Exit B, walk to the main road. That road infront of you will be Maxwell Road. On your left, you should see a white building called Maxwell Chambers. Walk towards that direction and keep walking along the road. You will pass a red building called Red Dot Design Musuem. After you walk pass that building, if you look diagonally opposite, you will see this building called The URA Centre. Maxwell Food Centre is just beside this building. So cross the road and you will be there.

   This is Zhen Zhen Porridge. I serves porridge. Previously, they did a roaring business with their raw fish porridge. But due to a fresh water fish scare last year, they have stopped selling raw fish. And their business does not seem as busy as last time. But slowly customers are coming back and trying their other offering.

How to get there :-

Address

Maxwell Food Centre #01-54

Timing

5:30AM to 2:30PM
Closed on Tuesdays

How to Order :-

1) Go to the end of the queue

2) Before you reached the front of the queue, and place your order, you many want to decide which type of porridge you want to order    Fish Porridge /  Chicken Porridge  / Sliced fish&shredded chicken&century egg /  Century egg&chicken

3) Decide if you want extra egg       additional $0.30

4) Decide on size  /  price                $3  /  $4  /  $5

5) Wait for them to prepare the porridge

6) Make payment

7) Once it is done, you take your porridge to a seat and enjoy

    The porridge was Smooth but alittle watery. It is savory and slightly peppery with abit of crunchiness. The crunchiness comes from the salted vegetables, and green onions. The salted veg also added saltiness. 

    It was bland on the first bite but gets better with the more you eat.  And the ginger gives a nice gingery spiciness every other bite. They also put in some oil to flavour the porridge. But I am not sure what type of oil they put in.

  Once you mixed in the raw egg, it makes the porridge smoother and thicken it all up. It is actually quite a nice bowl of porridge. Quite filling for breakfast and can be an any time meal. Rating 3/6 Tasty

This is a desert shop. It sells desert. The desert it sells is peanut soup, it is a traditional Chinese desert soups. On that day, it also sold red bean soup and mung bean soup.

How to get there :-

Address
Maxwell Food Centre #01-57

Timing

7:30AM to 4:00PM
Closed on Mondays

How to Order :-

1) Go up to the the stall
2) Decide on which desert you want to order,   peanut soup, red bean soup or mung bean soup.
3) Decide if you want glutinous rice ball.
4) Decide price / size    :    $1.50  /   $2
5) The owner will prepare the dish
6) Make payment once you receive your dish
7) Then take it and find a seat and enjoy

The peanut soup is just peanut boiled in water. So first, you soak the peanuts a long time, like overnight, then later you boil it in water until it is soft. You then add soy bean milk. Sugar for flavour. Then you can add additional glutinous rice ball. You make dough balls using glutinous rice flour, then you stuff it with either peanuts or black sesame. Other places have other fillings flavours, but this stall has only peanut and black sesame.

It is nice and smooth. The peanuts were soft and it all goes well with the soy bean milk soup. They also put in afew pieces of fried dough that get soggy very fast when it gets in contact with the soup. Overall a good desert. Rating 4/6 Damn Good

Description of why this food is important to me

How to get there :-

Address
Maxwell Food Centre #01-10

Timing

11:00AM to 8:00PM
Closed on Mondays

How to Order :-

1) Go to the stall on the right first, the one beside a walkway to the carpark.
2) Place your order here

3) Decide how much chicken you want?  Whole or half  or for 1 person.
4) Decide if you want other chicken parts or spare parts
5) Decide if you wan vegetables with your meal (vegetables with oyster sauce or bean sprouts)

6) Refer to picture beside for the prices
7) Once you place your order, make payment and take the receipt
8) Head down to the next counter and give your receipt to the staff there.
9) Wait for them to prepare your dish.
10) Once it is done, take your dish and find a seat and enjoy

    This is one of my favourite hainanese chicken rice in Singapore. I have been eating here before they became world renowned due to an American TV chef introduced them to the world. So I was disappointed when the last time I came here and they served me soggy rice. I mean, one of their main selling point for their chicken rice is their rice. So I decided to give them another chance and review this rice again another time.

   The rice this time was good. Slightly al dente and with the fragrance of ginger. It was much better than the previous rice. The chicken was tender and flavourful, and this time, they has the piece that I like. It is the piece with the gelatinous clear gel between the skin n the flesh. That piece is just so good. Eaten on its own or with the chili. Very yummy. The bright red chili also adds to the flavour of the chicken. Hot and spicy and goes well with the chicken. 
  Overall, a good very good dish, if you are lucky enough to catch them at their best. But I remember, they may have been better previously before all the fame. But it could be me having over eager remembrance of the past. And one other thing, if you do order the side of vegetables, I think they use too much msg in them, especially the beans sprouts. Rating 4/6 Damn Good 

   How they make an oyster cake. First you have a ladle, and into this ladle, you put batter. After that, you put on the batter oyster, mince meat and prawn, with coriander. Next, you put more batter on the ladle to cover the ingredients, top it with some peanuts, then put the whole thing in hot oil. With the magic of frying, you get an Oyster Cake.

How to get there :-

Address
Maxwell Food Centre #01-05

Timing

9:00AM to 8:00PM. Closed on Sunday

How to Order :-

1) Go up to the stall and tell them how many you want
2) Price at $2 each
3) You will be given a package with the Oyster cake
4) Make payment
5) Find a seat and enjoy

    If the oyster cake is still warm, and then you have gotten it at the right time. If the insides are fully cooked and not runny with uncooked batter. If it is not too oily and soaking with oil. Then it is actually quite nice. It is savory and slightly oily (but what do you expect from something fried) and full of the oyster taste.

Overall not a bad snack, it can be abit oily and if everything is cooked well, then it is a nice snack. Rating 3/6 Tasty

    Another porridge review in the same article, you may ask..... well, if there can be 2 porridge stalls operating at the same food centre and both doing good business, then I say why not here. Hoe Kee Porridge is another porridge place in Maxwell Food Centre and they also serve the supper crowd on Friday and Saturday. 

How to get there :-

Address
Maxwell Food Centre #01-45

Timing

Mon to Thu: 6:30AM to 2:30PM
Fri to Sat: 6:30AM to 4:00AM
Closed on Sunday

How to Order :-

1) Go to the counter and place your order.
2) Decide on which item you want. Refer to the picture below for the price list

3) I have not tried the other items here, but I have tried their porridge.And their signature tofu. If you are hungry, you can also give it a try.

4) Make payment

5) Wait for them to make your dish. You can enjoy watching them prepare your dish.
6) After you received the dish, you find a table and enjoy

    Here is the porridge. As you can see in the picture, it is smoother than the previous one. I ordered the century egg porridge for $3.50. It is actually quite a big bowl and filled me up quite adequately. In the big bowl, there was porridge, with century egg and lean meat, deep fried shallots in oil.

   When you eat the porridge, you realise that it has already been seasoned. And it has been seasoned well. You just have to mix it up well and let it cool down alittle before you eat it. That is because, if you were paying attention while you were at the counter, they actually individually prepare the porridge as per order. That does not mean they cook it from scratch, but they have like a base porridge that has already been prepared previously and they scoop out as needed to make you individual porridge into pots which is heated until it boils, with your requested ingredients

Overall, the porridge is smooth and well seasoned, hot and filling, cheap and available if you want it for supper. Not a bad porridge. Rating 3.5/6 Better than Tasty

    This is a Wanton noodle stall at Maxwell Food Centre. I missed eating at this stall since their opening time is slighltly later than the other stalls that serve lunch at this Food Centre. Most stalls, if they serve the lunch crowd, will start operating their stall at maybe 11am or even 11.30am. I have came to this stall afew times and on different days around that time, and it was still not open. Then one day, after walking pass this stall earlier and no sign of life from the stall, I went to eat other food, then on the way out, I notice they were open. And I finally figure it out, they most likely only start operating their stall after noon (12pm) and keep selling until they sell out during dinner time.

How to get there :-

Address
Maxwell Food Centre #01-71

Timing

After 12pm and until they sell out during dinner time.

How to Order :-

1) Go join the end of the queue

2) Wait until you reach the from of the line

3) Decide if you want rice or noodles
4) Decide what type of meat you want or a mixture of which meats
5) Different combinations and prices can be referred to in the picture beside.

6) Place your order
7) Make payment
8) Wait for them to make your dish, then collect it
9) Find a seat and then enjoy

This place is called Fu Shun Shao La Mian Jia. They serve Hong Kong Style roast meats with either rice or noodles. I ordered the $3.50 Mixed meat noodles.

   The mixed meat noodles, consist of thing egg noodles in a soy sauce with blanched vegetables. The meats are char siew (Barbecue Pork) and Roast pork. The char siew (barbaque pork) is the Hong Kong or Malaysia style preparation. It is firstly not dyed red and it is barbaque until certain part of the other layer of the pork has caramelized and added a nice burnt and sweet flavour to the meat. The Roast pork is also well done and super crispy without being hard. The skin is crispy while the meat inside is still tender and juicy. 
   They give quite a big portion of noodles. And also a generous portion of meats. The noodles has a nice texture and goes very well with the meats. Only issue is that they do not give enough sauce for the noodles. And if you do not have enough sauce in the noodles, and eat just the noodles without any meat, then the noodles taste abit bland. Or maybe that is because the meat makes the noodles taste bland in comparison.  But either way, not enough sauce.

Overall, the meats by itself would have gotten a higher rating. But as a whole dish, together with the noodles, Rating 3.5 Better than Tasty

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Getting Loss is a YouTube channel and blog about food and places of interest in Singapore.  It is about not being too distracted by life and learn to take some time for getting loss and explore new things. Learn about yourself and others.

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