Ask a Singaporean concierge where to eat and they will not send you to the Michelin-stalled hawker centres. Those have queues. They send you, instead, to the ones they grew up on: Tiong Bahru Market upstairs for chwee kueh, Zion Riverside for hor fun, ABC Brickworks for the best char kway teow on the island.
The trick with hawker centres is timing. 11:30am — early lunch, shortest queues, hottest food. Carry cash in small notes; few stalls take cards. And always order drinks separately from the aunty pushing the cart — it is how she makes her living.
Three stalls to remember: 328 Katong Laksa (the original), Tian Tian Chicken Rice at Maxwell (still worth the fuss), and the unnamed fishball noodle stall on the second floor of Old Airport Road Food Centre. If you leave Singapore without eating at a hawker centre, you have not been to Singapore — you have only been to its airport.
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