Maxwell Food Market

A mere 15 minutes walk from Hong Lim Food Centre and you'll find yourself at Maxwell, home to some of the best hawker food in Singapore. Don't play play. On the over, you'll walk past Tong Heng, which sells really good egg tarts. They have some other stores around Singapore, but the quality at other stores are somehow lacklustre. This is the store to get egg tarts.

It is also close to The Loft, one of the new cafes that sprung up in Chinatown. They serve gorgeous baked goods at an affordable price.

Tian Tian Hainanese Chicken Rice (天天海南鸡饭)
No one comes to Maxwell without noticing the huge line outside Tian Tian. One of Singapore's most renowned chicken rice, and a healthy proportion of people queuing seems to be foreigners. Famous enough to represent Singapore's Chicken Rice against Gordon Ramsay in a cook-off, which Tian Tian came up on top. 

Tian Tian's chicken rice may be award-winning, but don't expect the staff wouldn't win any popularity award. I noted how unhelpful the staff is to customers on my previous visit, but on my most recent visit, I realised I understated how rude they are. They have a stuck-up, brusque attitude, and generally goes out of their way to be unhelpful. Even that guy whose only job is to scoop out bowls of rice and portion chili on a plastic bowl gives customers attitude.

Smooth and succulent chicken, but good luck if you want dark soya sauce. They hide the bottle on a shelf just out of your reach, and you have to endure the staff's snide little comments if you ask them for it. 

"Rice so fragrant, it can be eaten on its own", as Anthony Bourdain puts it. I didn't think their rice is extraordinary, just the usual chicken rice quality. Is it because of the sour experience with the extremely unhelpful staff? But even my dining companions who didn't come into contact with the staff didn't think the food is that good. No soup here either. 
Speaking of chicken rice...

Ah Tai Hainanese Chicken Rice
A disgruntled ex-cook from Tian Tian who deliberately set up shop just a few stores down from Tian Tian, which set off a big hoo-ha. Yes, we ordered rice and half a chicken from each store, and sat down to do a taste comparison. Ah Tai's chicken rice tastes identical to the real OG, which isn't much of a surprise, seeing that he has been working for Tian Tian for a couple of decades before the falling out. 

Still, the countless tourists thronging Maxwell don't usually buy from him, considering they came exclusively for Tian Tian Chicken. I guess it's just the locals who are in-the-know who patronise this stall. 

Danielfooddiary writes glowingly about this stall's helpful attitude. Hmm. Food for thought. 

Hainanese Curry Rice

Expect Chinese curry over rice, with fried chicken cutlet, vegetables and a fried egg, all for $3. Sinful, delicious and easy on the wallet. 

Xing Xing Tapioca Cake

The best tapioca cake I have ever had; I never liked tapioca cake until I had one of theirs, and now I'm hooked. It's softer than every other tapioca cake out there. Come early, because they usually get sold out by 1pm. 

Pro tip: buy a box ($5)! 

If tapioca cake isn't available, I buy the Kueh Kosui. But even the white thing below (I don't even remember what it's called...) that we bought on a whim is delicious, with a soft chewy mochi-like exterior. The white ones have ground peanut paste inside, and the yellow ones have shredded coconut. I've never had any that were as impressive as these. Now I'm in love with all of them, and I buy them all in great quantities. 

Kueh Kosui (top row)

Update: The Chinese mochi is otherwise known as 糯米糍 (luo mi ci)

Zhen Zhen Porridge

A stall with long lines every mealtime. Eating hot porridge in the sweltering Singapore heat isn't my idea of a good time, so it's not somewhere I patronise often. The last time I tried, I was impressed with their portion size. The bowl was so big, I couldn't finish it.