Changi Village Hawker Centre

A Review

Introduction
Changi Village Hawker Centre sits at the outermost edge of Singapore — geographically peripheral but culinarily central to the identity of the island’s hawker culture. It is the kind of food centre that rewards commitment: the journey to get here, by bus or car along the long straight road that hugs the coastline, is itself a kind of preparation, an appetite-building prelude to a meal that might include anything from silken Ipoh rice noodles at midnight to freshly made cendol at nine in the morning.
What follows is a comprehensive examination of all sixteen featured stalls — their dishes dissected for texture, hue, and flavour; their recipes reconstructed for the home cook; their cooking techniques explained in the detail that distinguishes replication from understanding. This is not a quick-reference guide. It is an invitation to know these dishes more fully.
The hawker centre is not merely a place to eat. It is a repository of culinary heritage, of family stories, of forty-year-old techniques that resist easy documentation. This document is an attempt — necessarily incomplete — to capture some of what makes Changi Village Hawker Centre worth the journey.

1. Weng Kee Ipoh Hor Fun
   Silken rice noodles and crispy fried chicken cloaked in a deep amber gravy
   Unit: #01-18/19 Hours: Mon–Fri 10:30am–11pm, Sat–Sun 8am–12am Tel: 6545 6425 Halal: Not halal-certified

Review & Dish Analysis
There is something disarmingly humble about a plate of Chicken Chop Hor Fun. The dish arrives without fanfare: a pale ivory mound of flat rice noodles — smooth, ribbon-like, and almost translucent at the edges — crowned with a golden slab of fried chicken, the whole composition draped in a glossy, mahogany-hued gravy that catches the fluorescent hawker-centre light like lacquered rosewood.
The noodles at Weng Kee are the foundation on which everything rests. Made in the Ipoh tradition, they are broader and silkier than the Cantonese variety, their surface so lightly starch-coated that they slip against one another in a pleasant, frictionless glide. The texture is one of yielding softness — never gummy, never waterlogged — and they carry the gravy’s flavour with quiet absorption, acting as a canvas rather than competing with it.
The gravy is the soul of this dish: dark, glossy, faintly tangy, with a soy-caramel depth that lingers at the back of the palate long after the bowl is empty.
The chicken chop itself is fried to a crack, its batter amber-gold and audibly crisp in the first few bites, giving way to moist, yielding flesh beneath. The contrast in texture — shattering exterior against tender interior, set against the slip of noodles and the viscous pull of gravy — is precisely engineered comfort food. Priced from $4, it is also a study in extraordinary value.
The stall’s colours tell a story of their own: deep mahogany gravy against the cream of noodles, the warm ochre of fried batter, a scattering of spring-onion jade-green. It is visual warmth on a plate.

Home Recipe
Ingredients (serves 2): 200g fresh flat rice noodles (hor fun), 2 chicken thighs (boneless), 2 tbsp light soy sauce, 1 tbsp dark soy sauce, 1 tbsp oyster sauce, 1 tsp sesame oil, 1 tsp sugar, 1 tbsp cornstarch (for gravy), 200ml chicken stock, 2 eggs (for batter), 80g plain flour, oil for frying, 1 tsp white pepper, 2 stalks spring onion (garnish).
For the batter: 80g plain flour, 1 egg, 120ml cold water, pinch of salt, 1/2 tsp baking powder.
Step-by-Step Cooking Instructions
Step 1 — Marinate the chicken: Score the thighs lightly, rub with 1 tbsp soy sauce, white pepper, and a pinch of salt. Rest for at least 30 minutes, ideally overnight in the refrigerator. The soy penetrates, adding umami depth and a subtle bronze hue to the finished fry.
Step 2 — Prepare the batter: Whisk flour, baking powder, and salt in a bowl. Beat the egg with cold water and pour into the dry mix. Stir until just combined — lumps are acceptable; overworking builds gluten, yielding a tough crust. The batter should coat a spoon in a thin, even veil.
Step 3 — Fry the chicken: Heat oil to 175°C. Dredge chicken in batter and lower gently into oil. Fry for 7–8 minutes, turning once, until deep golden. The Maillard reaction at this temperature delivers that characteristic amber crust and nutty aroma. Drain on rack, not paper, to preserve crispness.
Step 4 — Build the gravy: In a wok over medium heat, combine chicken stock, dark and light soy, oyster sauce, and sugar. Bring to a gentle simmer. Dissolve cornstarch in 2 tbsp cold water and stream into the simmering stock, stirring constantly. The colour deepens from chestnut to mahogany as starch gelatinises; the consistency should coat a spoon generously without pooling heavily.
Step 5 — Blanch the noodles: Separate noodles gently by hand. Dip briefly in hot water (not boiling — 70°C is ideal) for 30–45 seconds to warm through without further cooking. Drain and plate immediately.
Step 6 — Assemble: Arrange noodles in a shallow bowl, ladle gravy generously over the top, slice chicken diagonally (three or four cuts, exposing the white interior against the golden crust), and fan across the noodles. Finish with a scatter of finely sliced spring onion — their bright green a chromatic counterpoint to the deep amber of the gravy.

2. Changi V. Dessert House
   Playful shaved ice desserts with a military nod and a generous tropical soul
   Unit: #01-08 Hours: Thurs–Tue 11:30am–10:30pm Tel: — Halal: Not halal-certified

Review & Dish Analysis
Singapore’s hawker desserts occupy a unique climatic and cultural niche: they exist because the heat demands them. Changi V. Dessert House understands this implicitly. The stall’s signature Commando Dessert ($2.30) is an act of local wit — a bowl of shaved ice tinted softly in rouge hues, crowned with red tea jelly and longan, a gentle homage to the crimson berets of Hendon Camp’s Commandos nearby.
The shaved ice here is finely milled, closer to snow than to crushed cube — a powder-soft mound of pale ivory that compresses gently underfoot of a spoon, dissolving on the tongue in cool, sweet water. The red tea jelly provides textural contrast: firm, springy cubes with a faint tannin note, their ruby-burgundy colour bleeding softly into the surrounding ice as the bowl warms.
There is quiet poetry in a $2.30 dessert that makes you smile — the Commando Dessert is cheeky, cold, and precisely what Singapore’s humidity demands.
The longan, plump and milky-white against the ice’s ivory, offers bursts of floral sweetness — lychee’s more restrained cousin. The Durian Ice Kacang ($3) is the bolder sibling: the durian’s complex, sulphurous sweetness woven into the icy matrix creates a dessert of almost contradictory pleasures — simultaneously cooling and pungent, delicate in texture and aggressive in flavour.
Colour palette: the desserts here are pastel and jewel-toned simultaneously — soft pinks, cream whites, the amber of longan, the emerald of pandan jelly in the cendol version. They photograph beautifully, but more importantly, they cool you down in approximately four bites.

Home Recipe
Home recipe — Commando-inspired Shaved Ice (serves 2): 400g ice block (or 200g ice per serve), 4 tbsp red bean syrup or rose syrup, 100g red tea jelly (see below), 100g canned longan (drained), 4 tbsp evaporated milk, 2 tsp sugar syrup.
For the red tea jelly: brew 300ml strong black tea (Ceylon or Assam), dissolve 1 tsp agar-agar powder while warm. Pour into a shallow tray, cool to room temperature, then refrigerate 1 hour. Cut into 1cm cubes. The colour is a translucent deep garnet — beautiful suspended in ice.
Step-by-Step Cooking Instructions
Step 1 — Prepare the jelly in advance: Brew tea to strong concentration — 2 tea bags to 300ml water, steeped 5 minutes. While hot, add agar-agar and sugar, stirring until fully dissolved. Pour into a greased shallow tin to a depth of 1cm. Allow to set at room temperature, then refrigerate. Once firm, unmould and cube. The texture should be distinctly springy — not as firm as gelatine, but with body.
Step 2 — Shave the ice: For best results, use a block ice shaver. If unavailable, blend ice in short pulses to a coarse snow — avoid a fine powder initially. The ideal shaved ice has some structure to it, a slightly layered quality that holds toppings without immediately liquefying.
Step 3 — Assemble: Mound shaved ice into a deep bowl, pressing lightly to form a dome. Drizzle rose or red bean syrup over the ice — it seeps downward in pink rivulets, tinting the white mound. Arrange red tea jelly cubes and longan around the mound. Drizzle evaporated milk in a thin spiral from the peak. The milk’s ivory against the pink-tinted ice is the final visual flourish.
Step 4 — Serve immediately: Shaved ice desserts are aggressively time-sensitive. They should be eaten within three minutes of assembly at their optimum — the progression from firm mound to soft pool is pleasant but brief.

3. Makan Melaka Cendol
   Freshly made cendol steeped in Malaccan tradition — green, sweet, and unmistakably honest
   Unit: #01-2046 Hours: Daily 8am–8:30pm Tel: — Halal: Muslim-owned (not certified)

Review & Dish Analysis
Cendol is a dessert with the confidence of deep regional roots. Makan Melaka Cendol’s version stakes its claim clearly in its name: this is the Malaccan school, where gula melaka — the dense, treacly palm sugar from Malacca’s coconut palms — governs all sweetness decisions, and where the cendol strands themselves are made fresh daily rather than sourced pre-packaged.
Those strands are worth dwelling on. Freshly extruded cendol — made by pressing a dough of rice flour and pandan juice through a perforated press into cold water — has a quality utterly unlike its commercial counterpart. They are brighter green, the hue of young banana leaves in morning light, slightly firmer in the bite, with a clean pandan fragrance that fills the nose as the bowl is lifted. The pandan’s grassy, coconut-adjacent aroma is the defining olfactory signature of this dessert.
The gula melaka here is the decisive element: a dark, almost chocolatey sweetness that doesn’t so much coat the palate as colonise it, warm and round and deeply caramelised.
The cendol ($2) arrives in a bowl of crushed ice, coconut milk (thick, slightly saline from the cream’s natural fat), and a generous drizzle of liquid gula melaka — the colour of dark toffee, almost black at its centre, bleeding into amber at the edges. It is visually stunning in its contrast: the green strands, the ivory milk, the mahogany syrup, the white of the ice.
The optional durian variant amplifies everything — the fruit’s custard-yellow flesh laid over the bowl adds a third flavour dimension: sulphurous, sweet, almost fermented. The effect is polarising in the best possible way.
The stall’s kuihs — particularly the Putri Salat, with its violet-tinged blue pea flower glutinous rice layer and lemon-yellow coconut custard — are works of edible architecture deserving their own study.

Home Recipe
Ingredients for Cendol Melaka (serves 4): 120g rice flour, 30g green pea flour (or substitute cornstarch), 400ml pandan juice (from 15–20 pandan leaves blended with 400ml water, strained), 1/2 tsp salt, 1 litre crushed ice, 400ml thick coconut milk, 200g gula melaka, 100ml water.
For gula melaka syrup: break gula melaka into pieces, dissolve in 100ml water over low heat. Strain to remove impurities. The syrup should be pourable — roughly the consistency of warm honey — and a deep amber-brown.
Step-by-Step Cooking Instructions
Step 1 — Extract pandan juice: Blend pandan leaves with cold water until a vivid green liquid forms. Strain through muslin, pressing to extract maximum colour and fragrance. The juice should be the colour of freshly cut grass.
Step 2 — Cook the cendol dough: Whisk rice flour, pea flour, and salt with pandan juice until smooth. Cook over medium-low heat, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon, until the mixture thickens to a translucent, sticky paste that pulls away from the pan sides — approximately 8–10 minutes. The colour shifts from opaque jade-green to a more translucent viridian as the starch gelatinises.
Step 3 — Press and set: While hot, press the dough through a cendol mould or colander with 3–4mm holes directly into a bowl of cold water. The strands set immediately on contact with cold water, their green brightening in the chill. Refrigerate until needed — they keep for up to 4 hours.
Step 4 — Make gula melaka syrup: Combine gula melaka and water in a small saucepan. Heat gently, stirring, until fully dissolved. Simmer 2 minutes until slightly thickened. Cool to room temperature — it will thicken further as it cools. The syrup’s colour at this stage is a deep mahogany.
Step 5 — Assemble: Pack crushed ice into a deep bowl. Drain cendol strands and layer generously over ice. Pour coconut milk over the strands — the ivory liquid seeps between the green, ice-cold from contact. Drizzle gula melaka syrup liberally. The three elements should remain visually distinct but begin to meld at the edges — this interplay is the dessert’s defining character.
Step 6 — Serve at once: The ideal eating moment is the first sixty seconds, when the cendol strands are cold and firm, the coconut milk still distinct, and the gula melaka syrup still in concentrated ribbons before it diffuses. Eat quickly, and eat happily.

4. Ho Guan Satay Bee Hoon
   Forty years of hand-ground satay sauce on silken rice vermicelli — irreplaceable and irreplicable
   Unit: #01-61 Hours: Thurs–Sun (hours vary) Tel: — Halal: Not halal-certified

Review & Dish Analysis
There are dishes that cannot be replicated at home with any real fidelity, not because the recipe is secret, but because the recipe is time. Ho Guan Satay Bee Hoon represents forty years of accumulated muscle memory, of the same couple grinding the same spices, tending the same fire, developing the same sauce day after day until it has become something that resists easy description.
The satay sauce is the entire argument of this dish. Where most satay sauces in Singapore are peanut-forward to the point of bluntness — thick, sweet, monochromatic in their flavour — Ho Guan’s version has depth. The peanuts are freshly ground, their oils not yet oxidised, so the nuttiness is bright and almost green-fresh rather than the flat, dry peanut flavour of pre-ground commercial product. Layered beneath and through the peanut are dried spices — cumin, coriander, lemongrass, galangal — cooked long over open flame until their sharper notes round out into warmth.
This sauce is the colour of autumn earth — orange-terracotta at its edges, deepening to rust-red at the centre — and it coats the vermicelli in a way that feels almost generous, a sauce that doesn’t merely flavour but cloaks.
The bee hoon (rice vermicelli) is fine, white, and ghostly thin — a blank surface that the satay sauce transforms entirely. In texture it is soft but with a faint resilience, the individual strands remaining distinct beneath the sauce’s generous mantle. The result on the palate is simultaneously rich and light: the peanut fat coats, but the thin vermicelli means each mouthful is never heavy.
At $5, one plate is almost too much to finish alone — but finishing it alone is the correct approach. The sauce, once tasted, makes sharing feel like a moral failing.

Home Recipe
Ingredients for Satay Bee Hoon (serves 4): 400g dried rice vermicelli (soaked 20 minutes in cold water), 300g raw peanuts, 4 stalks lemongrass (white part), 3 shallots, 4 cloves garlic, 2cm galangal (fresh), 2 tsp ground coriander, 1 tsp ground cumin, 4 dried chillies (soaked), 2 tbsp tamarind paste (dissolved in 150ml water, strained), 2 tbsp palm sugar (or brown sugar), 400ml coconut milk, 2 tbsp cooking oil, salt to taste.
Accompaniments: tau pok (fried tofu puffs, halved), kangkong (water spinach, blanched), cockles (optional).
Step-by-Step Cooking Instructions
Step 1 — Dry-roast peanuts: In a dry wok over medium heat, roast raw peanuts, stirring constantly, until skins crack and the interior is a pale golden-brown — approximately 12–15 minutes. Cool and rub off skins. Blend to a coarse, slightly oily paste in a food processor. Do not over-process to a smooth butter — texture is essential.
Step 2 — Prepare the rempah (spice paste): In a blender, combine shallots, garlic, lemongrass (sliced), galangal, rehydrated dried chillies, and 2 tbsp water. Blend to a fine, fragrant paste. The colour at this stage is a vivid orange-red.
Step 3 — Fry the rempah: Heat oil in a wok over medium-high heat. Add rempah and fry, stirring constantly, until the paste darkens to a deep brick-red and the raw smell fully dissipates — approximately 10–12 minutes. Patience here is not optional. Rushing produces a raw, harsh sauce. The visual cue: the paste begins to release oil at its edges and the aroma shifts from sharp to sweet.
Step 4 — Build the satay sauce: Add ground coriander and cumin to the fried rempah, stir 30 seconds. Add peanut paste, stir to combine. Pour in coconut milk and tamarind water. Add palm sugar. Simmer on low heat, stirring regularly, for 20–25 minutes. The colour deepens to terracotta-brown; the sauce thickens to a consistency that falls in slow, heavy ribbons from a spoon.
Step 5 — Cook the vermicelli: Drain soaked vermicelli. Blanch in boiling water for 60–90 seconds. Drain immediately and rinse briefly with cold water to halt cooking. The noodles should be tender but retain slight resistance.
Step 6 — Assemble and serve: Plate vermicelli and ladle satay sauce generously — the sauce-to-noodle ratio should lean heavily toward sauce. Add tau pok, blanched kangkong, and optional cockles. Serve immediately, as the sauce continues to thicken as it cools.

5. Million Star Fried Banana
   Light-battered pisang goreng and sweet potato fries — an act of quiet perseverance
   Unit: #01-49 Hours: Tue, Sat–Sun 11am–4:30pm Tel: — Halal: Not halal-certified

Review & Dish Analysis
To eat at Million Star Fried Banana is to participate, however unknowingly, in a story of human resilience. The stall is now run single-handedly by a widow who lost both her son and husband within eighteen months. That context, once known, inflects every bite with something beyond flavour — there is an almost sacred ordinariness to the act of continuing to fry bananas and sweet potatoes for strangers, day after day, as a form of continuation.
The pisang goreng (fried banana) here is the anti-maximalist school of hawker frying. The batter is thin — translucently so — pressed close to the banana’s contours rather than puffed into a thick shell. The result is a crisp exterior that shames the bloated commercial versions: the colour is a light, even gold, the texture a delicate shatter rather than a doughy crunch, the banana’s fragrance rising through the batter rather than being suppressed by it.
Bite through the batter and the banana yields: warm, almost jammy at the centre, its sweetness concentrated by the frying heat, the flesh the colour of saffron against the pale gold of the crust.
The sweet potato fries ($3) are the surprise. Cut thick, their batter slightly sturdier to match the denser flesh, they offer a different textural register: a firmer exterior giving way to the sweet, starchy softness of orange-fleshed sweet potato. The natural sugars caramelise at the edges of each piece, adding complexity.
The taro ($1) is the dark horse. Its grey-purple interior, starchy and faintly dry on its own, transforms under the fryer’s heat into something with genuine character — savoury-sweet, with the subtle floral undertone that taro carries when cooked gently. The batter on the taro is noticeably crisper than on the banana, appropriate to the denser flesh beneath.

Home Recipe
Ingredients for Light-Batter Pisang Goreng (serves 3–4): 5 ripe pisang raja or pisang emas bananas (halved lengthwise), 100g rice flour, 30g plain flour, 1/2 tsp turmeric powder, 1/4 tsp salt, 1/4 tsp baking powder, 180ml ice-cold sparkling water (or cold plain water), oil for deep frying.
The use of rice flour is the critical technique: it produces a lighter, crispier batter than all-purpose flour because rice flour contains no gluten and absorbs less fat during frying.
Step-by-Step Cooking Instructions
Step 1 — Prepare bananas: Peel and halve bananas lengthwise. Pat dry with kitchen paper — surface moisture is the enemy of batter adhesion and crispness.
Step 2 — Make the batter: Sift rice flour, plain flour, turmeric, baking powder, and salt into a cold bowl. The turmeric is essential for colour — it gives the batter its characteristic pale amber-gold rather than white. Pour cold sparkling water in gradually, stirring with chopsticks (not a whisk — chopsticks create less gluten). The batter should be thin, roughly the consistency of single cream. Lumps are acceptable. Keep the batter cold — warm batter produces a thick, doughy crust.
Step 3 — Heat the oil: Fill a wok with oil to a depth of 8cm. Heat to 170°C — a wooden chopstick dipped in should produce a steady stream of small bubbles immediately. At this temperature the batter sets before it absorbs significant oil, producing lightness.
Step 4 — Fry: Dip banana halves in batter, letting excess drip off — a thin coating is the goal. Lower gently into oil. Fry in batches to avoid temperature drop. After 2 minutes, the underside should be set and pale gold; flip and fry a further 2–3 minutes until uniformly golden. The colour should be warm amber-gold, not deep brown.
Step 5 — Drain and serve immediately: Rest briefly on a wire rack. Serve within 5 minutes — the batter begins to lose its crispness as steam from the banana migrates outward, softening the crust from within. The ideal pisang goreng has a window of perfection roughly 3–8 minutes after frying.

6. Charlie’s Corner
   Generational Hainanese-Western fish and chips, cold beer, and corner-of-the-world contentment
   Unit: #01-70 Hours: Tue–Fri 2:30pm–11pm, Sat–Sun 12:30pm–11pm Tel: 6543 1754 Halal: Not halal-certified

Review & Dish Analysis
Hainanese-Western cuisine is one of Singapore’s most endearing culinary inventions — the product of Hainanese immigrants who worked as cooks in colonial households and restaurants, absorbing European techniques and recasting them through a Southeast Asian sensibility. Charlie’s Corner is a direct inheritor of this tradition, its fish and chips made from a family recipe passed through generations.
The Fish & Chips ($12.90) arrives as a generous slab of fish encased in batter, accompanied by chips that are — in the Hainanese-Western tradition — slightly thicker and crispier than their British pub counterparts, more substantial and less greasy. The fish itself is flaky and white within, the flakes separating in large, moist ribbons when pulled with a fork.
The batter at Charlie’s Corner is the result of a recipe kept within a family for generations: it is golden in precisely the shade of old brass, slightly uneven in its thickness as hand-battered food tends to be, with a crunch that is satisfying rather than aggressive.
The grilled variant ($12.90) offers a different chromatic and textural experience: the fish’s exterior is lightly charred along its ridges, the grill marks visible in alternating mahogany stripes across a pale, ivory-white flesh. The flavour profile shifts accordingly — smoky, leaner, with the fish’s natural sweetness more exposed without the batter’s richness.
The setting amplifies the food: a corner stall, outdoor tables, the proximity of Changi Village’s low-rise tranquillity and sea air. Charlie’s Corner is best experienced late afternoon with a cold beer — the kind of meal that feels suspended slightly outside ordinary time.

Home Recipe
Ingredients for Hainanese-style Fish & Chips (serves 2): 2 fillets (600g total) of batang (Spanish mackerel) or snapper, 120g self-raising flour, 30g rice flour, 1 egg, 200ml cold beer (or sparkling water), 1/2 tsp white pepper, 1 tsp salt, 1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce, oil for deep frying.
Chips: 4 medium russet potatoes, 2 tbsp cornstarch, 1 tsp salt, oil for frying.
Hainanese-style brown sauce: 2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce, 1 tbsp tomato ketchup, 1 tbsp dark soy sauce, 1 tsp sugar, 100ml water, 1 tsp cornstarch dissolved in 1 tbsp water.
Step-by-Step Cooking Instructions
Step 1 — Prepare chips: Peel and cut potatoes into 1cm batons. Soak in cold water for 30 minutes to remove surface starch — this is the step that makes the difference between limp and crisp chips. Drain, dry thoroughly. Toss with cornstarch. First fry at 150°C for 5 minutes until cooked through but not coloured. Drain and cool. Second fry at 190°C for 3–4 minutes until deep golden and crisp. The double-fry method is essential: the first fry cooks the interior; the second crisps the exterior.
Step 2 — Prepare the batter: Combine self-raising flour, rice flour, white pepper, and salt. Make a well in the centre. Whisk egg with cold beer and pour into the well. Mix until just combined. The batter should be thick enough to coat the fish without running off entirely, but not so thick it becomes doughy. Refrigerate 15 minutes.
Step 3 — Season and batter the fish: Pat fillets dry, season with Worcestershire sauce and white pepper. Allow to sit 10 minutes. Dust lightly with plain flour (this helps batter adhere), then dip in cold batter.
Step 4 — Fry: Heat oil to 180°C. Lower battered fish gently — avoid splashing. Fry 4–5 minutes, turning once, until the batter is uniformly brass-gold. The fish flakes when gently pressed at its thickest point — this is the doneness indicator.
Step 5 — Brown sauce: Combine Worcestershire sauce, ketchup, dark soy, sugar, and water in a small saucepan. Simmer 2 minutes. Add cornstarch slurry, stir until thickened and glossy. The sauce should be a deep, warm brown — the colour of strong tea.
Step 6 — Plate: Fish on one side, chips mounded beside it, brown sauce in a small bowl (never poured directly — this softens the batter). A wedge of lemon completes the picture.

7. Amigo
   Rival hor fun done right — tender chicken, dark gravy, and the best chilli in the house
   Unit: #01-34 Hours: Mon, Wed–Sat 11am–8pm, Sun 9am–7pm Tel: — Halal: Not halal-certified

Review & Dish Analysis
Where Weng Kee is the institution, Amigo is the spirited challenger — and the Changi Village Hawker Centre is large enough and honest enough to accommodate both. The Chicken Chop Hor Fun here ($4/$5) approaches the same dish from a slightly different angle: the chicken is notably tender, the batter somewhat thinner, and the gravy’s flavour profile marginally less tangy and more robustly savoury than its neighbour’s.
The hor fun noodles are broad and silken in the Ipoh tradition, their surface smooth and cool to the tongue on first contact before the gravy’s warmth begins to permeate. The dark gravy — starch-thickened, soy-based, coloured to a rich chocolate-brown — has an almost lacquered quality when first ladled, its sheen catching the light.
Ask for chilli. The house chilli here changes the dish from very good to something that demands a return visit — bright, acidic heat that cuts through the gravy’s richness and makes every element snap into focus.
The wider menu — Fishball Noodles and Laksa from $4 — suggests a kitchen with range, but the hor fun is the reason to visit Amigo specifically. The laksa is worth noting: the broth is coconut-rich and brick-orange in colour, with the characteristic heat of dried chilli and the sweetness of coconut cream, a creditable version of a dish that is very easy to do badly.
The stall’s understated exterior conceals a kitchen that takes its limited menu with genuine seriousness. In a hawker culture that sometimes rewards novelty over craft, Amigo is refreshingly committed to doing a few things well.

Home Recipe
Note: For Chicken Chop Hor Fun, refer to the recipe under Weng Kee Ipoh Hor Fun (Stall 1) — the base technique is the same. What distinguishes Amigo is the chilli condiment, which is made separately and served on the side.
House-style Hawker Chilli (makes 1 small bowl): 8 red chillies (seeds removed for milder heat), 4 bird’s eye chillies (keep seeds), 3 cloves garlic, 2cm ginger, 2 tbsp rice vinegar, 1 tbsp sugar, 1 tsp salt, 2 tbsp water.
Step-by-Step Cooking Instructions
Step 1 — Blend the chilli: Combine all ingredients in a blender. Pulse to a coarse paste rather than a smooth puree — texture is part of the condiment’s character. The colour should be a vivid, punchy red-orange.
Step 2 — Cook briefly: In a small saucepan over medium heat, cook the chilli paste with 1 tbsp oil for 3–4 minutes, stirring. The raw garlic and ginger notes mellow slightly; the colour deepens to a brick-red. The aroma shifts from sharp to rounded.
Step 3 — Season and cool: Add rice vinegar and sugar. Stir and cook 1 more minute. Remove from heat. The balance to aim for: heat-forward, with the acid of vinegar cutting through and the sugar rounding the sharp edges. Cool to room temperature. Store in a sealed jar; improves overnight.
Step 4 — Deploy: Add a spoonful to the side of the hor fun plate just before eating. Do not stir in immediately — allow the contrast of clean white porcelain/dark gravy against the vivid red chilli to register visually before combining.

8. Guang Xing Original Taste Fish Head Bee Hoon
   A powerfully flavoured fish soup and a bee hoon fried in black bean or sambal — elemental and excellent
   Unit: #01-31 Hours: Tue–Sun 11:30am–4pm Tel: 9186 9313 Halal: Not halal-certified

Review & Dish Analysis
Fish head bee hoon is a dish of contrasts held in suspension: the thick, cloudy, ivory-white of a milky fish stock against the translucent white of bee hoon noodles, the flaking white flesh of the fish against the firm, slightly resistant texture of the vermicelli. Guang Xing does this well, but the real statement here is the fried variant.
The Fish Head Fried Bee Hoon ($6–$10) is the more characterful dish — bee hoon fried in either black bean sauce or sambal, depending on when you arrive and what the owner has opted for that sitting. The ambiguity is part of the appeal. The black bean variant produces noodles stained a deep, earthy brown, their surface slightly tacky with the fermented bean’s savoury umami. The sambal version — brick-red, oily, fragrant with shrimp paste and chilli — is a bolder proposition entirely.
The fish in the soup ($5–$10) disintegrates at the merest suggestion of a spoon: the flesh is impossibly moist, its natural sweetness concentrated by long poaching in a stock that has been cooked until it turns opaque and almost creamy in texture.
The broth’s milkiness is achieved through aggressive boiling of the fish bones — the collagen and fat emulsify into the water, creating a soup that appears and tastes richer than its ingredients might suggest. The colour is the cloudy, warm ivory of steamed milk, dotted with chopped spring onion.
Texturally, the sliced fish offers large, clean flakes that melt rather than chew — a prized quality in fish soup cookery that speaks to freshness and correct technique.

Home Recipe
Ingredients for Milky Fish Head Soup with Bee Hoon (serves 4): 1 large fish head (snapper or garoupa), split. For stock: fish bones and head, 2 tbsp oil, 5 slices ginger, 3 cloves garlic, 1.5 litres water. For soup: 200g firm tofu (cut in 3cm cubes), 200g dried rice vermicelli (soaked), 2 stalks spring onion, 4 slices ginger, white pepper, sesame oil, salt, evaporated milk (2 tbsp, optional — amplifies milkiness).
Step-by-Step Cooking Instructions
Step 1 — Make the stock: Heat oil in a large pot. Fry ginger and garlic until fragrant and lightly golden. Add fish bones and head, fry 3–4 minutes, turning, until the flesh just begins to colour. This initial frying step is crucial — it caramelises surface proteins and builds the foundational flavour. Add cold water and bring to a vigorous boil. The rapid boiling is what creates the milky emulsification — do not reduce to a simmer at this stage. Boil hard for 15–20 minutes until the stock is opaque white.
Step 2 — Add tofu and season: Reduce to a medium simmer. Add tofu. Season with salt and white pepper. If using evaporated milk, add now — it deepens the creamy colour and rounds the flavour. The soup’s colour should be a warm, opaque ivory.
Step 3 — Cook the vermicelli: Soak dried bee hoon in cold water for 20 minutes. Drain. Add to the simmering soup 3 minutes before serving. The noodles absorb the stock as they cook — this is preferable to cooking separately, as the noodles take on the soup’s flavour.
Step 4 — Plate: Ladle soup, vermicelli, and tofu into deep bowls. Add spring onion (finely sliced). Drizzle sesame oil — it pools in amber droplets on the white surface. Serve with sambal on the side for those who want heat.

9. Kampong Lor Mee
   24-hour thick gravy noodles — the hawker centre’s most reliable night-owl companion
   Unit: #01-46 Hours: Daily 24hrs Tel: — Halal: Not halal-certified

Review & Dish Analysis
Lor mee — braised noodles in a thick, starchy, vinegar-tinged gravy — is comfort food at its most unambiguous. It is not a delicate dish; it does not aspire to refinement. What it offers is warmth, substance, and a certain assertive hospitality that is very Singaporean.
Kampong Lor Mee’s Chicken Cutlet Lor Mee ($4) is the stall’s flagship, and it earns that status. The lor gravy here is a deep, mahogany-brown liquid thickened with cornstarch until it flows in slow, heavy ribbons — slow enough to be almost reluctant, fast enough to pool generously around the noodles rather than sitting atop them like concrete.
The gravy’s character is defined by three registers: the soy base’s umami depth, the vinegar’s bright acidic lift — added to taste at the table — and the five-spice’s warm, liquorice-adjacent complexity. Together they create something that is simultaneously heavy and lively.
The chicken cutlet is fried separately: thin, breaded in breadcrumbs rather than batter, its exterior a pale golden brown with a fine, even crumb. Sliced into strips across the plate, it provides both textural contrast — the crisp coating against the soft, braised noodles — and protein substance.
The Yam Lor Mee ($3.50) is the dark horse: cubes of fried yam added to the base bowl add a third textural element, their exterior crisped but their interior collapsed into a soft, purple-grey starchiness that absorbs the gravy eagerly.
The 24-hour operation is not incidental to the stall’s appeal — it is central to it. Lor mee at 2am, when the night bus has dropped you at Changi Village and the hawker centre’s lights are still blazing, is a different experience from lor mee at noon. The emptiness amplifies the dish’s generosity.

Home Recipe
Ingredients for Kampong-style Lor Mee (serves 4): 400g fresh yellow noodles (or fresh flat noodles), 300g braised pork belly (see below), 4 hard-boiled eggs (halved), 200g tau pok (fried tofu puffs), 8 pieces ngoh hiang (five-spice pork rolls, sliced — optional).
For the lor gravy: 800ml pork bone stock (or chicken stock), 2 tbsp dark soy sauce, 3 tbsp light soy sauce, 2 tbsp oyster sauce, 1 tsp five-spice powder, 1 tbsp sugar, 4 tbsp cornstarch dissolved in 5 tbsp cold water, white pepper to taste.
Condiments: rice vinegar (for table), minced garlic in oil, chilli sauce.
Step-by-Step Cooking Instructions
Step 1 — Braise pork belly: Cut pork belly into 3cm cubes. Blanch in boiling water 3 minutes, drain. In a pot, combine 2 tbsp dark soy, 1 tbsp five-spice, 1 star anise, 300ml water, sugar. Add pork. Braise covered on low heat for 45 minutes until tender. The braising liquid will reduce to a sticky, mahogany glaze.
Step 2 — Build the lor gravy: Bring stock to a simmer. Add dark soy, light soy, oyster sauce, five-spice, and sugar. Taste — the balance should be savoury and slightly sweet, with five-spice providing aromatic warmth. Stream in cornstarch slurry slowly, stirring constantly. The gravy thickens almost immediately; stop adding slurry when it coats a spoon heavily but still pours.
Step 3 — Blanch noodles: Cook fresh noodles in boiling water 1–2 minutes. Drain. Portion into serving bowls.
Step 4 — Assemble: Ladle hot gravy generously over noodles. Add braised pork, tau pok, halved egg. The egg yolk, when broken into the gravy, creates swirls of golden-yellow against the mahogany — visually striking and practically useful, the yolk further enriching the gravy.
Step 5 — Serve with condiments: Rice vinegar is essential — a splash added at the table brightens the entire bowl, cutting the gravy’s richness. Minced garlic provides a sharp, pungent counterpoint. The chilli sauce adds heat. The combination of condiments transforms the dish from monochrome to complex.

10. Jason’s Place
    BBQ chicken wings, satay, and the singular pleasure of Pork Belly Satay with its caramelised exterior
    Unit: #01-66 Hours: Thurs–Tue 12pm–9pm Tel: 8100 8823 Halal: Not halal-certified

Review & Dish Analysis
Jason’s Place is where Changi Village Hawker Centre most clearly reveals its evening identity. The scent of charcoal and caramelising chicken fat drifts through the food centre from mid-afternoon, a beckoning that is almost impossible to resist.
The BBQ Chicken Wing ($1.40 per piece) is the crowd-pleaser: skin charred in places to a deep, almost black mahogany, the flesh beneath juicy and seasoned with a soy-and-spice marinade that has had time to penetrate. The char is not accidental — it is managed, the wings turned at precisely the right moment to achieve blackening without bitterness.
The Pork Belly Satay ($1.50 per piece) is the revelation. The exterior is caramelised to a glossy, amber-toffee sheen; beneath, the belly’s fat has rendered to a quivering, translucent layer that melts before it can be properly chewed.
Standard satay — chicken and mutton at $0.70 per piece — is executed with care. The chicken satay is pale gold on the exterior, properly charred at the edges, with moist, slightly sweet meat inside. The mutton version carries the characteristic gamey depth of the meat, mellowed by the marinade’s turmeric and lemongrass.
The peanut dipping sauce here is more straightforward than Ho Guan’s complex version — thicker, sweeter, aimed at complement rather than competition. The ketupat (rice compressed into diamond-shaped leaf parcels) and compressed cucumber slices round out each serving, offering textural and flavour contrast to the richness of the grilled meats.
The visual drama of Jason’s Place is considerable: the grill glowing amber in the evening light, the skewers arranged in rows across the grate, wisps of smoke rising in the still air of the food centre.

Home Recipe
Ingredients for Pork Belly Satay (makes approximately 20 skewers): 500g pork belly (skin on), sliced into 2cm pieces. Marinade: 2 tbsp sweet soy sauce (kecap manis), 1 tbsp light soy sauce, 1 tsp turmeric powder, 2 tsp ground coriander, 1 tsp ground cumin, 2 tbsp palm sugar (grated), 3 shallots (minced), 2 stalks lemongrass (white part, minced), 1 tbsp cooking oil.
You will need: 20 bamboo skewers (soaked in cold water 30 minutes to prevent burning).
Step-by-Step Cooking Instructions
Step 1 — Prepare and marinate: Score the pork belly pieces lightly. Combine all marinade ingredients and mix thoroughly. Toss pork belly in marinade, coating all surfaces. Refrigerate minimum 4 hours, ideally overnight. The palm sugar is essential for caramelisation — it creates the characteristic gloss on the exterior.
Step 2 — Skewer: Thread 2–3 pieces of pork belly per skewer, keeping the skin to one side so it faces the heat directly on initial placement. The pieces should be compact but not compressed — airflow around each piece promotes even cooking.
Step 3 — Grill over charcoal (preferred) or a very hot grill pan: Place skewers skin-side down first. Cook 3 minutes without moving — this initiates the caramelisation of the skin’s sugars. Turn and cook a further 3–4 minutes. The skin should be deep amber to mahogany, with blackening at the extreme edges. The fat should be visibly translucent and slightly rendered.
Step 4 — The caramelisation window: In the final 90 seconds, baste with additional kecap manis and hold the skewers directly over the highest heat. The sugar hits the grill and flares briefly — this is correct and desired. The baste creates a final lacquer of glossy, sticky sweetness.
Step 5 — Rest and serve: Allow 2 minutes rest before serving. The interior fat continues to render slightly off the heat. Serve with peanut sauce, cucumber slices, and ketupat.

11. International Muslim Food Stall Nasi Lemak
    The makcik’s legendary sambal and coconut rice — the dish Changi Village is famous for
    Unit: #01-03 Hours: Mon 6pm–11pm, Tue/Thurs–Fri 7am–2pm & 6pm–12am, Wed 6am–2pm & 6pm–12am, Sat 7am–2pm, Sun 5pm–11pm Tel: 8400 6882 Halal: Halal-certified

Review & Dish Analysis
Nasi lemak is Singapore’s most contested comfort dish — every hawker has an opinion, every family a loyalty, and every makcik a recipe passed down through tacit transmission. International Muslim Food Stall’s version earns its reputation on the strength of two things: the fragrance of the coconut rice and the character of the sambal chilli.
The coconut rice ($4 Chicken Set) arrives as a compact mound: white grains of long rice cooked in coconut milk and pandan, the surface glistening faintly with coconut cream. The fragrance rises before the fork reaches the plate — coconut milk’s gentle sweetness, pandan’s grassy warmth, and the underlying nuttiness of perfectly cooked rice. The colour is the purest ivory, undyed, honest.
The sambal is the soul of this plate and the reason people travel to this corner of Singapore. It is brick-red, slightly sweet, deeply savoury, with a slow-building heat that accumulates rather than attacks — the kind of sambal that makes you reach for more even as your forehead begins to dampen.
The fried chicken — golden-brown, its skin puffed and blistered from the oil — provides the main protein event. The fried ikan billis (anchovies) are tiny, crunchy, their saltiness providing contrast to the rice’s sweetness. The fried egg has a golden yolk and lace-edged white; the cucumber slices are a cool, green counterpoint.
The stall’s irregular hours — a feature, not a bug of the hawker experience — mean that to eat here requires planning or luck. The Chicken Set at $4 is, by any objective measure, remarkable value for what it delivers.
This plate is the chromatic argument for nasi lemak’s visual appeal: the ivory of the rice, the brick-red of the sambal, the golden-brown of fried chicken, the dark, almost black of ikan billis, the pale green of cucumber, the warm orange of egg yolk. It is a complete palette on a plate.

Home Recipe
Ingredients for Nasi Lemak (serves 4): For the rice: 400g jasmine rice (rinsed), 300ml coconut milk, 200ml water, 3 pandan leaves (knotted), 1 tsp salt.
For the sambal: 15 dried chillies (soaked, seeds partially removed), 5 red chillies, 6 shallots, 3 cloves garlic, 1 tsp dried shrimp paste (belacan, toasted), 2 tbsp tamarind paste dissolved in 100ml water (strained), 3 tbsp palm sugar, 2 tbsp cooking oil, 1 small onion (sliced into rings), salt to taste.
Accompaniments: fried egg, fried chicken, ikan billis, cucumber slices.
Step-by-Step Cooking Instructions
Step 1 — Cook the coconut rice: Combine rinsed rice, coconut milk, water, pandan, and salt in a rice cooker or pot. Cook until all liquid is absorbed. If using a pot, bring to a boil, then cover and reduce to lowest heat for 15 minutes. Remove pandan before serving. The rice should be slightly glossy from the coconut cream, the grains separate but tender.
Step 2 — Toast the belacan: Wrap dried shrimp paste in foil. Toast in a dry pan over medium heat 2 minutes per side, or hold with tongs over a gas flame briefly. The smell will be pungent — this is correct. The paste darkens and its flavour mellows from raw and sharp to deep and rounded.
Step 3 — Make the sambal rempah: Blend soaked dried chillies, fresh chillies, shallots, garlic, and toasted belacan with minimal water to a smooth, deep brick-red paste.
Step 4 — Fry the sambal: Heat oil in a wok over medium heat. Add chilli paste. Fry, stirring constantly, until the oil separates and the paste darkens from bright red to a deep brick-red — 15–20 minutes. Add tamarind water, palm sugar, and salt. The colour shifts to a deeper, almost mahogany red as the tamarind’s acid reacts with the paste. Cook a further 10 minutes. Add sliced onion rings in the final 5 minutes — they should remain slightly firm.
Step 5 — Plate: Mould rice into a tight dome using a small bowl. Unmould onto a plate. Arrange accompaniments around it. Sambal goes at the side — never on top of the rice, which would compromise the rice’s texture. The arrangement should be deliberate: each element distinct, the sambal’s vivid red as a counterpoint anchor to the ivory rice.

12. Kun Kee Fried Oyster
    Generous, plump orh luak and the carrot cake that knows exactly what it is
    Unit: #01-47 Hours: Daily 11am–8pm Tel: — Halal: Not halal-certified

Review & Dish Analysis
Orh luak — fried oyster omelette — is one of the few hawker dishes where freshness is not merely preferable but definitional. A stale oyster renders the dish inedible; a fresh one elevates it to something that justifies every element of effort required to visit Changi Village.
Kun Kee’s version ($5) uses oysters that are plump, yielding, and notably without the fishiness that betrays inferior product. Their colour — a translucent, slate-grey shading to pewter — is embedded within an omelette matrix of egg and rice flour batter, the whole mass fried until the exterior is crisped at the edges to a light amber while the interior remains somewhat custardy and yielding.
The textural experience of orh luak at Kun Kee is one of deliberate contrast: the shatter of the crisped edge against the soft, almost gelatinous interior, the firm burst of fresh oyster, the yielding egg — four distinct textures in a single forkful.
The dish arrives glistening — the egg and flour matrix reflecting the light in a sheen of pale gold and amber. The oysters themselves, partially visible through the egg layer, provide visual punctuation: dark against pale, curved against flat, organic against the more regular structure of the set omelette.
The sambal condiment served alongside is a crucial element of the eating experience. Its sharp heat cuts through the omelette’s inherent richness, and its acidity provides contrast to the oysters’ brine. Without it, the dish is pleasant; with it, it is complete.
The White Carrot Cake (from $3) is the stall’s other claim — steamed radish cake cubes fried in egg, spring onion, and soy. The exterior of each cube is lightly crisped and pale golden; the interior remains soft, almost chewy, with the subtle sweetness of turnip. In white form (versus black, which uses sweet soy) it is clean, savoury, and honest.

Home Recipe
Ingredients for Orh Luak — Fried Oyster Omelette (serves 2): 200g fresh oysters (shucked), 3 eggs, 3 tbsp rice flour, 1 tbsp tapioca flour, 80ml water, 1 tbsp fish sauce, 1 tsp sesame oil, 2 tbsp lard or cooking oil, 2 stalks spring onion (sliced), fresh coriander (garnish), sambal belacan to serve.
The combination of rice flour and tapioca flour is the technical key: rice flour provides structure, tapioca flour provides the characteristic slightly chewy, gelatinous interior texture that distinguishes a great orh luak from a merely good egg dish.
Step-by-Step Cooking Instructions
Step 1 — Prepare the batter: Whisk rice flour, tapioca flour, and water until smooth. Add fish sauce and sesame oil. The batter should be thin — almost watery — with a faint amber colour from the fish sauce.
Step 2 — Season the oysters: Pat oysters dry (excess moisture prevents crisping). Season with a pinch of white pepper. Handle gently — oysters bruise easily.
Step 3 — Heat the wok aggressively: Use the highest possible heat. Add lard or oil and allow it to smoke. This is not a dish to cook on gentle heat — the orh luak requires intense heat to crisp the edges and set the base before the interior overcooks.
Step 4 — Pour and fry: Pour batter into the hot wok and spread quickly. Immediately add oysters, distributing evenly. The batter should set at the edges immediately upon contact, turning pale and beginning to colour. Allow to cook undisturbed 2 minutes.
Step 5 — Add eggs and fold: Beat eggs and pour over the semi-set batter-oyster base. Do not scramble — allow the egg to set in pools and layers. Using a spatula, fold sections of the omelette over themselves, creating a rough, rustic form with contrasting zones of crisped exterior and soft interior. The colour at this stage: deep amber at the crisped edges, pale gold where the egg has just set.
Step 6 — Finish with spring onion: Scatter sliced spring onion in the final 30 seconds of cooking — they should wilt but retain their green. Slide onto a plate. The orh luak will continue cooking slightly from residual heat; serve immediately. Garnish with coriander and serve sambal alongside.

13. Changi Village Fried Hokkien Mee
    The original — 24-hour prawn-scented noodles and the zhap that defines the dish
    Unit: #01-53 Hours: Daily 24h Tel: — Halal: Not halal-certified

Review & Dish Analysis
There is a meaningful difference, often invisible to the casual observer, between the original outlet of a famous dish and all subsequent branches. The original carries accumulated technique, a relationship with specific suppliers, the physical memory of the wok used ten thousand times in the same movements. Changi Village Fried Hokkien Mee is — unusually — the original of what is now a multi-location name.
Hokkien mee exists in two regional schools: the Singapore version — wet, braised in prawn stock, the noodles soft and sauce-laden — and the Malaysian version, drier and darker. Changi Village’s stall is firmly in the Singapore school, and executed with the confidence of an originator.
The zhap — the prawn-infused braising liquid that permeates both the yellow noodles and the white bee hoon — is the dish’s entire argument: it carries the concentrated ocean sweetness of prawn shells cooked long and hard, the smokiness of a well-seasoned wok, and a fat-richness from the lard that is frankly irreplaceable.
The noodles arrive as a yellowish mass — the yellow noodles slightly alkaline, the bee hoon white and finer — their surfaces glistening with the zhap’s fat content. Draped across them are the seafood components: pink curled prawns, ivory squid rings with their slightly rubbery resistance, slices of braised pork belly.
Texturally, the dish is a study in soft contrasts: the yellow noodles yield slightly to the bite, the bee hoon is finer and more delicate, the prawns are firm, the squid chewy in the manner of properly cooked cephalopod (not overcooked to rubbery unpleasantness), and the pork belly is the richest element — braised soft but retaining its layers.
At $5, $6, or $8, you are buying the same dish in increasing quantity. The $8 portion is the most generous expression of a generous dish.

Home Recipe
Ingredients for Singapore Hokkien Mee (serves 4): 300g fresh yellow noodles, 200g rice vermicelli (soaked 15 minutes), 300g medium prawns (shell on), 200g squid (cleaned, scored and cut), 150g pork belly (braised and sliced), 4 eggs, 4 cloves garlic (minced), 2 tbsp lard (or cooking oil), 2 stalks spring onion.
For the prawn stock (essential): Shells and heads from prawns, 1.2 litres water, 1 tsp salt. Simmer shells and heads in water 20 minutes, strain. This stock is the zhap’s foundation — do not substitute.
For the zhap sauce: 500ml prawn stock, 2 tbsp fish sauce, 1 tbsp oyster sauce, white pepper, 2 tbsp cornstarch dissolved in 3 tbsp water.
Step-by-Step Cooking Instructions
Step 1 — Make prawn stock: Peel prawns, reserving shells and heads. In a pot, heat 1 tbsp oil. Fry shells and heads until they turn brilliant orange — this colour transformation accompanies the release of the shells’ fat-soluble flavour compounds. Add water and boil 20 minutes. Strain and reserve. The resulting stock is a vivid orange-pink liquid of extraordinary fragrance.
Step 2 — Prepare the zhap sauce: Combine 500ml prawn stock, fish sauce, oyster sauce, and white pepper. Heat to a simmer. Add cornstarch slurry and stir — the sauce thickens slightly and becomes glossy.
Step 3 — Wok setup: Heat wok to maximum temperature. Add lard — the smoke point of lard is high, and it contributes flavour that vegetable oil cannot replicate. Add garlic and fry until golden (approximately 20 seconds at this heat).
Step 4 — Fry the seafood: Add prawns in a single layer. Allow to sear undisturbed 45 seconds, then toss. Add squid. The prawns turn from grey-pink to brilliant orange; the squid curls. Remove and set aside.
Step 5 — Fry the noodles: Add yellow noodles and bee hoon to the wok. Spread in a thin, even layer. Allow to char slightly at the base — this is the wok hei (breath of the wok) that makes street-cooked hokkien mee unmistakeable. Toss after 90 seconds.
Step 6 — Add zhap and eggs: Pour zhap sauce over noodles. Add eggs and stir to scramble through the noodles. The eggs cook rapidly in the hot, sauce-laden mass, contributing richness and body. Return seafood and pork belly. Toss everything together.
Step 7 — Serve: Plate immediately. The zhap continues to absorb into the noodles as they cool — the dish is at its optimum in the first five minutes, when the noodles are still slightly distinct and the zhap still glistening. Serve with sliced fresh chilli and sambal belacan.

14. Hoong Zhai Kitchen
    Home-cooked rice, noodles, and claypot — generous portions at accessible prices
    Unit: #01-35 Hours: Daily 24h Tel: — Halal: Not halal-certified

Review & Dish Analysis
There is a category of hawker cooking that resists easy description because it does not aspire to a singular signature dish. Hoong Zhai Kitchen is a kitchen in the most literal sense — a place where multiple things are cooked with care and served at prices that begin at $3. The range is considerable: claypot rice, seafood noodles, hor fun. The 24-hour operation makes it, along with Kampong Lor Mee and Changi Village Fried Hokkien Mee, one of the anchors of the food centre’s late-night economy.
The Beef Fried Hor Fun ($5) — served dry rather than in the conventional gravy presentation — is the recommended approach for first-time visitors. Dry hor fun, less frequently encountered, requires higher heat and more confident wok technique than the gravy version: the noodles must be fried with sufficient char without breaking, their broad flat surfaces picking up the wok’s heat directly.
Dry fried hor fun, done correctly, carries the scent of the wok on its surface — a smoky, slightly metallic fragrance that is the olfactory signature of wok hei. Hoong Zhai’s version achieves this, the noodles emerging from the kitchen with the characteristic dark spots of direct contact with a very hot wok surface.
The beef used is typically thin-sliced flank or skirt, marinated briefly in soy, oyster sauce, and bicarbonate of soda (the bicarbonate raises pH and tenderises the meat). The cooked beef is a warm, tawny brown — its surface slightly caramelised from direct wok contact — laying over the dark-spotted noodles in a composition of browns and ambers.
The claypot rice, while not the stall’s signature, merits mention for its execution: the rice arrives in the pot with a crust at the base — the prized guoba layer — crisp and golden, the grains above it perfectly separated, the Chinese sausage (lap cheong) and chicken arranged across the surface with their rendered fat flavouring the rice beneath.

Home Recipe
Ingredients for Dry Beef Fried Hor Fun (serves 2): 250g fresh flat rice noodles (hor fun), 200g beef (flank or skirt, thinly sliced across the grain). Beef marinade: 2 tbsp light soy sauce, 1 tbsp oyster sauce, 1 tsp sesame oil, 1/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda, 1 tsp cornstarch, 1 tsp sugar, white pepper. Sauce: 2 tbsp dark soy sauce, 1 tbsp light soy sauce, 1 tsp sesame oil, 1 tsp sugar. Other: 3 tbsp oil (high smoke point), 2 eggs, 100g bean sprouts, 2 stalks spring onion.
Step-by-Step Cooking Instructions
Step 1 — Marinate the beef: Combine beef slices with marinade ingredients. The bicarbonate of soda is the tenderising agent — it raises the pH of the beef’s surface, disrupting muscle fibres. Marinate minimum 30 minutes at room temperature; no longer than 2 hours or the texture becomes mealy.
Step 2 — Separate the noodles: Fresh hor fun tends to clump. Separate gently by hand — tearing rather than pulling — to keep sheets intact. Lay on a plate to air for 10 minutes; slightly dried surfaces accept wok heat and char better than freshly refrigerated noodles.
Step 3 — Prepare sauce: Combine dark soy, light soy, sesame oil, and sugar. The dark soy provides the deep brown colour of the finished dish; the light soy provides saltiness; sesame oil provides fragrance.
Step 4 — Wok at maximum heat: Heat wok until it begins to smoke. Add oil. Fry beef slices in a single layer — do not stir for 45 seconds. The beef should sear, not steam. Toss once, cook 30 more seconds. Remove beef — it will finish cooking with residual heat. Do not overcook.
Step 5 — Char the noodles: Add a little more oil to the hot wok. Add noodles in a single layer. Allow to sit undisturbed 60–90 seconds — the direct contact with the wok surface creates the characteristic dark spots and smoky flavour. Toss gently. The noodles should have a mix of lightly charred patches and uncharred areas — this heterogeneity is desirable.
Step 6 — Combine: Push noodles to the side. Crack eggs into the wok. Allow to set partially, then break and fold through the noodles. Add beef. Pour sauce over everything. Toss thoroughly — the dark soy coats everything to a deep, warm brown. Add bean sprouts in the final 20 seconds — they should remain slightly crisp. Finish with spring onion.

15. Olden Street Bak Kut Teh
    Malaysian-style herbal pork rib soup, zi char dishes, and the comfort of slow-brewed medicine
    Unit: #01-131 Hours: Daily 11am–10:30pm Tel: 9035 3500 Halal: Not halal-certified

Review & Dish Analysis
Bak kut teh exists in two distinct traditions: the Teochew Singaporean style, light-coloured and heavily peppered, and the Malaysian Klang style, dark and deeply herbal. Olden Street Bak Kut Teh operates firmly in the latter tradition — a style that produces a soup of considerable visual drama and complex flavour.
The Signature Herbal Bak Kut Teh ($8) arrives in a ceramic pot, its contents concealed by a dark, opaque liquid — the colour of strong black tea or old wood, slightly reddish-brown where the light penetrates its edges. The soup’s surface is still and slightly oily, a thin film of rendered pork fat creating a sheen.
The first sip of Malaysian-style bak kut teh is an encounter with Chinese herbal medicine’s more approachable relatives: dong quai’s slight sweetness, dang shen’s delicate earthiness, dried wolfberries’ subtle fruity note. These flavours don’t compete — they layer, each one evident in succession rather than simultaneously.
The pork ribs are thick-cut, their meat rendered to the point where it retreats from the bone without pressure — the texture of long-braised pork belly’s most forgiving extreme. The exterior of each rib carries the soup’s dark staining; the interior flesh is paler, moist, and yielding.
At $23, the two-person set — a larger bowl, omelette egg, vegetables, and two rice portions — represents one of the more generous meal propositions at the hawker centre. The zi char additions (Prawn Paste Chicken, Assam Fishhead, Salted Egg Prawn) suggest a kitchen with broader ambitions than its bak kut teh specialisation alone.
The Prawn Paste Chicken ($10.80) merits particular attention: har cheong kai (prawn paste chicken) involves marinating chicken in fermented shrimp paste before frying — the result is a deeply savoury, slightly pungent exterior, golden-amber in colour, with the paste’s characteristic complexity amplified by heat.

Home Recipe
Ingredients for Malaysian Herbal Bak Kut Teh (serves 4): 800g pork ribs (cut into individual ribs), 1 whole garlic head (unpeeled, lightly crushed), 1.5 litres water.
Herb pack (available pre-packed at Chinese medical halls — specify ‘Klang bak kut teh herbs’): typically includes dang gui (angelica root), dang shen (codonopsis), yu zhu (Solomon’s seal), dried jujubes, goji berries, cinnamon stick, star anise, dried longan flesh, licorice root.
Sauce: 3 tbsp dark soy sauce, 2 tbsp light soy sauce, 1 tbsp oyster sauce, 1 tsp dark caramel sauce (for colour depth), salt and white pepper to taste.
Accompaniments: steamed white rice, dark soy sauce with sliced chilli (dipping), Chinese crullers (you tiao) for dipping in soup.
Step-by-Step Cooking Instructions
Step 1 — Blanch ribs: Place ribs in cold water in a pot. Bring to a boil. Boil 5 minutes — the water will become grey-brown with impurities and blood. Drain and rinse ribs under cold water. This blanching step is essential for a clean-tasting, clear base broth.
Step 2 — Build the broth: In a clean pot, combine blanched ribs, whole garlic head, and herb pack. Add 1.5 litres of cold water. Bring to a boil over high heat. The colour will begin pale and become progressively darker as the herbs release their compounds.
Step 3 — Add seasonings: Once boiling, add dark soy, light soy, oyster sauce, and caramel sauce. Stir. The colour deepens dramatically to a rich mahogany. Season with salt and white pepper. Reduce heat to low and simmer, partially covered, for 1.5 to 2 hours. The ribs should be fully tender — meat pulling from bone with gentle pressure.
Step 4 — Adjust and finish: Taste and adjust salt. The soup should be intensely savoury, fragrant from the herbs, with a deep mahogany colour and a slight oiliness on the surface from the pork fat. If too salty, add a little hot water.
Step 5 — Serve in individual clay pots: Ladle ribs and broth into small clay pots or deep bowls. The clay pot retains heat well — an important practical consideration for a soup meant to be eaten over a long, leisurely period. Serve with steamed rice, dipping soy, and you tiao.

16. Sari Bistari Changi Village Famous Ayam Penyet
    Overnight marinated, smashed fried chicken with a sambal that surprises — sweeter than you expect
    Unit: #01-71 Hours: Daily 10:30am–10pm Tel: 9364 0293 Halal: Muslim-owned (not certified)

Review & Dish Analysis
Ayam penyet — literally ‘smashed chicken’ in Javanese — is the result of a technique that sounds violent and produces results that are quietly transformative. The chicken is first deep-fried, then pressed (smashed) with a weight or the flat of a pestle, fracturing the skin’s crust and compressing the flesh to increase its surface area. The effect on both texture and flavour is considerable.
Sari Bistari’s version ($5.50) distinguishes itself first in the marinade: the chicken is soaked overnight in house-blend spices and turmeric. This extended marination means the spice compounds have penetrated beyond the surface into the meat itself — a quality immediately apparent when eating. Each bite carries spice from within, not merely from a surface coating.
The smashing step is visible in the final product: the skin is shattered rather than merely crisped, its surface irregular and fractured, exposing pale flesh in the breaks. The colour is a vivid yellow-orange from the turmeric — warm and visually electric against the green of sambal and white of rice.
The pressing also drives any remaining moisture from the skin into the flesh, concentrating the outer layer’s crispness further. The result is a bird that is simultaneously more flavourful, crispier in skin, and juicier in flesh than unsmashed fried chicken.
The sambal served alongside is the stall’s signature surprise: it is sweeter than conventional sambal — not cloying, but rounded in its sweetness in a way that balances rather than amplifies the heat. Where most sambals are aggressive, this one is persuasive. It is the sambal of negotiation rather than confrontation.
The Ikan Penyet ($5.50) applies the same technique to fish — typically batang (Spanish mackerel) or catfish — the flesh more delicate, the smashing more restrained, the result perhaps more nuanced if less dramatic than the chicken version.

Home Recipe
Ingredients for Ayam Penyet (serves 4): 1 whole chicken (approximately 1.4kg), cut into 4 portions (or use bone-in thighs for easier handling).
Overnight marinade: 6 shallots, 4 cloves garlic, 3cm fresh turmeric (or 2 tsp powder), 2cm galangal, 2 stalks lemongrass (white part), 1 tsp ground coriander, 1 tsp ground cumin, 1 tsp salt, 1 tsp sugar, 2 tbsp coconut milk.
For the sambal: 8 red chillies, 4 bird’s eye chillies, 4 shallots, 2 cloves garlic, 1 tsp dried shrimp paste (toasted), 2 tbsp palm sugar, 1 tbsp tamarind water, 1 tbsp lime juice, salt, 2 tbsp oil.
Step-by-Step Cooking Instructions
Step 1 — Prepare and marinate: Blend all marinade ingredients to a smooth paste. Score chicken portions deeply (down to bone on thighs and drumsticks). Rub marinade thoroughly into all surfaces and into the score marks. Cover and refrigerate overnight — minimum 8 hours. The turmeric will stain the flesh a vivid saffron-yellow; the galangal and lemongrass will perfume the meat.
Step 2 — Initial fry: Heat oil to 170°C. Deep-fry marinated chicken portions for 12–15 minutes (depending on size) until cooked through. The exterior should be a deep golden-amber to orange from the turmeric — do not rush this stage. The chicken is not finished at this point; the second stage is critical.
Step 3 — Smashing: Allow fried chicken to rest on a board for 2 minutes. Using the flat of a heavy pestle, a meat mallet, or the bottom of a heavy pan, press each piece firmly — the goal is to fracture the skin’s structure and slightly flatten the flesh. The crust will crack audibly and the piece will spread and flatten slightly.
Step 4 — Second fry: Return smashed chicken to oil at 185°C for 3–4 minutes. This second fry drives out the remaining moisture from the fractured skin, maximising crispness. The colour deepens from amber to a rich, turmeric-bright orange-brown.
Step 5 — Make the sambal: Blend chillies, shallots, garlic, and toasted belacan to a coarse paste. Fry in oil 8–10 minutes until colour deepens. Add palm sugar, tamarind water, and lime juice. Simmer 3 minutes. Cool — the sambal should be thicker when cool. The finished sambal should be sweeter than standard — this is intentional.
Step 6 — Plate: Arrange smashed chicken on a plate. Sambal to one side. Rice — steamed plain white is the conventional accompaniment, the blank canvas against which the chicken’s vivid colour and the sambal’s warmth read most clearly. Sliced cucumber and tomato complete the plate.

Notes for the Visitor
Changi Village Hawker Centre is accessible by public transport via Bus 2 and Bus 29, which connect to Tanah Merah MRT. The journey from central Singapore takes approximately 45–60 minutes by bus, which is precisely the right amount of time to build an appetite.
Operating hours vary significantly between stalls — some operate 24 hours, others follow irregular schedules reflective of their owners’ rhythms and lives. It is advisable to check before making a special trip for a specific dish. Kampong Lor Mee, Changi Village Fried Hokkien Mee, and Hoong Zhai Kitchen are the reliable anchors for late-night visits.
For visitors observing halal dietary requirements: International Muslim Food Stall Nasi Lemak is halal-certified; Makan Melaka Cendol and Sari Bistari Ayam Penyet are Muslim-owned. All other stalls reviewed here are not halal-certified.
Bring company. More people means more dishes means more of Changi Village Hawker Centre per visit. It is a food centre that rewards groups with the discipline to order strategically and share without sentiment.

Changi Village Hawker Centre
2 Changi Village Road, Singapore 500002
Source: Eatbook.sg · Reviewed February 2026