Singapore's Maxwell Food Centre - a foodie's orgasmic delight.

One of Singapore’s well known food courts is Maxwell Centre. In the old days, Singapore had a lot of food carts all over the place. The Govt tied up the issue of food carts all over – hygiene, car traffic, pollution, garbage etc - by creating large food courts where individuals can cater to the public using common services like cleaning staff, water and power and garbage disposal. Singaporeans and foreigners seem to love eating out and this centre seems to have been a great success. In fact the new metro station, recently opened right next door to the Centre, is huge, gleaming and spacious. 

We went to Maxwell as it had the best grading. It is huge. As you enter, you see two large sets of stalls running vertically in front of you. Behind each of these sets, are a further set of stalls on right and left. Each stall is basically the same size, I think. You can get a vast selection of food here – from meat to fish to veg. though the veg selection is likely to be small.

I walked around all the rows of stalls looking at each one, checking the waiting queues which gave me an idea of their popularity, the types of dishes available and then decide what I wanted. My friend Jimmy Lim’s friend Janet and her son did the same and we met after  ten minutes. We pooled our choices and went ahead ordering. 

One can always go back and forth ordering items so the first priority was to eat what you really like – for me, it was duck; for them it was the pork and satay. The portions in each case are generous so its important to have folks with you to share the items. There are  stalls selling soft drinks and beer too

Chinese generally eat each and every part of the bird or animal so if you are squeamish, such places are not for you. Here we found, even for me, some weird places – like the stall selling all the parts of pig meat – meatball, stomach, intestines, heart, lean meat, fat etc. How inventive can you be!! 

The sellers use all sorts of additionals – bread rolls, egg rolls, etc to vary the taste and flavour. They also vie for various awards which are posted in the stall.  

As you can clearly see from the duck stall, every part of the duck is used. We ordered crispy friend duck – we got a large plate with about 12 slices of the duck and the crispy skin separately. The meat had sauce and it was delicious. We also got rice to accompany the meat.  

   One of the specialties of Singaporean cuisine is Hainanese chicken rice and at Maxwell Centre, there are 2 or 3 stalls selling these. Unfortunately, the queue at the best stall was too long so I have earmarked a visit there for the future.       

We ordered dumplings and satay. In each, we had chicken and pork.

I liked the satay as the sauce enhanced the chicken meat and the dumplings I found too stodgy.

Earlier, people just left the food trays for the cleaning staff to clear up. Now, you have to leave the dirty empty trays at designated areas so the cleaning staff clean the tables faster. I was told that if you left the tray behind, you can be penalized.  At the entrance area, there are large washrooms where you can get cleaned up.

       This is one place where I will go when next here, esp to try the Hainanese chicken rice and duck again !! Right outside the Centre, on the road, is the brightly lit Chinese temple which I had been to earlier in the day. A splendid evening had by all.

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