The last time I visited Albert Street Food Centre was the month when I am going to get married because on the 3rd floor, there are many wholesale shops that are selling dried food products such as red dates, dried tangerines, cans of pig trotters which are used in the Chinese customary weddings. I will say the Albert Street Food Centre is a centralise mall that sells hawker food, fresh groceries and dry market.
This time round, I am looking for tasty food that would cost me a total of $10 or less for my lunch. I started by paying attention to food stores that are having long queues and what are the food most people are having in the food centre.
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*Do note that searching for tables requires a lot of patience. I will recommend you to share tables with people, else the waiting time would be long. ;)
Ma Bo Lor Mee 孖宝鹵麵 (#01-67)
Long queue for this store, but the service is quite fast. Their customers are queuing up for their featured dish from this store, Lor Mee (鹵麵). Lor Mee is a Chinese cuisine where the bowl of flat yellow noodles are served in a thick and dark gravy. This gravy normally consists of corn starch, eggs, dark soy sauce and spices. Of course, some stores have their own secret recipe for the gravy, which is the key item in this dish. Ingredients added are normally slices of fish cakes, hard-boiled egg and slices of pork. To enhance our taste buds, secondary ingredients such as garlic, chilli and vinegar can be added based on our own preferences.
Ma Bo Fried Fish Lor Mee.
Like what I have mentioned earlier on Lor Mee, Ma Bo food store do sells traditional Lor Mee, but their customers favourite is the Fried Fish Lor Mee ($3 or $4). When talking about Fried Fish Lor Mee, my mum used to tell me when my dad was dating my mum, the first dish they had was Fried Fish Lor Mee. That’s sweet!
Back to Ma Bo’s Fried Fish Lor Mee, what really put my hands down were the flat yellow noodles, the thick gravy and the fried fish. That’s the whole bowl! On the noodles, surprisingly there is no presence of “alkaline” taste and the noodles are firm to chew on. The thick gravy tasted simple and traditional. There are many other stores that sell fried fish Lor Mee but, seems like they are selling flour rather than fish. The flour used for the fried fish is thin and you can really taste that you are eating fish meat. With a minimum of $3 for 4 slices of fried fish and a generous serving, it is definitely worth the money. The fried fish can be purchased separately at $1/$2/$3.
Fu Cheng Spring Roll 富城薄饼 (#01-08)
What can you buy with just $1.40? I managed to buy one roll of Popiah (薄饼), or spring roll from this food store. I waited for the queue to subside and place my order at the counter, which took me about 1 minute to get hold of my food.
“I am sliced open with my internal all exposed! Arggghhh!”
The skin of the Popiah, which is made up of wheat flour, is thin and chewy. The ingredients inside it, which includes the slices of turnips, carrots and bean sprouts, are moist and not soggy. What totally gave me the “wow” factor was the crispy stuff which is added inside the Popiah. These are fried flour fritters that give the additional crunchy mouthfeel. It feels like you are munching on Koko Crunch.
Yuan Ji Carrot Cake 源记正宗菜头粿 (#01-59)
Carrot cake, or chai tow kuey, is a Singapore cuisine that is pan fried radish cake with eggs and preserved radish. When ordering, they will ask if you want a black (with dark soy sauce) or white (original) carrot cake. I loved the black fried carrot cake because with the addition of the dark soya sauce, it will taste sweeter. You can also order your fried carrot cake with chilli to spice up a little.
“Join me on the dark side.”
My plate of carrot cake cost $2.50. The approximate waiting time is 10 minutes. My first taste of the carrot cake was oily and sweet, but when I chewed it, I realised that this carrot cake from this food store has a trademark of its own. I know it is unhealthy to say this, but the burnt pieces of carrot cake were actually chewy!
I believe there are much more good food in this food centre. Unfortunately, I cannot squeeze in all the goodies in my stomach, so I will definitely be back to explore more good food in the Albert Street Food Centre. Cheers!
Address of my review:
Albert Centre Market & Food Centre
270 Queen Street Singapore 180270
Stalls unit numbers are stated in my post.
