Step into Bedok Corner Food Centre (Block 1 Bedok Road) and you’ll be charmed by its laid-back atmosphere spiked with the anticipation of good food. It has a particularly interesting cluster of Muslim stalls along with a few Chinese stalls plus snacks and desserts. But where do you start? Here are five stalls you can try.
Satay Solo (stall no.9)
Satay is one of the main draws of Bedok Corner.
You don’t need to fight with crowds at the East Coast Lagoon Food Centre for good satay. There’s decent ones to be had right here. Out of the several stalls offering satay, Satay Solo offers hearty bites of well-marinated meat. Even their sides of ketupat, cucumber and onions seem just that little bit fresher.
Mamu Kitchen (stall no.25)
Check out the Mee Kuah Upeh here.
Their signature item is the “Mee Kuah Upeh”, yellow wheat noodles in a boatload of spicy tomato-based seafood gravy. The presentation sure is grand – it’s served in opeh leaf folded like a square box – and the portion is huge enough for two. The dish itself may not be for everyone – it’s a bit like soupy mee goreng tinged with chili crab flavours. But if you want to know what mee kuah tastes like, this is probably one of your better bets. Just don’t baulk at the price (S$8) or you may get a snarky remark from the stallholder.
Mamu Kitchen also has the rarely seen kachang phool, along with mutton soup. His rendition of kachang phool is pretty good.
Bedok Corner Hokkien Mee (stall no.29)
Hokkien Mee with history.
The old man who fries this Hokkien mee has been around since before the food centre’s renovation. While this may not be the best Hokkien mee in Singapore, it certainly is adequately pleasing with its rich stock, slivers of fatty pork, prawns, squid and egg. Mix in the chili to add some spicy kick.
Ye Lei Xiang (stalls no. 31 and 32)
Cuttlefish Kangkong
This famous stall offers two things that are as different as night and day. One side doles out cheng tng (a Chinese dessert) to a perpetually long queue, and the neighbouring unit dishes out cuttlefish kangkong (S$5). Well, this salad is probably one of the ways to get healthy vegetables in a hawker dish.
The cheng tng here is brimming with goodness.
And yes, go for the cheng tng with the works (S$3). It brims with more than a dozen goodies like dried persimmons, longans, lotus seeds, snow fungus, gingko nut, tapioca and candied melon strips. Iced or warm, it will be the perfect end to a meal at Bedok Corner.
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Does this crab look 900g to you?
It certainly didn't look like it for customer 'Calvin' when a seafood restaurant in Changi served him an "undersized" crab, according to a report in STOMP.
He said he was taking advantage of a coupon promotion by the restaurant which offered a 900g crab for $25.
But when he was served a much smaller crab, he pointed it out to a staff who challenged him to go weigh it himself in the kitchen.
Calvin, who related the incident to STOMP, said he bought a total of six coupons and went to the restaurant on February 10.
He said: "We complained to the staff about the size of the crab we were served, but she was rude to us and challenged us to weigh the crab ourselves in the kitchen to prove the crab weighed 900g.
"What surprised us was that the crab does not even look like it weighed 900g. We took a photo to compare a handphone to the shell of the crab."
Calvin said the diners next to their table also found their crabs too small and complained to the staff too.
"But the answer that they got was the same. After this incident, we felt so cheated by the restaurant."
Another diner, who wrote to Stomp, said the crabs were "definitely less than 900g" each.
"It was about 600g, at the most, 700g. It was small and the shell was soft."
He said one staff blamed it on the supplier.
But he pointed out to her that "their chef should weigh it before cooking" and that it could be a "case of cheating".
In the end, the restaurant "compensated" him with another crab.
The diner said the restaurant must adhere to business ethics.
"If the restaurant cannot deliver what it promises, then don't promote it."
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