Text and images by Catherine Ling @ Makansutra
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.