Favourite Indian/Malay Food Centers

Competition amond hawker vendors are always good. It brings out the best food from the stalls and it ultimately benefits the consumers with higher quality food with more reccomendations. We are afterall a consumer ourselves too.

So, today, I shall blog about my favourite Indian Food Hawker stalls. My favourite hawker centers for Indian food are located at 'Zhu Jiao Food Center' (near Little India NEL train station) and 'Seah Im Food Center' (near Harbour Front NEL train station). I like their location because they are very accessible to the train station.

Zhu jiao Market and Food Center (Tekka Market)

Though as a Singaporean, I have only been there less than 10 times, but I love their vibrance, especially in the morning. If you walk into the wet market, you'll see a variety of vegetables, fruits and meat available for sale. I like to visit the food center in the morning maybe because I like their roti prata (or roti canai as you call it in Malaysia) that we dip in the special curry sauce or thickened chick pea sauce. It is quite cheap as well (around S$0.50 to S$0.70 for plain and S$1.00 with egg inside the prata). If you choose the seat in front of the stall, you get to see how they prepare the roti prata and at the back of your mind, you might be wondering how it is to prepare the prata while spining, and folding a seal with the egg inside the prata. However, if you are someone who is particular about cleanliness, you might not enjoy the gastronomic experience. This food center is also one where you can see many Malays and Indians patronizing the food stalls as there are many that is certified 'Halal'. 'Halal' certifications is typically prominent at the front panel of the stall with a 'Halal' logo.

If you are looking for halal certified food stalls, you can visit this website or simply look up from MUIS (Majlis Ugama Islam Singapura) website. In Singapore, a multi-racial and culture society, it is quite disrespectful if you cross contaminate the Halal food with Haram food (non-Halal). For example, you shouldn't use their forks to pick up food that is Haram, unless the utensils are disposables. This can upset some Muslims consumers and bring inconvenience and additional costs for the Hawker vendors.

Besides the all-time-favourite roti prata, there is the exotic drinks you can find that differentiate from the Chinese drinks stall. They have the tea (teh tarik) and coffee (kopi tarik) 'pulled'. The 'pulled' action is simply to cool and form the bubbles by transferring from one mug to another. If you like the spiciness of ginger, you can try the ginger tea (teh alia); just be mentally prepared that it can get really hot and spicy for some. If you like a coconut rich and sweet beverage, you might like cendol. Other favourite drinks are lassi (indian yoghurt drink).

Seah Inn Food Center

To me, this is a mini Indian food center. It is very well sheltered from the NEL train station and Harbour Front shopping center. As far as I can remember, there really isn't any wet market there and the hawker center is much smaller than Zhujiao center. You can still get the tarik and the ginger drinks. In the morning, you can find the people working at nearby office patronize the finger food at the stalls (like curry puffs and other kuehs). The pricing is slightly higher than Zhu jiao food center though. Another of my favourite food is the spicy mutton soup (kambing soup) with a few pieces of baguette. There are other places that sells kambing soup, but I think it is more of a convenience for me. I guess I enjoyed the kambing soup especially with my boyfriend, on rainy days. A good kambing will keep you really warm on a cold and rainy day. Just in case, Chinese mutton soup is different to Indian Mutton soup. Chinese mutton soup is clearer and the main spice used is usually ginger based while the Indian mutton soup is richer in spices and the soup colour is usually has yellow-brown tinge in colour. If you like to see the picture of Kambing soup, you can take a look at this blog.

Other Favourite Indian Food stalls
These two food centers are definitely not the only ones with great Indian and Malay food variety. The other food stalls I like to patronize is opposite Beauty World shopping complex where there is also Halal tim sum where I can enjoy the food with my muslim friends. It is not really a hawker center but you'll see a whole stretch of coffeeshops. My post is getting longer here but I want to add just one more food place: the hawker centre opposite Golden mile complex. Kambing soup is available there as well.

I remembered it was the food center where I have my first exposure to Sup Tulang (Big bone marrow juice). You'll get a straw and suck out the marrow juice from the bones. It was my first time seeing it then and the whole thing is marinated with red colouring and spices. I didn't dare to eat it so if you tried it, do tell me what you think about it.

Other related article
1) Wikipedia -Tekka Market
2) Map of Tekka Market
3) Sup Kambing picture from blog
4) Red Sup Tulang picture from blog