The busiest stall at Havelock Road Food Centre serving probably the cheapest kway chap by one of the oldest hawkers in Singapore.
Restaurant name: Covent Garden Kway Chap
Address: Havelock Road Food Centre, stall no. #01-05, 22B Havelock Road, Singapore 162022
Hours: 6:00am - 1:00pm (Mon & Tues off)
Havelock Road Food Centre is a quaint little hawker centre with ample doorstep parking and just 10 minutes walk from Tiong Bahru MRT station. More importantly, it is home to several hidden old school hawker gems.
Covent Garden Kway Chap stall sports the longest queue here. There was a queue the whole 2 hours we were here for lunch.
Tell 89-year old auntie Chua Meow Ching what you like and she picks it out of the stewing pot and snips it into bite size pieces with a pair of scissors. I can hear her scissors chirping like a happy bird as I inched forward to the front of the queue.
Mdm Chua came to Singapore from Guangdong in 1954. She was selling kway chap from a mobile street side stall in the Kim Seng Road area before settling in Covent Garden Food Centre in the 1970s and in 2007 moved here at Havelock Road Food Centre. Months from her 90th birthday, Mdm Chua still comes to the stall at 4am to cook and is ready for business at 6am for her waiting customers. Mdm Chua is quick with her hands, her mind is lucid and she can cut up your food while totalling up your bill mentally without a second's pause.
In case you were wondering, Covent Garden was a housing estate at the intersection of Havelock Road and Kim Seng Road (opposite today's Grand Copthorne Waterfront). (Map of Singapore 1958 courtesy of National Archives of Singapore.)
Neither pretty nor Instagrammable but this makes me hungry and salivate.
Floating in the pot of dark brown stewing stock were pork belly, skin, large intestines, small intestines, stomach, tofu, tau pok, salted vegetables, etc. Basically all the good stuff, if you are a badass old school foodie.
We had a mixed plate of big intestines, pork belly and skin.
We had 3 bowls of kway for 5 of us to share (everything here for $6.50). (We also ordered food from the other stalls.)
Covent Garden Kway Chap's braising stock is mildly savoury salty without any herbal taste. Personally, it tasted slightly flat to me but for many people this is their preferred taste profile (i.e. sans herbal undertones and porkiness).
The thin rice sheets were soft and smooth, picking up the savoury salty flavours of the stewing stock. The dollop of fried shallot oil added aroma and flavours to the bowl of kway.
The pork offal were very well cleaned. Stewed till everything, intestines, skin, pork belly were soft and infused with the braising stock's mild savoury salty flavour. No herbal, no porky taste at all. Personally, I prefer the texture to be slightly more chewy and a bit of herbal flavour would be nice.
Mdm Chua was featured in this video about Singapore hawker culture.
Stall no. #01-06 Khin Kee Fishball Kway Teow is a legend originally from Orchard Road Glutton's Square serving handmade fishball. Check them out ๐ click
Stall no. #01-07 Meng Kee Fried Kway Teow has a lot of loyal fans who like their robust savoury subtly sweet taste profile. At their best, wok hei is ample too.
Stall no. #01-25 Tan's Tu Tu Coconut Cake. Whatever you come to Havelock Road Food Centre for, finish off with some uniquely Singapore kueh tutu ๐ click
Date visited: 10 Jun 2019, 19 Aug 2020
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