Adam Food Centre is a relatively small hawker centre with just some 40 stalls but it is famous and popular. Strategically located near the Singapore Botanic Gardens, MacRitchie Reservoir, National University of Singapore etc., Adam Food Centre is always packed. Here are the good food stalls that keep bringing the crowds back to Adam Road.
Selamat Datang Warong Pak Sapari Mee Soto & Mee Rebus serves one of the best soto ayam, Indonesian style spicy chicken soup in Singapore. The rich chicken soup is loaded with spices and packs a punch from the sambal kicap pedas. Get a begedil or fried potato cutlet which go perfectly with the spicy chicken soup. Pak Sapari's mee rebus is also very popular but I have not tried it yet.
These two side-by-side nasi lemak stalls, No. 1 Adam's Nasi Lemak and Selera Rasa Nasi Lemak are the two most famous stalls in Adam Food Centre. Both stalls have their own loyal fans. They sell similar dishes with slight differences. Selera Rasa use basmati rice for their nasi. Selera Rasa's fried chicken is coated with a thin crackly shell like keropok. Selera Rasa use Japanese chili in their sambal chili. Truth be told, I personally feel comparable standard nasi lemak can be found in no fame stalls around Singapore. Selera Rasa usually has the longer queue but wait time is about the same ๐
Adam Chicken Rice serve a popular tender, moist fried chicken rice dish with an aromatic flavourful signature yellow colour rice. They also serve ayam penyet which is Indonesian style chicken par boiled in spices, deep fried to a crisp outside on order and smacked & flattened (penyet) before serving. Eaten with white rice and a dollop of kick butt spicy sambal chili.
Adam's Delights serve crazy what-the-heck combos of robust tasting, artery clogging grease, carbs and meat overloaded with savoury, sweet, spicy flavours. Their most popular dish is Roti John Combo with spicy stewed mutton. Try also their Mee Goreng combo with cheese fries, sunny side up and mutton. It feels like a return to those reckless, youthful days when we felt invincible to anything we can stomach with teh terik (pulled tea) or cold beer.
Adam Road Noo Cheng Big Prawn Noodle serve prawn noodles with braised pork rib and pork belly. They have soup and "dry" versions. The soup made with prawn shell, chicken and pork bones is moderately robust with crustacean umami-savouriness. The prawns are served halved with shell and head intact. I find this way of eating prawn quite troublesome, though the prawns are sufficiently fresh. The braised pork rib I had was tender enough but doesn't have much pork or marinate flavour. The sauce of the dry noodle version is lardy, savoury, spicy leaning on the lardy side. They have fancy versions of up to $16 a serving with large prawns.
Adam Fishball Noodle has its own following for its noodles with sweet savoury spicy sauce and generic fishball, fishcake slices and fish dumpling. If I happen to have fishball and mee pok cravings while at Adam Food Centre, I will go for it though I am unlikely to come here just for this alone.
Cheng Ji ๆ่ฎฐ serve various stir fried noodle dishes - kway teow, Hokkien mee, yee mee and the most interesting one - "Pig Leg Bee Hoon". Cheng Ji is the only hawker stall that I know to serve this Hokkien home cook dish. It is simply emptying a can of stewed pork trotter (from China) over a heap of bee hoon, stir fry and let the rice vermicelli simmer with the contents. The bee hoon does a great job of infusing the savoury-salty, sweet flavours from the greasy, too-salty preservative sauce in the can. The pork trotter skin, fat, meat and all straight out of the can is mushy soft, savoury sweet and even the bones just turn to mush when we chew on it. Nothing exquisite or pretentious but it is heartwarming Singapore food of the heartlands.
I missed your favourite stall?
Don't get mad at me. Let me know what I missed by posting a comment.
I promise that I will visit your recommendation. I may include it in the list. If not, at the very least I will reply to you in the comments.
Meanwhile, bon appetit.
Written by Tony Boey on 22 Feb 2021
Have you managed to try Zaiton's mutton satay? Pretty good stuff. Tender meat and very flavourful spice marinade.
ReplyDeleteIf you do, give their chicken satay a miss though. Tough and dry.
No I haven't :-D Shall go for it at the next visit. Thanks for your recommendation. (I did have one from I don't know which stall. The meat had red colouring, little flavour, quite dry and chewy so I didn't find out which stall my buddy bought it from.)
DeleteWho ever says this stall satay is good must be wearing dentures for a long time.Terribly uncooked and rubbery meats.
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