Built in 1983, Amoy Street Food Centre is a local culinary institution, and their lunch crowd is a testament of that. The two-storey hawker centre on Maxwell Road is home to a wide range of stalls, selling everything from curry puffs to bowls of sliced fish soup.
Here are six hawker stalls in Amoy Street Food Centre that have earned a spot in the MICHELIN Guide Singapore.
A Noodle Story
Bib GourmandMICHELIN Guide Singapore 2024
What you get here is a bowl of Japanese ramen reimagined and reengineered. They serve only one style of noodles at the standard price of S$10.80. The noodles are prepared in the way of a Hong Kong wanton mee and accompanied by their own take on char siew — the pork is sous-vide for 36 hours before getting lightly smoked in wood chips, and it is finished with a homemade sambal and hae bi (dried shrimp).
The duo running the shop often sell out by 1:45 p.m. at lunch and 7:00 p.m. at dinner, thanks to a restriction of 200 bowls they placed on themselves to control the quality and consistency of the noodles they sell. Thus, there's almost always a queue at the stall, so we recommend heading down early to snag yourself a bowl.
Han Kee
Bib GourmandMICHELIN Guide Singapore 2024
By the time Han Kee opens for business at 11 a.m., the queue stretching in front of the beloved fish soup stall is often already more than ten (or sometimes, even twenty) people deep. Arrive any later, and you’d most likely have to contend with a line snaking up and down the aisles of Amoy Street Food Centre’s second floor. But endure that interminable wait, and you’ll be duly rewarded with a clear, light-bodied broth made sweet by fresh seafood. Enjoy the generous haul of fish slices swimming within. Enjoy with thick rice noodles or a bowl of rice on the side.
Hoo Kee Bak Chang
Bib GourmandMICHELIN Guide Singapore 2024
For many, this is the gold standard for rice dumplings, or bak zhang (Hokkien for rice dumplings), as they are known to the locals. For over 50 years, Hoo Kee Bak Chang has been hawking traditional Hokkien-style bak zhang to Singaporeans.
What makes it decidedly Hokkien is the technique of stir-frying the grains of glutinous rice with five-spice powder and dark soy sauce before cooking. This gives the rice dumplings its signature caramel colour and savoury-sweet flavours. The pork and chestnuts are also marinated prior, infusing the rice with more flavour as it cooks. Customers queue for a taste of the original dumplings made with pork and chestnuts, but you may also choose from the bak zhang that's stuffed with a salted duck egg or a variation made with mushrooms. They're all excellent.
J2 Famous Crispy Curry Puff
Bib GourmandMICHELIN Guide Singapore 2024
The puffs from J2 are light and flaky, which are a result of closely watching the temperature of the oil, shares owner Lee Meng Li. “The temperature of the oil must be just right to be able to create that perfect golden crust," he explains. "The curry puffs also cannot be left in the oil for too long, or the fillings might leak." He also shares that their taro puff, thanks to the balanced combination of savoury and sweet, is also a hot favourite among customers.
Ah Ter Teochew Fishball Noodles
SelectedMICHELIN Guide Singapore 2024
This stall in Amoy Street Food Centre is helmed by a third-generation fishball noodle hawker. The MICHELIN inspectors praise the broth for its robust flavour — no wonder, as pork ribs are boiled for several hours to achieve that umami goodness. In the dry version, the noodles — your choice of yellow mee, kway teow, vermicelli, mee sua, bee hoon, mee tai mak, mee pok, or mee kia — are tossed in a proprietary chilli sauce blended from seven ingredients that have to be stir-fried for hours. The noodles are then topped with minced pork, slices of fish cakes, and fresh, bouncy fishballs.
Yuan Chun Famous Lor Mee
SelectedMICHELIN Guide Singapore 2024
Occupying two stalls on the second floor of Amoy Street Food Centre is Yuan Chun Famous Lor Mee. They moved from Boon Tat Street to Amoy Street Food Centre in 1984 and have stayed put ever since. What makes the lor mee here stand out is the viscosity of the gravy; while deliciously thick and savoury, it has none of the starchy, gluey texture lor mees are usually associated with. The ngoh hiang (Hokkien and Teochew-style meat roll) here is excellent, as are the bits of pork belly and shark's meat.
This article was written in November 2017 by Alethea Tan, updated by Rachel Tan in February 2020, and refreshed by Alvin Tan and Mikka Wee in 2024.
