Lau Pa Sat: 6 Must-try Hawker dishes
updated the 6 October 2015 à 23:58
Singapore’s iconic food centre has re-opened after 8 months, bigger and better than before – we guide you through the unmissable treats awaiting inside.
The historic building that has been home to a big market place since the early nineteenth century, Lau Pa Sat (which means ‘old market’) and is otherwise less commonly known as Telok Ayer Market, reopened, after an eight-month hiatus, on the 30th of June. Since it is famous for their multitude of stalls offering the best of Singapore foods, we took it upon ourselves to try out a little signature dish from about six of the stalls, to recommend to you. The makeover cost $4 million and the new and improved Lau Pa Sat can now seat 2500 diners, which is 450 more than it could before. The wait was clearly worth the wait, since business is booming again and the popular food centre, apart from its local favourites, has a few new stalls selling Japanese, Korean, Mexican and other Western food too, to add to the diversity and choice.
The exterior looks more classy now but keeps to its traditional chinese-style design. It is now flanked by a prominent sign reading ‘Lau Pa Sat Festival Market’, open 24 hours a day.
We tried a few dishes, making sure we varied it up for the full experience. The prawn satay is to die for and what we love most is the fact that the size of the prawns isn’t compromised. Generous king prawns skewered and served with an equally generous amount of peanut sauce. We especially liked it with the sambal chilli.
The other dishes we loved were of course Lau Pa Sat’s signature Satay. Be it chicken, mutton or beef, the satay is cooked to perfection that no other place we have tried yet, has been able to replicate.
But these are the more common dishes. We decided to jazz it up a bit for the other dishes we tried. The Fried Oyster was utterly delicious and we had never eaten oyster prepared quite like this before. It was almost like a Singapore carrot cake of sorts, complete with egg, onion and chilli.
We gave one of the new Japanese stalls a go and its hot plate Japanese chicken curry rice and corn deserves a thumbs up. It was a little like Pepper Lunch’s hot plate dishes but the curry was thicker and there was more of it to go with the rice. We also loved the fact that the chicken was juicy and stir-fried, with just the right amount of salt and flavour.
We tried the Krunchy Chicken Chalupas at Mamacitas Costa Rican Cuisine and it was truly interesting. Crunchy, creamy, cheesy and oh-so-flavourful, this dish, unlike anything typically South American we had ever tried before, sure packed a punch!
Lastly, we tried the famous Song Kee Fishball Noodles and my, was it filling! Served with fishballs aplenty, minced pork, vegetables and the noodle of your choice, this dish is truly worth the long queuing.
Overall, the experience was very good. Food wise, we don’t have a single complaint. The food is very decently priced, delicious and truly a cut above many other local food centres. The convenient location has always made it an accessible place and that is another reason it has always been so crowded. The crowds, of course, are the only downside to the dining experience. It is generally very hot and the seats are quite tightly packed together, to fit inside the vicinity and that can definitely make it a little uncomfortable. However, it is ultimately a small price to pay for an altogether savoury experience. We’ll definitely be going back again soon!
Diya-Maya Tsering Bhalla
