Food

Cassia, the Chinese restaurant in Capella Singapore, has updated its menu with a number of new dishes. I personally find Cassia to be one of the most underrated Chinese restaurants in Singapore. A venue that’s located inside Sentosa does not have a big captive audience to depend on so it is paramount for the cuisine to stand out in order to convince people to come all the way.

By that measure, Cassia does not disappoint. The Chinese restaurant has a decent number of loyal customers and even during some weeknights, one finds a good crowd within its premises. I have personally been to Cassia around 4 times now and the food has remained consistently excellent, no matter which chef is helming the kitchen.

 The current chef, Alan Chan, is known in Singapore’s culinary circles for having brought a Michelin star to Four Seasons Singapore’s Jiang Nan Chun, whose kitchen he helmed for 6 years until 2021. At Cassia, he brings the same magic – utilizing his skills with age-old techniques in Cantonese cuisine and melding them with more modern ones. 

Here are some of the new dishes to expect in Cassia in 2024:

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Maxwell Food Centre is one of those rare hawker centers in Singapore that is highly popular with tourists and at the same time, is held in high esteem by locals for its authentic and traditional hawker dishes. The main reason for this is that Maxwell Food Centre is the current home of a myriad of age-old street stalls that originally plied the area around China Square (now part of the CBD). Many of these establishments have been around for 80 years or more and continue to be managed by the same family, albeit the 2nd or 3rd generation. 

Other than that, patrons can find quite a number of relatively rare hawker dishes here such as Fuzhou-style oyster cake, peanut pancake and more and at any given day, one can find Singaporeans from near and far descending upon this humble-looking hawker center queueing for various specialties.

Personally, Maxwell Food Centre is one of my most frequently-visited hawker centers in Singapore as I enjoy walking to this place during my lunch hour whenever I am looking to clock in more steps. My favorites here are a mix of some of the original China Square hawker stalls as well as newer ones started by enterprising youngsters.

However, it remains to be one of the more challenging hawker centres for me to write about due to their relatively high turnover. This is one of Singapore’s OG hawker centres and a number of the original stalls have closed permanently due to the retirement of the owners. New concepts have sprouted to replace them, with varying degrees of success.

Without further ado, here are some of the food you should try the next time you find yourself at Maxwell Food Centre.

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Min Jiang at Dempsey is commemorating 5 years since it opened in its Dempsey Hill location back in 2019. I reviewed it back then when they first opened and loved their creatively concocted dishes. Many of the specialties that they presented at the time are still available today such as the Turbot and Gold Fish Dumpling. From now until 31st May, they are also presenting an ensemble of 5 new dishes for their anniversary. 

The 5 dishes all contain elements of egg in them and can be ordered as ala carte or as a set for S$138++ per person. During my most recent visit to Min Jiang at Dempsey, I tried the set menu.

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Chinatown Complex Food Centre is one of the largest hawker centers in Singapore, boasting over 260 stalls. Chinatown Complex is well-known among Singaporeans and residents from all over the island would make the long trip here to shop at the wet market in the basement and to purchase their meals from the plethora of stalls upstairs. You can practically find the entire gamut of Singapore hawker food here and more – from Michelin-starred joints to increasingly rare traditional snacks. 

Chinatown Complex Food Centre is personally one of my most frequently visited hawker centers. I just love the wide choices of good food here and getting to try some rare dishes adds an exotic factor to one’s foodie exploration. 

Without further ado, here are the things you must eat (and drink!) the next time you find yourself at Chinatown Complex Food Centre. The stalls listed here are not arranged in particular order and you’d probably need to make multiple visits to try all of them.

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Hari Raya Puasa or Eid al-Fitr this year falls on 10th April 2024. This is the best known holiday for the Islamic community because it marks the end of a month-long fasting from dawn until sunset during Ramadan. This is the time when people visit their families in what is known as balik kampung. In larger countries such as Malaysia and Indonesia, people would travel hundreds of miles back to their hometown. In Singapore, it’s a lot simpler, often requiring a bus or MRT ride back to their elders’ homes. By custom, people gather during this time and ask for forgiveness from parents and grandparents.

Gatherings usually involves eating plenty of goodies or kuih raya – whether those given as gifts or those laid out for visitors to sample. Traditional cookies include Kuih Semperit (Custard Butter Cookies), Kuih Bangkit (Tapioca Cookies) and Kuih Makmur (Peanut Cookies) although a lot of creative variations have popped up over the years. 

Below you will find a list of some of the more unique hari raya goodies and cookies I have found along with traditional ones. This will be a growing list, with new items and shops listed as the season progresses.

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Sims Vista Market and Food Centre which is located in 49 Sims Place and a few minutes walk from Aljunied MRT Station, has always seemed pretty underrated to me. Size-wise, it is considered quite a big hawker centre with 5 “blocks” translating to at least 10 rows of food stalls. At first glance, the size of this hawker centre seems disproportional to the neighborhood it is serving. A casual visit revealing a number of stalls with limited opening hours and even some totally vacant ones seem to reinforce this observation. 

To understand why such a large hawker centre is built in a neighborhood of modest size, it is more apt to derive some perspective on the estate of Sims Drive/Sims Place. It used to be a denser neighborhood than it is today. The area around Sims Drive used to be filled with HDB blocks that have been slowly demolished over the years. Some of the HDB blocks have been replaced with condos, condos under construction or are empty lots now waiting for the next government tender. There are still some of the older HDB blocks that remain inhabited. These were constructed in 1976 – the same year Sims Vista Market and Food Centre was built. It was upgraded in 1976 and underwent its most recent renovation in 2021. I used to be quite bothered by the rather dark environment (even in the day) as well as the number of pigeons flocking to feed on scraps – but these issues were mostly taken cared of after the 2021 renovation.

Sims Vista Market and Food Centre is one of my most frequently visited hawker centers in Singapore so here are my recommendations on where to eat the next time you head down here. The stalls are arranged in no particular order.

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Many of Singapore’s old-school hawker centers in the city area were established to resettle pioneer hawkers that used to ply the streets of the older parts of town. One such hawker centre is Golden Mile Food Centre which was built in 1975 to resettle the original hawkers lining nearby Jalan Sultan. Today, Golden Mile Food Centre is a haven for those seeking traditional hawker fare such as claypot rice, grass jelly, chee cheong fun as well as more innovative dishes catered to younger folks. Here, I aim to present some of my favorite stalls.

Do note that Golden Mile Food Centre is a standalone hawker center that is different from the Golden Mile Complex at the opposite side of the road. I have been visiting this hawker centre for a couple of years and find that after the closure of Golden Mile Complex, they are now mainly busier during weekends while the patronage is rather light during weekdays.

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Market Street Hawker Centre is a recently reopened food centre in Singapore’s CBD in CapitaSpring. Despite the change in name, many CBD workers still call it “Golden Shoe” – owing from its origins from 1984 up until 2017 when the hawker centre was housed in a relatively low-rise carpark building called Golden Shoe. When that original building was demolished to make way for the construction of CapitaSpring, Market Street Hawker Centre moved to a site just beside Telok Ayer MRT Station where it stood for almost 5 years as the Market Street Interim Hawker Centre.

On 5th April 2022, Market Street Hawker Centre reopened as part of the gleaming CapitaSpring skyscraper with the food centre occupying the 2nd and 3rd floor of the building – just like it did during the Golden Shoe period. The reopened hawker centre houses 56 stalls – the same number it did back then, although some establishments have changed hands.  

I have personally been visiting this particular hawker centre since its Golden Shoe days. When the interim market was set up, I had also frequented it due to its proximity to my workplace. When the food centre reopened in 2022, I was pleasantly surprised to find many of my favorite stalls intact despite the many changes over the years. 

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