Comfort food

It's surprising that I only appreciate Singapore's hawker food when I'm older. I guess my taste buds are aging too. I remember the after school hours in TK where we'd choose fast food over hawker food because it is cooler. It's the reverse now. Hawker food is cheap (means extra for shopping) and tasty and fast. Hawker centres are ubiquitous, food variety is good, no service charge and the only bad thing I can think of is the place is not very chilloutable.

Hawker food has been gathering alot of attention from the media too. So it was one weekend night when my parents, armed with a vague address they read from the papers, decided to check out a certain Jap food stall at Golden Mile foodcentre (yes the army market place). Unfortunately it was closed so they brought me to the highly rated (6 Makansutra spoons which is the highest rating and the only other time I saw a similar rating was at a Lontong stall at Commonwealth foodcentre) Happy Chef Western Food at Crawford Lane.

Ok I sniffed in disbelief that western food at hawker centres deserves such hype but I have to admit that the menu is more interesting than usual and more importantly, the food is rather good. I think what won me over was the side dish. Instead of the icky coleslaw or the stingy slices of tomato and cucumber, you'll get a generous portion of french beans and carrots (not the rock hard sticks we got at the CN Tower). Best of all, next to Happy Chef is the super-duper popular Hill St bah chor mee which I haven't tried cos the queue is totally discouraging.

Chicken Kiev - breaded fried chicken stuffed with cheese and ham.

Here's the cajun chicken I tried. The sauce tasted more like bbq than cajun but it's still not bad.

Country baked fish with mushroom sauce.

Fried mushrooms!

And the owner uses such pretty plates with Mary Engelbreit's designs!