Hawker Champions After Dark, Singapore

Duration

3.5 hours

Group size

Up to 8 guests

Languages

English, Mandarin

The take

Old Airport Road, a big hall of small food stalls, is the hawker centre cooks send visitors to. By evening many lunch favourites have closed for the day, so Daniel builds the round from the stalls still cooking and keeps something sweet for last.

Meet Daniel

Daniel was a restaurant chef before he became obsessed with hawker food, and he treats Old Airport Road as a classroom. Expect to learn how tray return works and how to read a stall at a glance. He'll also walk you past the longest queue when the food at the end of it isn't worth the wait.

Highlights

Dong Ji's fried kway teow, cooked one plate at a time
Learn the kopi codes and how to chope a table
An evening slot, after the lunch crush

What you'll do

1
7:00 PM
Meet over kopi
Start at the drinks stall, where you'll learn the codes: kopi-o is black coffee with sugar, and kopi-c comes with evaporated milk. Daniel also explains chope, saving a table with a packet of tissues, and da bao, which means takeaway.
2
7:30 PM
The savoury round
Dong Ji Fried Kway Teow at #01-138 usually fries at lunch and again in the evening, though hours vary. Then Hokkien mee and carrot cake, which is fried radish cake, from stalls that have held their pitches for decades.
3
8:45 PM
The sweet finish
Chendol, shaved ice with coconut milk and palm sugar, or a sugar-cane juice to finish. Some dessert stalls close earlier than the noodle stalls, so Daniel times the round to reach them while they're still serving.