Queenstown - Mei Ling Street Hawker Center

Queenstown is one of the oldest satellite towns in Singapore. If I'm not wrong, I think it's actually the first satellite town. Hence, the estate is very old now (Queenstown Cineama and Boling alley - the bowling alley used to be the un-computerised kind, the kind where you'll have to peer down the lane and estimate how many pins you've knocked down and then use a pencil to write down the score), but they're trying to rejuvenate it (think Anchor Point, Ikea, The Queens, Dawson Mall etc etc).

Queenstown is quite cool in a very retro kind of way - think the old kind of gates and fences for Queenstown Polyclinic, the old holey design for the walls of Queesnstown Library, the old chingchong design of the cinema, the previously old blue-tiled Queenstown MRT which is now not tiled). It has everything a satellite town has -market, supermarket(NTUC), hawkercenter, polyclinic, library, cinema, bowling alley, swimming and sports complex, canal, mama shops, they used to have an emporium (super old school word! hehe now our stores are called shopping malls).
Meiling Street Hawker Center is a very old (last time got the icky small tiles which look like they have fungus inbetween the tiles, but they've renovated that) 2 storey structure, located opposite the polyclinic and library.

Hai Kee Teochew Char Kway Teow (#01-550, facing the church)
This is where I ate my very first plate of charkwayteow, and learnt how to appreciate haam (I got all my Hepatitis immunisations, including booster jabs before I was allowed to eat).It's this very old school stall, and I think the signboard has been there for eeons. Just look at that funny fence-y grill on top. Looks super old too! And there's a single light bulb so you'll never miss the stall :DApparently, this guy has been frying charkwayteow since like 30 plus nearly 40 yrs ago, even before there was a hawker center, he/his father used charcoal to fry. The charkwayteow man is really very humble and he won't purposely make ppl wait in the que. It takes very long to fry because he fries each plate individually, so good luck if the person in front of you orders 5 packets. This is my plate of charkwayteow with lots of haam. It comes in either $2.50 or $3 plates, and the guy's really generous with his haam. It's super nice, big, fresh, pink and juicy.As you can see, this charkwayteow isn't the black lardy oily kind. It's slightly wet and it's really not very oily and it's fried using vegetable oil (but there is an option to have lard added, if you want). Maybe cos I've been eating this charkwayteow since I was young, so I don't like the lardy, black, oily dry kind (like the Ghim Moh and Outram Char Kway Teow). Of course, if you fancy the Ghim Moh and Outram Char Kway Teow, you'll probably not like this one.
See what I mean when I say this isn't the oily kind, usually the charkwayteow plates will be shiny with an oil slick after you finish your noodles, but this one, you can still see the dry areas on the plate.


Queenstown Popiah (#01-480, on the side of the carpark)
My second most favourite stall in the Hawker Center is the Popiah Stall. Unfortunately, they have raised the price from $1 to $1.20. So I won't be raving about getting one piece for $1 :(

The popiah skin is soft, thin and fresh and you'll have to eat it on the spot (no dapao) cos the popiah will get soggy and break. It sucks to eat soggy popiah.
It's filled with crunchy bean sprouts, and the turnip filling is really lovely cos it's very tasty but not salty. It has just the right amount of gravy so that the filling is moist and yet the popiah doesn't break. There is just the right amounts of garlic, sweet sauce and peanuts to give that crunch, yet they don't overpower each other such that you taste too much of one and none of the other.

I always eat my popiah without chilli. I reckon that the best way to eat any new food, especially popiah is to have it without chilli, since chilli masks the natural tastes and flavours - anything ordinary food can be made tasty with chilli cos you're just tasting the chilli and not the dish.