Queues Seen At Some Hawker Centres This Weekend, One Almost Two Hours Long

78-year-old kueh maker Ah Meng, who we reported had grappled with a steep drop in customers, is selling out of his handmade ondeh ondeh and tapioca kueh at Hong Lim Market & Food Centre after strong public support. His stall now has a short queue daily with stocks running out at around 1pm, similar to his biz volume pre-Phase 2 (HA). He previously told 8days.sg that he “sells out by noon every day”.

Photo: Yip Jieying

One of the longest queues belongs to a new stall, Chef Wang’s Fried Rice, which went viral after an 8days.sg report. It is run by ex-Din Tai Fung and Shang Palace chef Wang Jingjun, 41, whose shrimp and pork rib fried rice with an abalone option at Beo Crescent Hawker Centre is now extremely popular. His line is so long, it stretches all the way out of the kopitiam to the outdoors pedestrian walkway.
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An 8 Days reader who queued up shares that he waited for “an hour and 40 minutes” to tapow fried rice, adding that there were Safe Distancing Ambassadors patrolling the vicinity and customers were all “standing apart”. There’s no delivery option for now, though chef Wang’s stall will soon be on GrabFood.

Photo & video: Michelle Ho

Six-month-old roast meat stall Char Siu Lang in Bukit Merah (near ABC Market) is doing brisk business after 8 Days' review. It’s run by 33-year-old Ivan Leong who, despite winning a million dollars in Toto in 2013, decided to start selling his own house-roasted char siew and chicken with Hakka noodles.
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His stall has been selling out at around 1pm this weekend (May 22-23) as he also caters to delivery orders. Ivan tells us the waiting time for walk-in customers is around “30 minutes to an hour”. But from May 24, he will be revamping his stall operations to “prioritise walk-in customers”, as he says he feels “really disappointed I can’t cater to all my customers”. To ensure that there’s adequate stock for dinnertime, he will be roasting more meats specially for evening orders.

Photo & video: Ivan Leong

It’s business as usual at Ghim Moh’s hawker centre this weekend. Netizen Larry Lai, a co-founder of Facebook foodie group Can Eat! Hawker Food who travelled to 16 hawker centres on the first day of Phase 2 (HA) to suss out the crowd situation, continues with more traffic reports. According to Larry, “All the popular stalls have SNAKING queues. The yong tau foo, the mee siam, roasted meat specialist Jiu Jiang [Shao La], duck rice, chwee kueh, Whampoa soya bean drink stall (but in Ghim Moh) and so on.”

Photo: Larry Lai

Bendemeer Food Centre is another hawker centre that is thriving. Larry reports: “Many stalls were doing normal business. The famous siew mai and lor mai gai stall had a crowd of 20-25 deep. The popular Nan Rong chee cheong fun stall had about 7-8. It is good to see that the queue is there as the old owner had an accident and the stall was closed for a few months while he recuperated. The Kovan chwee kueh stall and the fishball stall beside them also did reasonable business.”

Photo: Larry Lai

Larry observes that people are still heading to the double-storey hawker centre at Holland Drive to tapow: “The usual crowd is here. From the kueh stall to the thunder tea rice stall (who is busy packing for online order) and the famed bak chor mee of this market (Ru Ji Kitchen). No semblance of lockdown in this neighbourhood.”

Photo: Larry Lai

The usually crowded ABC Market hawker centre is now a “mixed bag”, says Larry, with some stalls enjoying better traffic than their neighbours. He shares, “I detect a slowdown in business for many stalls but a few stalls like the roast meat, including Fatty Cheong, fried Hokkien Mee and the Ayam Penyet stalls were hardly affected.”

Photo: Larry Lai

“The stalls here are crowded,” Larry notes. “From the duck rice, chicken rice, fried carrot cake to the stoic but value-for-money desserts stall helmed by the one-woman-show old lady.”

Photo: Larry Lai

Most hawkers would fear that their food will go unsold, but not at this hawker centre. “Many stalls” were doing well enough to pack up for the day by noon, according to Larry. “The fried carrot stall opposite him has sold out. The roti prata stall behind has a constant stream of business.”

Photo: Larry Lai

The famed Chinatown hawker centre, which is so massive that its stalls are grouped by colour zones, is mostly closed. But the few stalls which are open are doing brisk business from Larry’s observation.

He says, “Many stalls in the green zone are sold out. Some like the mutton soup decided to close for this period. The char kway teow stall has two customers. The famous chee cheong fun and yam cake stall has about five customers. They were busy in the morning. The fried fritters stall has a considerable amount of food left. [Hawker Chan’s] chicken was almost sold out. I guess some hawkers here decide to rest as the Government waived rental. And looking at the amount of stalls with sold-out food, this HC is not impacted.”

Photo: Larry Lai

According to netizen Andrew Lee’s post on Can Eat! Hawker Food group, people can’t get enough of the popular Scissors Cut Curry Rice joint at Beach Road long queue.... support but space out and be prepared to wait.

Photo: Andrew Lee

Another stall with a long queue is Old Airport Road Food Centre lor mee stall Xin Mei Xiang, which netizen Leong Hock Wong says has a “super long queue”, adding that he has “no choice” but to queue because “today got craving for lor mee so here we are”.

Photo: Leong Hock Wong