If you are on the Singapore MRT, you will always hear, "Your attention please, eating and drinking are not allowed in the stations and trains".
But on the Keretapi Tanah Melayu Berhad (KTMB)'s Singapore (Tanjong Pagar / Keppel Road) Station of the Railway network, you can eat on the station! More precisely, you can eat on the train platform itself!
This was taken about 1 week ago. Momo and I brought our parents to have a last visit and last meal at the railway station before the place closes down on 30 June 2011.
Wondering what to eat here?
Here's what we had. We had 3 different kinds of 'goreng' (fried in Malay) food.
Kuey Teow Goreng
Our first goreng dish: Kuey Teow Goreng.
Malay style fried kuey teow. It was a tad oily, but it sure was delicious.
I like how they always have a splat of tomato sauce and a slice of cucumber over it.
Tauhu Goreng
The second goreng dish: Tauhu Goreng. (Fried Tofu).
This is the more Malay style, where pieces of tofu is deep fried and topped with scalded bean sprouts and julienne cucumber. It's topped with a generous amount of peanuty sauce. The sauce here is not bad. Not the best around, but it's good.
The third goreng dish: Pisang Goreng (Banana fritters)
The pisang goreng here is very popular! Every now and then, a tray of freshly fried pisang will be brought out and you can see, people grabbing some onto their plates in the most polite way.
You know what I mean right - the meaning of polite? Smiling at each other, even without speaking, using hand signals conveying the message, 'you go first', the next person reciprocate by another, 'no lah, you go first'. Until someone finally relents and starts to grab some. You then see the person stacking like 15 pieces of pisang and you in your heart screaming, leave some for me!
The pisang pieces were huge! It's looked like pieces of fried chicken right?
Perfectly riped pisang deep fried and the outer layer of batter that stays crispy and crunchy. I tell you, you got to try this!
Only 60 cents per piece and it's huge.
Halal Yong Tau Foo
If you think all the 'goreng' stuff's too unhealthy, then go for the healthier, soupy stuff.
Momo got us some yong tau foo. She said it's not too bad.
Chapati
Another very popular stall is the Chapati Stall.
These two ladies or 'kakak' (elder sister) / 'makcik' (auntie), depending on how old you are, address them correctly and they will serve you with a huge smile.
They were making the chapati non stop, every piece was hand rolled and pressed on the heated pan to cook. Hard work! Certainly not the thawed frozen crap that you get in some food court.
I called them 'kakak' (to score some brownie points first) and asked if I could take a photo of them in Malay. She said sure, but wait, Kakak said she needed to adjust her apron and tudong first, then went to to flip the chapati. I wanted to laugh, but kept quiet.
In my not so good Malay, I asked where will they move after June 30? They said, they are taking a rest, they will go back to Kelantan to visit family and then decide later.
The usual order that most people ask for. Either 2, 3 or 4 pieces of chapati and the bowl of standard 'dip'.
I ordered 4 pieces of it, (each piece is 60 cents) because we ordered so many other things to eat.
These chapatis were really nice especially when it's hot right off the pan!
Something so simple made from wheatflour, water, salt and oil can taste so good!
I think I like it because there's no yeast in it!
The usual or default 'dip' / 'gravy' / 'sauce' that comes with it. It's made from minced meat with chunks of potato and curry powder. It's very tasty and I think they go very well with rice too!
I saw some sotong and ordered it as well. The father in law seemed to like this a lot.
He was especially delighted with the sotong roe that's stuffed inside the sotong. Something similar or familiar to his peranakan food.
Air Bandung
After the 'goreng goreng' food, the rest settled with hot 'teh' (tea) or 'kopi' (coffee) to help purge out the oil in the system, but I opted for the cool way. I had the air bandung. OK, it's way too sweet for my liking, but the colour's nice for photography?
Hurry down to the Tanjong Pagar Railway Station if you want to try out the food there.
The station will be handed back to Singapore from the Malaysian authorities. The last train in and out of Singapore will be on 30 June.
M Hasan Railway Station Canteen
KTMB Tanjong Pagar Railway Station
30 Keppel Road
Singapore 089059
11 comments:
Is the railway station closing down or just the eateries?
Meg
both!
The station won't be in use anymore.
So the eateries have to go too!
Ah, sad that the station and eateries are closing. I want to dip my finger into the chapatti dip - it looks so good!
:( It is sad to see these things go, especially the coffee shop. I miss those days when we have the 'older' type of coffee shops (the non-aircon ones, with aged tables, chairs and brown walls.)
I heard the govt is gazetting Tg Pagar Stn into a historic building so if they would to open it to the public as a "Place of Interest", wouldn't they need an eatery nearby? I don't understand why they have to close down the coffee shop. :((
Su-Lin, WD
Ya, but the building is to be returned, so I guess they have to close down.
I believe they are going to restore the building back to its former glory. I think lots of renovation was added and it was not the original way it was.
When it's done, it will be so beautiful. But I think they won't have eating places like this, probably high end cafe or restaurants. sigh.. that's how things work nowadays right?
Can we visit the food stalls without a train tickets? Accessible?
Beary
Yes, you can just walk to the platform. It's not a ticketed area.
That's great! Thx!
According to the customers who used to frequent the stall, the standard of the goreng pisang dropped! I tasted it, it's because the bananas they used are not ripe, therefore tasteless.
Business was tooooo good. The pisang got all snapped up within minutes.
Oh.. they are so busy now that the bananas they use are not the ripe ones?
When I had it few weeks ago, they were riped as it was sweet.
Read in the newspaper the place is now too too busy! They close this weekend...
It's just the chapati stall that's taking a rest right? How about the rest? Any idea how we can find these stalls should they decide to reopen?
I know the briyani stall is moving to 5 Tanjong Pagar Plaza, but I would like to know if the M Hasan teh tarik stall and the mee soto/rebus stall is moving too. I tried to ask them but since I don't speak Malay all they did was shrug and say "Dunno".
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