Old Chang Kee
Old Chang Kee specializes in snacks, such as breaded prawn fritters, green bean sesame balls and crab nuggets. They are are as delicious as they appear on the photos. Locations of their outlets can be found at their website, but most of them are tiny, so look carefully or you might just miss them (unless you drop by during peak hours, when they are characterised by long queues).
Lavender Food Square
There are a lot of good stalls at this food square with a kind of authentic local feel, but our favourites are:
Miow Sin Popiah (
) stall, where spring rolls are assembled only upon ordering, at SGD 1,20
each. Fried carrot cake is delicious too.
Won ton (
) stall named Kok Kei 
(Cantonese), where you can’t escape a long queue during peak eating hours.
Order Won Ton without noodles for SGD 3, so that you get more superb Won
Tons. You may also up-size it to SGD 4. It's so good that it's definitely
worth queueing.
Prawn soup noodles at SGD 3 a bowl. We don't remember the name of the stall, but it's the only one with a small aquarium.
Refreshing pineapple juice from a fruit stall which sells assorted fresh fruits & juice.
Location: By the junction of Jalan Besar Road and Lavender Street. Take bus no. 133 from Lavender MRT station and alight in front of Eminent Plaza. The food square is right behind it.
Smith Street
Smith Street is flooded with food stalls and restaurants. Seafood lovers will very much enjoy the XO 3 stir fried / XO at Holland V XO Restaurant, which consists of fish fillets, flat rice noodles (kway teaw), cognac and bean sprouts. Their portion is big for Asian standards and costs less than SGD 7 per medium plate.
Dessert lovers must try Tang Yuan (
) from – well, the only stall at Smith Street selling it, so you just
need to find the sign. Tang Yuan is a glutinous rice ball, either plain
or normally with peanut paste or black sesame paste filling. This stall
only sells Tang Yuan with various fillings, served with a choice of ginger,
peanut or almond soup. We tried all of them and decided that the peanut
balls with almond soup is the best choice.
The ginger soup sold here is too strong, because they cook it with ground ginger as opposed to normal way of cooking it with ginger slices. The peanuts in the soup are overcooked or maybe too old, hence the soup smells of old oil. It costs less than SGD 2 per bowl of a few balls.
Location: 10-15 mins walking from either China Town or Tanjong Pagar MRT station.
CK Tang Shopping Mall
Zong zi (
) is glutinous rice with various fillings, wrapped in broad dried bamboo
leaves - normally in the shape of four sided pyramid - and cooked for
hours. Most versions are salty, except the one from Nyonyas, which is
sweet. One of our favourite is Five Spice Rou Zong, which consists of
pork, chestnuts, dried shrimps, mushrooms, soya sauce and five spices.
Zhong Zi may look small but it is very filling, so be careful not to eat
too many at a time and burst your stomach! It costs about SGD 2 per piece.
Location: Food court at Basement 1 of CK Tang (3 minutes walk from Orchard MRT station).
QQ rice
QQ rice has been in the business for more than 18 years in Taiwan and is now expanding to other Asian countries. Their dishes are delicious, affordable and healthy. There are more than 30 types of vegetarian and non-vegetarian dishes to choose from, and they would be wrapped in your choice of rice or grains into the shape of an elongated ball. The ball would be handed to a patron in a plastic bag for take away, hence QQ rice is suitable for people on the run but insisting on delicious and healthy food. If patrons wish to eat in the restaurant, there are 2 small tables with some chairs. We totally enjoyed her "5 mixed grains" with Tandoori chicken, shrimp sambal, mushrooms and asparagus. Note: QQ means chewy in the dialect of Hokkien. Visit www.qq-rice.com for photos of rice balls and concept of the chain. The website is only in Chinese language.
Location: Plaza Singapura, 68 Orchard Rd, #B2-34. Tel: 6238 8090, 6400 5819. Novena Square 2, 10 Sinaran Drive, #01-06. Tel: 6397 6763
Raffles City food court
Top choice at Raffles City food court is the Penang fried Kuey Teow, which is flat rice noodles stir fried with garlic, bean sprouts, prawns and dark soya sauce.
Location: Raffles City shopping centre (above City Hall MRT station).
Silk Road restaurant
Silk Road has cool Chinese minimalist interior and good hand made noodles. A little pricey though.
Location: Amara Hotel, 3 minutes walk from Tanjong Pagar MRT station.