Maxwell Food Centre is one of those rare hawker centers in Singapore that is highly popular with tourists and at the same time, is held in high esteem by locals for its authentic and traditional hawker dishes. The main reason for this is that Maxwell Food Centre is the current home of a myriad of age-old street stalls that originally plied the area around China Square (now part of the CBD). Many of these establishments have been around for 80 years or more and continue to be managed by the same family, albeit the 2nd or 3rd generation.
Other than that, patrons can find quite a number of relatively rare hawker dishes here such as Fuzhou-style oyster cake, peanut pancake and more and at any given day, one can find Singaporeans from near and far descending upon this humble-looking hawker center queueing for various specialties.
Personally, Maxwell Food Centre is one of my most frequently-visited hawker centers in Singapore as I enjoy walking to this place during my lunch hour whenever I am looking to clock in more steps. My favorites here are a mix of some of the original China Square hawker stalls as well as newer ones started by enterprising youngsters.
However, it remains to be one of the more challenging hawker centres for me to write about due to their relatively high turnover. This is one of Singapore’s OG hawker centres and a number of the original stalls have closed permanently due to the retirement of the owners. New concepts have sprouted to replace them, with varying degrees of success.
Without further ado, here are some of the food you should try the next time you find yourself at Maxwell Food Centre.