[Singapore Food] Mei Ling Market & Food Centre

A Road Sign Pointing Customers towards the Market

This is no air-condition food centre, but all the same. People are willing to come from all over the island to have a meal at this food centre, me included. As I'm not a frequent customer at this food centre, signs like what you see in the above picture helped me to get to the market easily.

Mei Ling Market Appeared in the 1972 map (1)

Though Mei Ling Street appeared in maps around the late 1960s, the earliest reference to the market I could find was in the 1972 street directory. Today though renovated, the market still holds many hallmarks of a market that was built more than 40 years ago.

The Entrance to the Market

Firstly, other than the red emblazoned words at the front of the market, the structure itself looked to have changed little. The windows on the second storey are also those that one would see installed as kitchen windows in HDB blocks of the 1970s.

Natural Lighting Helps to Luminate the Stairwell

One design that caught my attention was the brick wall of the stairwell. The walls had circles and semi-circles that not only provided natural lighting for the stairwell, the design also gives this market its character.
 

Well Ventilated Food Centre

The market major retrofitting work that was completed in 2009 (The market even has its own escalators) and both the wet market and food centre on the 2nd level have been well refurbished. Interestingly, live chickens were slaughtered in the market up until 1991 when the Environment Ministry laid down the law of not allowing such slaughter to take place. (2)

Trying the Fried Kuey Teow - Tan Song Heng

I know that there are many choices of food that I can choose from at the food centre, but I was just craving for Fried Kuey Teow that day. So a plate of Fried Kuey Teow I had to get. As I'm no food connoisseur, I'll leave the description of food to the expert. In the nutshell, the Fried Kuey Teow was just alright.

I heard that the chicken rice, lor mee and prawn noodles are worth a go. Any other recommendations?


References

1. One Map. http://hm.onemap.sg/ Accessed on September 28, 2015.

2. Poultry seller at Mei Ling Street want an area to slaughter fowl. October 8, 1991. The Straits Times. P. 23.