SALTED EGG CRAB! Street Food Tour of Old Airport Road Hawker Center

Hey guys, it's Mike Chen here in Singapore and like I mentioned before, for years now, whenever I think of Singapore, I think of food. And when you think of food in Singapore, you have to think of hawker centers, which are essentially just huge gatherings of food stalls. So I guess you could say it's food heaven with a roof on top. And of course, all hawker centers are great. I mean, food after food after food, yes please. But some are still better than others. And when I asked you guys which hawker center is the best in Singapore, most of you said the hawker center on Old Airport Road. So that's where I am right now. And we're gonna play a little game. It's called whatever looks good, we're gonna eat it. First thing we're gonna eat is this thing right here. Because first thing I see when I walk into this hawker center is this line. That must mean it's good. That's what I'm gonna eat. I see a little bit of curry here. And whoa. You guys see what I'm seeing? This meat is just falling apart. Whoa. That is some tender lamb. Rice looks beautiful and puffy. I don't know if this is right or not, but I think I'm just gonna dump this on here. And what I thought was a potato in the curry, this is not potato. This is just pure fat. And this might not seem very appetizing to you guys, but this is making my mouth water right now. Let's take a piece of lamb. Hello, beautiful. No wonder there was a line. Wow, it's awesome. Whoa, that's flavorful. Huge curry taste, lots of spices. The rice is like the marshmallow, man. All sorts of puffy. Let's taste the lamb on its own. That lamb. The flavor is seeped all the way through. The meat is tender, not gamey at all. And I'm gonna try a piece of this fat. That was a little bit funky for me, because that fat did have some gamey-ness to it. Got some interesting pickles here. The pickles are really light. It's not very vinegary, but it is nice and crisp and spicy. I mean, that kind of goes for this entire plate. I mean, this whole plate is just really flavorful, really spicy rice and meat. Also what the locals tell me is that this is the most inexpensive plate of biryani I'll find in Singapore. A plate like this, they say usually costs $4, $5, $6, but here it's only $3. So it's either this or, I don't know, a 6-inch Subway sandwich with mystery meat. You know, with all the spicy stuff I've been eating over the last few days, it's nice to take a break and have a beautiful, clear bowl of fishball soup. With a side of really spicy noodles. All this is from Ruchi Kitchen, who apparently makes these fishballs every single day fresh. I mean, just look at how beautifully bouncy these things are. Look at this. Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze. I feel like if I throw this against a wall, it's gonna come right back at me. Then, super, look at this, really gentle pieces of fish tofu. Oh my god, that soup is good. And that was 100% a food surprise. Because just looking at the soup, this might seem really clear and see-through, but trust me, there's some magic going on here. Although it's not fishy at all, it just has such a beautiful fish flavor. Things I say cannot do this. You guys just need to come here and try this soup, seriously. Oh my goodness. I mean, if the soup is that good, I'm expecting great things from the fishballs. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I should explain. If you didn't know what that was, that was confusion caused by foodie-phoria. I've had my fair share of fishballs because I used to film Fujianese and Cantonese weddings, but this one takes the cake. And speaking of cake, we got some fish cake, or fish tofu here. Sorry. Oh, that's gross. Slightly chewy on the outside, the rest of it is just beautifully tender. My goodness. This is so good. Wow. You know, you find a couple items you really like, you feel like you just want to sit here all day and eat those two items, but unfortunately, unfortunately, really unfortunately, I have to try a lot more stuff in here, so I can't just stuff fish meatballs into my body until it comes out of my ears. Something else they have here are egg noodles in their homemade sambal sauce. I think I came to understand that sambal sauce is a very important part of this culture. Everybody has it, people make their own. It's kind of like maybe hot oil to me, and right now, this just looks amazing. I love egg noodles. I love dry noodles with some sauce, and this checks all the boxes for me. I love this. Perfect amount of al dente. Nice and chewy, eggy. They're wide, so they grab onto that sauce so well, and I feel like this is really the perfect complement to this bowl of fish ball soup, because this is still really flavorful, but no spice. This, this will make you hurt. Paul, he's got a great idea. What if, work with me here. Take a fish ball, fill the spoon up with soup, take some noodles, and just put this whole thing in your mouth. Taste that with another spoonful of soup. That was mind-blowingly good, because the noodles are a bit on the dry side, so give that a little soup, give it a little water, give it a little moisture, and then when you bite through the noodles, you get to the fish ball. So you've got the chewy noodles, the tender fish ball, the delicious soup all swimming together. That's like a love story, folks. That is. Alright, I'm two for two. Really good food day so far. Let's see what's next. Food day continues with this baby here. This is fried kway teow. I got this because I saw a big ol' line lining up in front of this stall, Dong Ji Fried Kway Teow. If you guys don't know what kway teow is, well, I didn't really either, so I just about started eating this thing. And it's essentially stir-fried rice noodles, and there's like tons of stuff in here. You got, of course, the rice noodles, sprouts, prawns, lap cheong, I see some chives, and they typically put cuttlefish here as well, but they ran out of that. Oh, that is icky, crunchy, and insanely delicious. Lap cheong is one of the greatest things ever created by the food gods. I mean, that sausage can make anything just so fragrant and delicious. Right off the bat, I see about ten things, and then I notice there's actually two types of noodles in here. There's like thin ramen here as well, and I feel like the sauce really has a lot of kento elements to it. It's a bit sweet. I can taste the oyster sauce in here. There's definitely soy sauce. But of course, what they've done here is really throw in the heat elements. And I just want to say, I really appreciate that. Prawn's nice and sweet. It's just a lot to love about this dish, you know? I gotta take a break. And check this out. Ice cream soda. Fix I'm getting used to. I've been having so much noodle soup and rice noodle soup and all sorts of soup lately. I need to change it up a little bit. So I got these really delicious-looking curry puffs. And I got two, one with curry and one with black pepper, because that delicious black pepper crab, that's still in my head. First impression, they're flaky and crumbly. It's beautiful. Break this apart here. Ooh. It's piping hot too. That, my friends, right now, I mean I'm not trying to judge a curry puff by its cover here, but that looks pretty darn good. It looks good, smells good, and it tastes even better. The outer crust is extremely buttery and flaky. Curry flavor is good. I could almost eat the crust on its own. Now, granted, the only other curry puff I knew came from like a Chinese bakery in New York, but this is pretty excellent. And this is the black pepper curry puff. Oh my goodness. Wow. That's a load of chicken in there. I mean, I wish there was some chicken here too, but all the chicken seems to be stuck right in there. It smells mildly peppery. Yeah, this is good. It's kind of crazy to say, but as much as I love chicken, I really love this crust. I mean, this crust, add a little seasoning to it, that just makes my day. This has been a crazy food-filled day. I've had a lot of good things to eat, and I think I'm finally approaching the finish line. But I cannot leave here without eating this. Of course, I've had the chili crab, I've had the black pepper crab, and according to you guys, I shouldn't leave Singapore without having the salted egg crab. So that's exactly what I'm going to do. I don't even know if I have room in my stomach for this, but I'm going to surely try. And just looking at this crab, I see a lot of ingredients. You got the salty egg yolks, which are the orange stuff right here. There's ginger, garlic, and check this out, there's curry leaves in here. And if you guys never had salted egg yolks, you're missing out. This is beautiful. There's something about salty egg yolks. It kind of hardens the yolk just a little bit, but when you chew it, it crumbles and it's got that beautiful eggy flavor everywhere, a little salty. I don't even know where to start with this crab. You know what? Let's just take a joint and dig right in. Oh, this is good. First of all, this is really juicy. You guys see the juice coming out of this? You see that? Just break this apart. I'm going to dip it in the sauce they gave me. That sauce is really spicy. Like borderline spice competition spicy. I guess that sauce is really necessary because unlike the chili crab and the black pepper crab, there's really no heat on the crab shells itself. I just want to taste the outside of this crab here for a second. Just grab a bunch of this seasoning to see what this is all about. That's really salty, but extremely flavorful. I can taste the curry leaf and the salted egg just kind of breaking apart in my mouth. That is really good. This is really good. Look at this piece. Oh my god, this crab was pregnant. All that crab roe sitting there. I'll give myself a piece of that action. I'm just going to dip that in a little chili. You've got the salted egg. Then you've got the crab roe. At this point, I'm just like sucking at this. And you've got some of the crab innards here as well. Love me some egg on egg action. Let's get into the claws. Oh, look at that. That just broke apart. Wow. That's separated easy. This is the easiest I've ever undressed a crab claw. Either I'm getting much better at this, or the crab gods are smiling down upon me. You know what? Instead of dipping it in the chili sauce, I'm going to put some of this awesome topping on this crab claw. Wow. If you like eggs, if you like crab, if you like good tasting things in general, it's going to make you smile a lot. Add a little bit of the heat. Man, that's spicy. That gets me every time. I keep forgetting how spicy that is. I really wish I could bottle this stuff. This is delicious. Next, let's dig into the crab body here. Look at the innards of this crab. The crab innards, they kind of taste a little eggy anyway. And then you have that, and now you've got the salted egg in there. This is fantastic. I'm going to drizzle some of the spice in there, just a little bit. Take the spoon and just scoop. It doesn't get any crabbier than that. Oh, you know what? I just thought of something, because I see a lot of good stuff still left in this crab shell. That can't go to waste. So, I think what I'm going to do is, I'm going to take some of my rice, and I'm just going to put it into my crab shell. And I'm going to just, like, stir this around and make it into, like, a crabby, eggy rice. Oh, look at that. Oh, that is blending well. Tell me this doesn't make you happy looking at this right now. And then just a little spice on that. Let's heat that up a little bit, because you don't want that to get too cold. Oh. This is such a better rice bowl than just this. Next on my food list is Namsing Hokkien Fried Meat. This place, you don't see that much of a line, but actually, people just put their names down, and they're all just waiting around in the hawker center. And he told me to wait. Right now, it's over an hour already. All right, got my fried meat. Let's take a look. It's a little more watery than I thought it was going to be. Besides the shrimp, there's also cuttlefish, shrouds, two different types of noodles, some eggs in there. I'm just bubbling with anticipation. I'm confused. Where's all that flavor coming from? Because, essentially, this is a plate of fried noodles, then rice noodles, and then I see some, what looks like, maybe egg noodles or some sort of lo mein here. Some shrimp and cuttlefish, sprouts, and eggs. So I'm kind of anticipating something eggy, maybe a little seafood-y, but almost borderline buttery. This is ridiculously fantastic. And they gave me, like, some spice to go with it with a little lime. Let's add the spices and see what happens. A little lime. I thought, no way, this thing could be even more ridiculous, and it just became more ridiculous. This might be the best thing I've had in Singapore. That's not called a black pepper crab. Actually, I don't know. This might be better. Now it's such a sea, a little vinegary, and the shrimp. It's like every single female Final Fantasy character. Sweet and perfect. I can see now why they gave me a spoon. It's all mushed together. You could eat it with a spoon. It's just everything. It's shrimp-y, egg-y, crunch of the sprouts, and then that crazy cream sauce, whatever that is, just ties everything together. I'm telling you guys right now, if you ever come to Singapore, and you have, like, I don't know, two hours before your next flight, and you can only eat one thing, this is it. You come here, and you eat this. I mean, you might miss your flight because you might have to wait in line for about an hour, but trust me, there'll be other flights. I want to apologize to this right now. When people told me to eat here, when I kind of saw what it was, I was like, all right, just stir-fried noodles. Like, what's the big deal? I'm sorry I didn't see all your potential. You know, this has been such a fantastic ending to this perfect food day. I mean, nobody wants to end a food day on a down note, but this, this is the ultimate high. I mean, this is the sixth sense of all food day endings. It's unsuspecting, and when it's all over, you're just kind of like, huh, never would have thought. Also, what a fantastic hawker center. Now I know why most people, when I was coming to Singapore, told me, you've got to come here. So thank you guys so much for your recommendation, because it just made my day. Heck, it might have even made my trip. Guys, as always, everything I ate, all the details is in my description box. Thank you all so much for watching, and until we eat again, I'll see you later.