Ang Mo Kio's Best Kept Food Secret

At 6pm every night, a small little coffee shop hidden away in the heart of Ang Mo Kio roars to life as its residents flock towards it in anticipation for their dinner. The place is a secret location which the residents here guard closely, with only their loved ones and closest friends let known into the secret of the neighbourhood's best food hideout.

Hidden away from the public eye, this coffee shop has seen a revival in recent months, thanks to new food stalls that have revived the estate's reputation for good food. (Ask any Ang Mo Kio resident and they'll tell you there's no food better than this hometown.) With mouth-watering dishes for every budget, anyone eating here for the first time would be easily spoilt for choice.



For food this good, you'll have to wait (of course!). On weekend nights, empty tables are a rarity, and you'll usually have to wait (the Singaporean way) by standing next to a table of patrons who are just about finishing their meal, if you hope to get any seats at all.

This is a favourite dating spot for teenage sweethearts wanting to impress their other halfs. Married couples come here for good food on a budget when they're otherwise not cooking at home. Fans of local Singaporeans food indulge in bak kut teh and what could possibly be the best claypot in the nation (even better than Chinatown!). The elderly folks sip their curry with rice while bantering in Hokkien alongside families bonding over the flavourful zi char and steamboat. Even for the young children, deliciously rich chocolate brownies and apple pies are available to satisfy their sweet tooth.

But for the carnivores, this is where the real deal is:

Chops! Grill & Sides

Chops! is a western cuisine hawker stall serving up grilled meats, pasta, and side snacks. When we arrived at 7pm, there was already a queue with a waiting time of 60 minutes - that's how popular the place is!

We tried the Chops! XXL Platter for $59.90, which comes served on 2 large trays with a generous heaping of food that is surely enough to feed 6 to 8 hungry people. The whole platter consists of 6 slabs of delightful meats and 10 sides for your feasting.That's less than $10 per meat, and we haven't even counted in the tasty sides yet!



The meats: Grilled Cajun Chicken, Fried Breaded Fish, Grilled Garlic Pork Collar, Panfry Samon, Australian Grain-fed Ribeye Steak and half a rack of Spiced BBQ Babyback Ribs.



The sides: Cherry Tomatoes, Potato & Egg Salad, Tuna Salad, Romaine Lettuce, Coleslaw, Garlic Fried Rice, Mashed Potato, Aglio Olio, Mac & Cheese and Shoestring Fries

Broadway Claypot Rice

Otherwise known as "that famous claypot rice in Ang Mo Kio", these hawkers have been around for about 3 decades but were formerly located next to Broadway Plaza (a couple of blocks away from its current location).

The smell of the claypot rice will hit you even before your dish arrives. While waiting, we decided to order a bowl of Bak Kut Teh to share, and the soup was peppery and full of flavour - just the way we liked it - without having too much oil. It came with 5 pieces of pork ribs, and we managed to top up the soup without additional cost after.



There was the $8 and $15 option to choose from, so we went for the latter since we were both feeling quite hungry. As you can see from the picture, the serving size was so generous that we could not even finish it! My girlfriend who usually shuns carbohydrates couldn't resist having THREE bowls of rice because it was so flavourful (without being burnt).




These 2 stalls are the obvious crowd favourites every night, but if you're looking to check out the other hawkers while you're here as well, here are some other great choices:

Curry House

(Naming this as Curry House because my Chinese isn't good enough to read it :P )

Another favourite that we spotted, especially among the elderly folk, were the curry dishes from this corner stall. You can order any dishes that you would like to accompany your rice with, and ask for a generous serving of curry to top it off. This is another must-try!

Chai Chee Noodle Village

If none of the above dishes appeal to you, the award-winning bak chor mee stall here might be another good option. Available in different sizes of $4, $5 and $6, the noodles here have been rated as Singapore's top 37 best, so be sure to try it out!

Yi Chuan Japanese Cuisine

Pancake King

 
 

Address: 
Broadway Coffee Shop
Blk 727 Ang Mo Kio Avenue 6 
Singapore 560727 

Getting Here:
Alight at Ang Mo Kio MRT station and take a 7-minute walk. The coffeeshop is located in between Singapore Post and Courts.

Otherwise, take bus 851 / 852 / 853 / 13 from Yio Chu Kang MRT and alight after 3 stops.