Sengkang finally got a hawker centre & we have feelings about it

Holy shit, Sengkang finally got a hawker centre after, what, 20 years?

Just think of all those years Sengkangians spent rotating through Compass One’s eateries, waiting 2 hours for GrabFood to arrive, and weekend treks to Kovan just to eat hawker food… all that suffering could have been prevented.

We ventured into this brave new world for lunch today and had many feelings about it.

OK, first impressions first

The new Fernvale hawker centre is on level 3 of Fernvale CC (next to Fernvale LRT and Seletar Mall). They gave it an entire floor and it’s high-ceilinged and well-ventilated. Very spacious too. So far, it looks and feels nice.

We eagerly made the rounds to see what was on offer. Unfortunately, there weren’t many stalls despite the large size. Unlike typical hawker centres with many lorongs, this one is just one large seating area flanked on 3 sides with food stalls.

We went at 11:30am and found seats, but the hawker centre quickly filled up within 15 minutes. You must bring your favourite chope-ing implement.

BTW you might as well bring tissue paper. I went to the toilet and at 11:30am all the loo roll was gone already.

What stalls are there?

Fernvale hawker centre can roughly be split into 4 zones; let me describe them.

Zone 1: Breakfast District: As you come up on the escalator from ground floor, you will emerge in the middle of the hawker centre. Immediately in front of you is a row of insubstantial breakfast-type stalls: drinks, dessert (from $2.20), bakery (???? why need bakery here ???) min jiang kueh (got speculoos flavour). The other 2, fortunately, are bak kut teh and economy beehoon.

Zone 2: Cai Png Corner: Turn right and you will see a long queue for Fernvale hawker centre’s one and only cai png stall. Then there’s carrot cake, a soup stall, chicken rice (Tong Fong Fatt, but sans the photos of Lee Kuan Yew for some reason), lor mee (looks cheap), and a forsaken ma la xiang guo stall.

Zone 3: Halal Alley: Turn 90 degrees. This side has 2 short lorongs. The first one is mostly halal stalls: ayam penyet, Indian rojak/mamak stall, kambing soup, nasi padang/Malay food. There were also a Hokkien mee and thunder tea rice stall, not sure if halal but a woman in a tudung was working at the Hokkien mee stall (lovely local shorthand for Muslim-friendly).

Zone 4: Les Quartiers Gastronomiques: Some of the longest queues are here, in the lorong hidden behind tray return. I remember Bedok bak chor mee, Hong Lim curry chicken noodles, Fins & Feathers (the one and only western stall)… forgot the rest.

Expensive or not?

Like many nouveau hawker centres, Fernvale is run privately — in this case by Kopitiam. Compared to a regular government-run hawker centre, hawkers here allegedly (well, not surprisingly) pay higher rent and fees.

Surprisingly, the food here isn’t too expensive (especially now that hawker stalls elsewhere have pushed up their prices). Most dishes start at about $4.50 or $5.50, while coffee/tea is $0.90 if you ask for no/less sugar.

Privately-run hawker centres are supposed to have this “social enterprise” feature so a lot of stalls have 1 or 2 budget dishes for around $3. For example, TFF has a $3 “value” chicken rice, vs the normal $4.50 chicken rice. Probably for low income customers cos I doubt hawkers can break even at this price.

Not 1 but 2 Tray Returns

A significant portion of Fernvale hawker centre real estate is taken up by TWO tray return areas. One has the fancy-ass conveyor belt to make you feel like your plates will be cleaned by robots instead of underpaid staffers (not true; I peeked).

The other one is analogue. Nobody likes the analogue one, it’s not pretty. But need to put because sometimes seniors dunno how to use high tech stuff.

Why cannot just have normal tray stands ah…

Simulated “wet market” lorong

Hidden in Fernvale hawker centre is a bonus “wet market” lorong. There’s a fishmonger (plastic-wrapped salmon cos millennials don’t like to touch fish), a large minimart selling frozen foods, and an (inexplicably) even larger vegetarian minimart selling more frozen foods.

Also a row of “Happy XYZ” fruit and veg stalls (quite nice) and another inexplicably large Korean minimart (not open when I went but probably more frozen food again).

Overall thoughts on Fernvale hawker centre

Fernvale hawker centre kinda blows. Especially when you compare it against other new hawker centres like Ci Yuan, Kampung Admiralty, Yishun Park and Market Street.

Jon’s pet peeve: This hawker centre feels more like an oversize food court. With only 1 stall per stall type, it feels like they could’ve put a lot more stalls in here but didn’t. Overall the huge space has been inefficiently used. The empty spaces are huge, the tray return areas are huge, even the stalls look 20% too big.

My pet peeve: The tables, oh god, the tables. They are rectangular and seat 4 or 6 pax. They make seating inefficient. Give me hawker centre round tables or Hogwarts-style long benches anytime! So much better for flexible seating and table-sharing.

Elsewhere in the building…

Fernvale CC has a bit of xiao despo vibe. First, there’s a huge poster of PAP and that says “your grassroots advisors” — aiya might as well say “the losers of your election” or “you didn’t vote for us”.

Then there’s a sign saying that the public space is a public space…. like that also want to wayang!?

Can’t wait to see what’s in store for Sengkang! Better road signs indicating directions to expressways? Additional Sengkang East and Sengkang West MRT stations?