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By Root 1287 0

the hawker operations, the Maxwell Food Centre at the end of South Bridge. The travel guides that tout Lau Pa Sat sometimes mention Maxwell as well, usually preceded with an adjective like “drab” or “old-fashioned.” Nonsense, it’s just functional, not dressed up for a social outing. The open-air concrete pavilion with a corrugated roof holds more than one hundred stalls, each about ten square feet and jam-packed with cooking equipment, ingredients, and one or more proprietors. The booths line both sides of three broad, tiled aisles occupied by basic tables and chairs. As in other centers, you order at a stand that specializes in one or a few dishes, take a seat, and when the food is prepared—it never sits out under a warming light—the chef-owner or an assistant brings it over, locating you among the multitudes by some kind of mysterious radar. Low walls at the stalls allow you to watch everything going on inside from your table. When you finish eating, you leave trays, plates, and utensils on the table—stacking or clearing them can violate religious taboos—and someone picks them up shortly for cleaning.

Our top priority at Maxwell is Tian Tian Hainanese Chicken Rice, a stall that Foo Kui Lian took over from her brother forty years ago. Makansutra’s Web site ranks it as one of fifteen 2005 “Hawker Legends,” the best in the city, the group says, for chicken rice, itself a Singapore legend created by immigrants from Hainan Island in the South China Sea. The booth proves easy to find from the vendor number listed in die, die, must try!, a relief to us given the crowded conditions and large number of stands. Waiting for the business to open at 11:00, we kill a little time looking at other stalls across the aisle. When we turn around again, a minute or so before the appointed hour, suddenly two dozen customers have jumped ahead of us into a line, which moves quickly because Foo rents an adjoining stall for prep work and employs a staff of five—both unusual signs of success in this field.

Chicken rice may sound a little dull—it’s just steamed versions of the two basic components—but it abounds with flavor at Tian Tian. The order taker asks us, “You want skin?” and both of us nod “Yes.” Otherwise everyone gets exactly the same thing, a big mound of high-quality rice topped with rich chicken gravy, several thick slices of buttery white meat, a bowl of broth fragrant with stock, vinegar-bathed cukes, sweet soy, and a fittingly fiery red-chile sauce seasoned with ginger and a bit of orange. Each plate costs about U.S. $2, the average for hawker food anywhere in the city.

Another Maxwell favorite, Lim Kee Banana Fritters, also attracts us, largely because of its top Makansutra rating for the stall’s specialty, goreng pisang (batter-fried bananas). The owners grow the fruit on their own plantation in Malaysia, using only the prime Raja variety, and work with a special batter they created themselves. The plump bananas come out of the oil as sweet as honey, with a tempuralike coating that’s crackly crisp. While the cook prepares them, we watch a young woman at another stand making fresh sugarcane juice, wrestling short stalks through a press that mangles the cane and releases its liquid. Intrigued, both of us get a glass. “I feared it would be cloyingly sweet,” Bill says, and Cheryl finishes his thought, “But it’s really light and refreshing. I love the green-fruit flavor.”

From the Maxwell complex, we walk a few blocks south to Tanjong Pagar Plaza Market and Food Centre, on the fringes of Chinatown. On the way, along Tanjong Pagar Road, we stumble across Singapore’s Bridal Row, where virtually every shop focuses on some aspect of wedding management: gowns, photography, etiquette requirements, invitations, even spas to relax and reward the wedding party. Bars and nightclubs with racy advertising in the windows constitute the only other common class of commerce on the street, leading us to ponder any possible connection between the two types of businesses. “Maybe,” Bill says, “stressed-out brides need a couple of stout ones after visits