Chinatown Hawker Sells Gigantic Plate Of You Tiao Rojak For Only $4

You can barely buy a cup of bubble tea for $4 these days, but for that price, you can fill your tummy with a gigantic plate of rojak from a Chinatown hawker stall instead. 8days.sg recently stumbled upon the obscure rojak stall, which is tucked away within a food court at the basement of People’s Park Centre.

The stall looks like it’s haphazardly plonked into the empty unit left by a defunct Japanese ramen joint. There’s still a sign advertising ‘Special Sauce Ramen’ over the rojak stall’s own signboard, which is lit up with getai-esque neon lights and bears the name Ang Mo Kio Shun Li Pojak. ‘Pojak’ apparently means rojak, evidently from the neat stacks of you tiao, tau pok, jicama and an array of fruits displayed at the stall (the Ang Mo Kio Shun Li moniker, though, is a mystery).

You can get two types of rojak here: Fruits Rojak and You Tiao Rojak at $4/ $5. There are options to add a Century Egg ($1.50) or a strip of Dried Cuttlefish ($2).

Manning the stall is a surly uncle who seems hard of hearing; we had to repeat our order till we were almost yelling “YOU TIAO ROJAK $4!” at him. Once the hawker understood our order, he enthusiastically started assembling the ingredients.

We observed him rapidly slicing jicama, pineapple and toasted tau pok and dough fritters into a large bowl. It looked like there was enough for two portions (there was another customer behind us). He paused for a moment, then tossed torch ginger flower buds into the mix. Next came green and red apples.

Every time we thought he was done, the uncle added more ingredients such as cucumbers and bean sprouts. And finally, he doused the rojak in a thick prawn paste sauce, grabbed a fistful of chopped peanuts with a gloved hand and made it rain on the bowl.

To our surprise, the uncle transferred the entire contents of his bowl to a paper plate and grouchily handed it to us. We almost dropped the plate, which was drooping under the weight of the rojak. Together with a sliced century egg and a toasted cuttlefish strip, our rojak bill came up to $7.50.

Flavour-wise, we wouldn’t say this is the best rojak we have ever tried. But for its price, it’s pretty decent and value-for-money. The uncle is very generous with the you tiao, which is toasted to a crispy finish and goes well with the assortment of crunchy, thinly-sliced cucumbers, earthy tau geh and juicy jicama. The store-bought century egg with a gooey yolk is also delish, though we find the bland, cardboard-y cuttlefish a letdown at $2 for a small piece.

The $4 rojak portion can feed up to four peckish eaters, or two hungry ones; we could barely finish half of our plate and requested to tapow the rest. The hawker refused to accept our payment for a styrofoam box. Before he closed the box, he added another fistful of chopped peanuts to our rojak and handed it to us wordlessly. Absolutely wild.

Xin Tian Di Foodcourt, B1 People's Park Centre, 101 Upper Cross St, S058357. Open daily 10am-6.30pm.