Balestier Road: Singapore’s secret foodie street

It's not a flashy strip of road in the Lion City, unless you count the fact you could be blinded by the sheer volume of lighting stores, but Balestier Road has enough hidden foodie fabulousness to fill you up for days. And it's all in walking distance.

The road takes its name from Joseph Balestier, the one-time American consul to Singapore who leased 405 hectares of land here in 1834 on which he planted sugarcane.

You can still get a sweet treat today, if you start at the Thompson Road end of Balestier on the corner of Jalan Raja Udang (King Prawn Road) in the shadow of the new condos that have been shooting up here of late. Here you can see a row of single-storey shophouses, rare now in this progressive city where the condo is king. These simple constructions still have the "five-foot way", the covered walkways designed to protect you from the tropical downpours, and at number 639 is Loong Fatt Tau Sar Piah. Tau sar piah is an underdog in this food-crazy city, a little-known breakfast food or snack that has bean paste wrapped in a flaky pastry and is unique to Singapore. Loong Fatt has sat on this busy corner since the 1960s and is the best place to try this East-West fusion and the new more-modern flavours like durian, green tea and pineapple.

Walking east in Balestier, past a few shady "hostess" bars and more lighting stores, you reach Balestier Market (411 Balestier Road). Built in the 1920s, the market was a key point for distributing food rations during World War I before closing in the early 2000s. A revived market opened in 2014 and received a boost when a bunch of tenants from the popular Longhouse hawker stall were forced to relocate.

Ah Hui Big Prawn Noodle has opened a new fish ball noodle store and the queues to both stalls are testimony to how good they are. Nearby, Bugis Street Chuen Chuen Chicken Rice is plastered with the extensive press coverage of this famous Longhouse refugee.

Finish a market meal with the cempadok (jackfruit relative) at Boon Pisang Goreng, where everything from banana to yam is deep fried in a surprisingly light batter. Their curry puff is also transcendent.

Next door to the market is Boon Tong Kee (339-403 Balestier Road; boontongkee.com.sg), a brightly lit venue with chequered table-cloths, funky lampshades and well-turned-out young couples who are forgoing the hawker experience for date night. The signature dish is Cantonese chicken rice, boiled instead of roasted, with a light soy sauce with fresh cucumber in it for crunch.