Singapore 2014 - Zhen Zhen Porridge at Maxwell Food Centre

Maxwell Food Centre in Chinatown is one of the most popular food courts in Singapore. The famous Tian Tian Chicken Rice is there - and there is always an impossibly long queue. Another famous stall is Zhen Zhen Porridge which I have not tried before until this recent trip. We went quite early - but there was already quite a long queue. It took around 30min to reach our turn. 

Can you see the huge pot where they cook the porridge? It even had an industrial-grade motorized stirrer. 

Zhen Zhen specializes in fish and chicken porridge. We went the whole hog and ordered the Fish, Chicken and Century Egg porridge.The porridge here is "Teochew" style where you can still feel the grains of the rice - unlike the Cantonese version which is a lot gooier. On the whole, the texture is very nice - but was the taste worth the wait? I would say no - it was quite mild in taste and just didn't have the flavour kick that I was expecting. 

They also serve "Teochew" style sashimi - slices of fresh fish served with a vegetable salad, light sesame dressing and lime juice. Again this lacks any distinct flavour that makes it stand out. A good - but not great dish.

 

Unlike Tian Tian which is the real deal when it comes to chicken rice - Zhen Zhen proved to be a bit of a disappointment as the porridge - though good - wasn't really great enough to warrant the long wait.