Fernvale Hawker Centre: 2 Stalls Worth Your Calories

If you find yourself around Sengkang and wondering where to settle your next meal, Fernvale Hawker Centre & Market is one of those neighbourhood food spots worth keeping in mind.

Located right beside Fernvale LRT and The Seletar Mall, the hawker centre may not have the sprawling number of stalls found at some of Singapore’s older food centres, but there is still enough variety to make choosing lunch or dinner surprisingly difficult.

For this visit, we kept things simple and went for two very different comfort-food options — a satisfying bowl of bak chor mee and a generous plate of ayam penyet.

One leans towards springy noodles tossed in pork-lard-scented sauce, while the other delivers crispy-edged chicken, fragrant rice and sambal.

Here are 2 hawker stalls at Fernvale Hawker Centre & Market to consider when you want something substantial enough to fill the tummy.

01. Seng Hiang Bak Chor Mee #03-07

Signature Dish: Bak Chor Mee
Operating Hours: 10am – 8.30pm
Closed: Wednesday
Price: Soup S$4.50 / S$5.50 | Dry S$5 / S$6

Bak chor mee is one of those dishes where everyone seems to have their own preference.

Some people want plenty of vinegar. Others go straight for chilli. Then there are those of us who believe a little pork lard can make a bowl of noodles considerably more interesting.

At Seng Hiang Bak Chor Mee, what immediately caught my attention was the way the dry version was served.

Rather than piling all the ingredients directly onto the noodles, the meatballs and minced pork arrived separately in a bowl of soup. This leaves the noodles sitting on their own with the seasoning sauces and little pieces of pork lard.

And frankly, I rather liked it this way.

The noodles were cooked to a pleasantly springy texture, with enough chew to keep each mouthful satisfying. More importantly, they picked up the sauce nicely, so you don’t end up with noodles that taste seasoned only at the bottom of the bowl.

Give everything a good toss before eating.

Once the sauce works its way through the strands, the pork lard adds that familiar old-school fragrance that makes dry bak chor mee difficult to stop eating. It isn’t complicated food, but sometimes that combination of noodles, sauce and lard is exactly what you want.

The stall is also rather generous with its meatballs.

Our serving came with five pieces, which is more than I expected at this price point. They had a pleasant bounce with a straightforward porky flavour — nothing fancy, but certainly not there merely to make up the numbers.

The minced pork was perhaps the more unusual component.

Instead of the slightly coarse texture you often find in bak chor mee, the meat here was minced extremely finely. It was soft enough that it almost reminded me of a very loose meat paste, although it still came together in small clumps rather than dissolving completely into the soup.

I actually enjoyed spooning some of it over the noodles.

Because of that softer texture, the minced pork mixes easily into the sauce and becomes part of each mouthful rather than sitting separately on top.

Those who prefer soup bak chor mee can choose the S$4.50 or S$5.50 portions, while the dry version costs S$5 or S$6.

Personally, I would go with the dry bowl. The combination of springy noodles, savoury seasoning and pork-lard aroma is where this stall made the strongest impression on me.

If your usual bak chor mee order is mee pok dry, this is probably the version to start with.

02. Saudagar Penyek #03-21

Signature Dish: Ayam Penyet
Operating Hours: 11am – 3pm, 4.30pm – 8pm
Closed: Sunday
Price: S$6

There are days when noodles simply won’t do.

You want rice. You want chicken. You want sambal.

Preferably all three on the same plate.

That was where Saudagar Penyek came in.

Its Ayam Penyet (S$6) is the sort of straightforward plate that arrives looking like a proper meal rather than something you’ll need to supplement with another order afterwards.

The serving was noticeably generous for S$6.

The chicken came out freshly prepared and still hot, which already made a difference before we even got to the first bite.

The seasoning had worked nicely into the meat, giving the chicken flavour beyond just its fried exterior. Inside, the flesh remained juicy rather than dry and stringy — always something I pay attention to with ayam penyet because chicken can become rather unforgiving once it spends too long in the fryer.

Then there is the rice.

It would have been easy to treat it merely as the carbohydrate sitting underneath everything else, but the rice here deserved some attention of its own.

It carried a pleasant aroma and enough flavour that I found myself happily eating a few spoonfuls without anything else. When paired with the chicken and sambal, it naturally became even more enjoyable.

The sambal leaned towards a sweet-savoury profile rather than being all about chilli heat.

Personally, I found that quite approachable.

It still gave the dish the punch you expect from ayam penyet, but it didn’t turn every mouthful into a test of chilli tolerance. That also made it easier to use quite a generous amount with the rice.

And you probably should.

A little sambal with a piece of chicken, followed by fragrant rice, is where the plate comes together best.

What ultimately stood out to me was the portion-to-price ratio.

At S$6, this isn’t trying to reinvent ayam penyet. What you get instead is a hot piece of seasoned chicken, fragrant rice, a flavourful sambal and enough food that you are unlikely to walk away wondering what else to order.

Sometimes that is exactly what a neighbourhood hawker meal should be.

If I’m especially hungry, Saudagar Penyek would be my pick of the two stalls simply because the portion feels particularly satisfying.

So, Which One Should You Try?

That depends entirely on the mood.

For something lighter but still comforting, I would choose Seng Hiang Bak Chor Mee, especially the dry version with its springy noodles and pork-lard-scented sauce.

If hunger levels are considerably higher, Saudagar Penyek’s S$6 Ayam Penyet gives you a fuller plate with chicken, rice and sambal in a portion that feels rather reasonable for the price.

Better still, bring someone along and order one from each stall.

Then you don’t have to choose.