One of my favourite hawker dishes is Fishball Noodles. I love the noodles served at Song Kee because they're firm to the bite and with a springy texture. I also like the richly flavoured chili sauce that the noodles have been tossed in along with crisp pork lard and smoky rendered pork fat. The tasty fishballs and fish dumplings are handmade while the tofu puff had been stuffed with fish paste, by hand. Unlike the commonly available well-shaped, factory-made fishballs with smooth surfaces that we get in most hawker places, the fishballs here are filled with the natural sweetness of fish. A welcome respite from the bland versions that contain more flour than fish paste.

The food here is a labour of love. It's for this reason that even though I hate to queue for anything, I've been willing to stand in line outside the shop for at least 30 minutes on some occasions or even wait up to an hour for the food to be served.

I don't know about you but local hawker food always has a special place in my heart and is one of the things that I miss most about Singapore when I'm away. As the years pass, the supply of good hawker food has been dwindling at an increasing pace. We're losing good hawkers either to death or simply losing their expertise as they handover the reins to a successor or worse, if they dilute their formula for the sake of convenience and higher profits. If you'd like to savour old school Singapore hawker food before they disappear completely, Song Kee is one of the places you have to check out.

Song Kee Fishball Noodle 532 Upper Serangoon Road Singapore 534547

Operating Hours: Thursday to Tuesday: 6.30 pm - 3 am (or sold out) Closed on Wednesdays.

PS: The staff here aren't known to be friendly so you'd have to bear with quite a bit of attitude whenever you visit. I call them the Fishball Nazi.