Spice Central @ St Michael's Interchange

Spice Central at St Michael's Bus Interchange Coffeeshop can be considered one hidden gem in Balestier. Yummy South Indian delights can be found here and it has been nominated for several foodie awards, including being nominated as a favourite haunt for taxi drivers.

It may be an unassuming place, but things can get hot at this Indian food stall, thanks to its spicy fare.



My favourite dish at Spice Central has gotta be its fried lady's fingers and achar. I just love the aroma of their ladyfingers ! Sometimes when they get sold out (and yes quite often), I will go for their bittergourd instead - fried and cooked in the same way. And of course, as palatable as their lady cousin. See above picture of the ladyfingers.

As for their achar, it's always very appetizing with its colourful pineapple cubes and onion shreds (btw I'm a big fan of onions).

What is achar: An East Indian word referring to pickled and salted relishes. They can be made sweet or hot, depending on the seasoning added.


Get your South Indian food with some bryani rice or steamed white rice, both go well together with the spice :) Other recommendations are: Fish Curry, Mutton Curry, Chicken Curry, Chicken Masala and thosai.

Seghar (the young chap owner of Spice Central) and his mum will serve you the best Indian food in Balestier. He's very friendly and makes an effort to remember the likes and dislikes of every customer - that's very good service! When he goes back to India for a short while or he closes his stall for a public holiday long weekend, that makes our craving even stronger!

For Bahagia Residents, here's a quick tip for you: Make friends with Seghar , introduce some friends to his stall. You guarantee your meals will always come in bigger portions than expected.

How to get There

Lerk Thai @ Novena Square 2

I had a craving for my avocado milkshake from Thai Express and I always thought there is a branch in Square 2. But no, I ended up in Lerk Thai and settled for a mediocre thai dinner.


There was a value-for-money promotion going on where the set dinner of about 6 dishes (including dessert) cost $19.80++ and it looked like the Tom Yum soup could well make up for the lack of Avocado milkshake in this meal. Hence we decided to give it a try.

The Tom Yum soup itself was fine. We topped it up with seafood which cost an extra $2.00 and it looked nothing like it was filled with seafood. Obviously, it was completely different from the dish they featured on their website and in their promotion images. See the above image (2nd picture from the left) and compare it to the below. What a world of difference!


Ah well, I should have known and I wasn't surprised at all.

The rest of the dishes tasted like coffeeshop zi char, especially for the fried kang kong and omelette. Not too bad for us and people who are easily satisfied when it comes to food.

Anyway, Lerk Thai is located on the 2nd level of Square 2. Good thing about this thai restaurant is that it is strategically located beside the glass railing and you can have a bird's eye view of the mall on the first level. Dining chairs were also comfortable - they are those fabric ones with full arm rest!


Bird's eye view of Level 1. Recommended for those who like to people-watch.

Eventually the meal came up to about $35 for 2 pax - it was inclusive of 2 lemongrass drinks which inflated the price from $20+ (of the set dinner) to $30+. Conclusion is - I will not come here again.

How to get There

Fayidha - The Eating Place for your Supper Fix

Fayidha is the nearest 24 hour Muslim eating place for your midnight supper fix. They serve your Indian and Indian-Muslim food - martabak, prata, mee goreng, nasi goreng. Pretty tasty!

My muslim neighbours were lamenting about how difficult it is to find muslim food in Whampoa hawker centre and most of the time they come here! Some readers were also asking me where they can find supper places to hang out (for timings like 2am to 3am) with their friends and this is probably good supper / breakfast after a late night mahjong session!




Fayidha at 7pm on a Sunday.

How to get There