Chinatown has its fair share of affordable hawker stalls and economical eats, but here’s one place you should definitely check out if you’re really on a budget. Located on the second floor of the bustling Chinatown Complex is Mum Daughter Kitchen, a Muslim-friendly stall specialising in nasi padang.
Jahan first started Mum Daughter Kitchen as a home-based business in 2020, delivering nasi padang in the midst of the COVID-19 outbreak. While it was her mother who originally suggested starting this business, she now mans the stall with her husband, who is Chinese-Muslim.
Mum Daughter Kitchen offers up to 14 dishes, with the line-up varying each day. The stall updates their Instagram page regularly, so you can keep tabs on the yummy dishes that will be served for the day, including Mee Goreng Laksa, Turmeric Vegetables, and Ikan Berlado, AKA fried fish in tangy chilli sauce.
If you can’t decide what to order, go for their two most popular dishes: Sotong Masak Hitam ($4.50) and Ayam Masak Lemak Chilli Padi ($4).
Sotong Masak Hitam, which translates to “Squid Cooked In Ink”, sees pieces of whole squid cooked in a black ink stew. During our visit, we found the dish to be mildly spicy, with a delicate sweetness from the slightly chewy squid.
We were also huge fans of the Ayam Masak Lemak Chilli Padi, which featured tender chicken drenched in a creamy coconut curry, spiked with bird’s eye chillies.
The same heady curry was drenched onto our plates of fluffy white rice ($0.50), offering a piquant kick with each bite.
As if that wasn’t spicy enough, each plate of rice also came with a dollop of sambal. The sambal had a fiery aroma that lingered on the tongue, but this was balanced out with hints of sweetness from the shrimp paste.
For more good food in the area, read our Chinatown Complex food guide. Check out our Aziz Jaffar Muslim Food review too for famous nasi padang and mee siam from just $3.50!
Address: 335 Smith Street, #02-159, Singapore 050335
Opening hours: Mon-Sat 8:30am to 3pm
Website
Mum Daughter Kitchen is a Muslim-owned eatery.
Photos taken by Rifdi Syahir.
This was an independent visit by Eatbook.sg