Residents of Serangoon Central will find it difficult to find delicious and affordable food like Fried Rice and Kway Teow as there is no hawker centre nearby. In fact, the nearest hawker centres from Serangoon Central is the Chomp Chomp Food Centre and Serangoon Garden Market and Food Centre which is too far away. However, they don't have to worry because at NEX shopping mall, there is one cafe selling delicious and affordable fried dishes without having the need to go to a hawker centre called Allgood Cafe.
Allgood Cafe is located at Basement 2 of NEX Mall outside Cold Storage and beside Mr Bean. The cafe is quite small and it's not a restaurant so you have to line up and take your order yourself just like a stall at a hawker centre. There are a lot of fried dishes available here like Fried Rice, Kway Teow and so much more. You can even have some add-ons like shrimp wantons, cheese sausages, fried tofu and fishballs to complement your dishes. It's not entirely healthy but hey, at least they're cheap. Drinks are also available. However, the drinks are not provided by Coca Cola or Pepsi so you can't have a can of Coke or Pepsi to go with your dish. Instead, there are a few refrigerators at one corner and all you do is open the door and get a cup of drink that has already been prepared and ready for consumption.
Here is the full menu and the respective prices for each dish served here. I wish the fonts are much bigger and I also wish that the Price List has a better look. I don't think anyone will notice this menu. It's a good idea to make it more prominent. It's an even better idea if they can put a price label on each item on the showcase display so that customers can make better choices. All the drinks costs $1 so you do not have to worry about whether it costs more or less. (Although less is always better). The cafe is quite small compared to the other restaurants and cafes located near Allgood so the seating is quite limited. Majority of customers bring home their food.
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| Maggi Noodle with Chicken Cutlet S$2.80 |
This is one of my favourite dishes at Allgood. The fried Maggi Noodle with Chicken Cutlet. Everybody has tasted the popular instant noodle Maggi before. Allgood has modified the noodles and instead of boiling and soaking them in spicy gravy, they fry the noodles and I think they added some seasoning like soy sauce. That I'm not so sure. I love the springy taste of it and it's just so addicting. The Chicken Cutlet is also another item that I like and I always add them to my Maggi Noodle. The cutlet isn't really that big. In fact, it's quite small and has lots of breading on it. It's not really a good idea to eat so much of the breading and I wish that the cutlet has more meat in it. If you don't want to add Chicken Cutlet, you can add other items into your noodles. If you like Maggi, I'm sure you'll like this dish. Fans of spicy Maggi noodles will be disappointed as it is not spicy at all.
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| Iced Lemon Tea S$1 |
Like what I said earlier on, the drinks served at Allgood are available in four flavours and the top has been shrink-wrapped with plastic just like how bubble teas are packaged. All of them costs S$1 each and the flavour that I got was Iced Lemon Tea. It's not really that different compared to the Lemon Tea found at supermarkets. This drink is refreshing and complements well with the fried dishes. Other flavours are also available if you're not the Lemon Tea type of person.
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| Fried Rice with Chicken Nuggets and Seaweed Chicken S$4.20 |
Here's another fried dish that I enjoy eating at Allgood. It's the Fried Rice and I added some extras like Seaweed Chicken and Chicken Nuggets. I don't really like to eat rice or noodles without adding anything extra so it's a habit for me to choose items to go along with the rice or noodle. The fried rice is generally okay. It's quite bland to my tastebuds and I cannot really taste the saltiness and pepperness (that's not a word) of the rice unlike other kinds of fried rice I have tasted. Even though it's dark coloured which probably mean that they added soy sauce, I still don't really taste anything. However, I do like the tiny pieces of peas, corn and carrots mixed into the rice. The nuggets were chewy and soggy while the Seaweed Chicken was also chewy and soggy. Perhaps maybe it was takeaway food and that is why it tasted like that.
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| Maggi Noodle with Fried Tofu and Fish (something) |
I have already mentioned about Maggi Noodle previously so I won't really touch on that. However, I want to talk about the additional items I added into the noodles. The Fried Tofu was kinda okay and it was quite bland in taste. The big fish cake that you see on the left of the picture was huge and it was really tasty. I like the size of the fish cake as it was almost as big as my palm. It tasted exactly like fish balls except the shape is a little on the rectangular side. The ones in the middle are also fish cakes although I'm not entirely sure which variant is that. Allgood serves a wide variety of fish cakes of different shapes and sizes so it's easy to get confused. The one in the middle has no taste at all and it was too thin and tiny for my liking. I still prefer the big one that's on the left.
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| Bee Hoon with Fish Balls S$2.20 |
I'm not a very big fan of Bee Hoon so I can't really comment on the dish itself. This dish was consumed by my sister so I'm not so sure how it tastes like. However, I like the fish balls because they're plump and it has small tiny bits of leaves in the balls itself. If you like Bee Hoon noodles, you should give this Allgood dish a try and let me know what you think of it.
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| Maggi Noodle and Mi Goreng Half N Half with Chicken Nuggets |
At Allgood, if you can't decide which one to eat, you can choose two varieties in one. I chose this combination which is the combination of Maggi Noodle and Mi Goreng (Fried Yellow Noodles). I already talked about the Maggi Noodle so let me tell you more about the Mi Goreng that's on the right half of the packet. The Mi Goreng was delicious. It was spicy, thick and has full of mixed vegetables. The spiciness made my tongue burn and the feeling was just great. My tongue can be very sensitive so don't blame me if you think that the Mi Goreng isn't spicy. Anyway, it's a great dish if you want a little kick in your food plus the silky smooth and heavily spiced noodles make it a joy to eat. The chicken nuggets on the other hand, were average and a little bit soggy so it's better to get the breaded Chicken Cutlet to go along with the spicy Mi Goreng.
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| Nasi Lemak |
Another signature dish of Allgood is their Nasi Lemak. Nasi Lemak is Coconut Rice in Malay and it's a very popular breakfast dish in Singapore. There's a permanent promotion at Allgood in which you can buy a plate of Nasi Lemak and a drink for just S$2.90 which is quite affordable. I don't like Anchovies and Sambal to be added into my Nasi Lemak so it was just the fried chicken and fried egg in the dish itself. The rice was fragrant but the taste is not as good as other Nasi Lemak like the ones available at QiJi, Lee Wee Brothers and regular Malay stalls. The serving was also quite little as compared to the others so maybe they sacrificed the portion to match the affordable price. The egg was runny but it's not to my liking and the chicken wing is pretty much okay and has a little bit more meat than others. If you want value for money Nasi Lemak set, get it from Allgood. Plus, you can add on other things like sausages and fish cakes to complement your Nasi Lemak.
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| Kwai Tiaw (Kway Teow) with Chicken Cheese Sausage S$1.30 |
This is also a delicious fried dish that you must try. It's called the Kwai Tiaw which I think is a mispelling of the proper name which is Kway Teow. I'm going to use the proper name, Kway Teow, for my write up of this delicious dish. Kway Teow is basically flat rice noodles which are stir fried with soy sauce and some spices. It's a very popular dish in Singapore and in neighbouring countries.
The one served at Allgood is pretty much a plain and simple Kway Teow that is slightly narrower than the ones sold at hawker centres. I added some extras inside which are Chicken Cheese Sausages. The dish is not really that bad in my opinion although it's better to get the ones sold at hawker centres as they're slightly spicier and has much more interesting add-ons. The cheese sausage is nothing special and it's not as cheesy as I originally thought. If you want a plain and simple dish, this is the one for you. Just don't eat too much of it as it's bad for you.
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| Fruit Punch S$1 |
Last but not least, another drink that I like to consume at Allgood is the Fruit Punch. The Fruit Punch is one of the drink options available at Allgood and it's a very refreshing drink. The drink complements well with the fried dishes and since it's wrapped like Bubble Tea, you don't have to worry about the drink spilling when you take home the drink. It tastes fruity but somehow, for one dollar, the drink is a little bit on the small side. It's slightly shorter than the regular-sized drinks sold at fast food outlets so it's better if they have a larger option. If you don't fancy this flavour, there are also other choices like Iced Lemon Tea which I just mentioned above.
Allgood Cafe at NEX may be small in size and may not accommodate a lot of people but snaking queues and a wide variety of choices will definitely convince you to come here. Serangoon Central residents are very lucky to have Allgood Cafe located nearby so they can have access to affordable and delicious food right at their doorstep. Whether you want to get Fried Rice, Kway Teow, Nasi Lemak or have a refreshing S$1 drink, Allgood Cafe is the right place to get all of these. Save time by coming here instead of going to the hawker centre at Serangoon Garden which is so far away especially if you live in Serangoon Central.
Getting Here
Bus services available: 22, 43, 53, 70, 70M, 81, 82, 315 (Bus stop along Serangoon Central outside Serangoon Station)
Nearest MRT Station: NE12/CC13 Serangoon MRT Station (North East Line/Circle Line)
Website: www.nex.com.sg
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