If chicken’s your thing then have it cooked another way. The western food stall (stall number 4) serves up a good variety of generic western food, and the stall owner presented us with their best seller – chicken chop and creamy carbonara pasta on a hot plate. Expect to wait a little while for this dish; anything served up on a hot plate requires longer preparation time. The chicken chop was of the usual quality, and was covered in sweet teriyaki sauce, which made the dish a little more interesting than the typical chicken gravy used by other stalls. This, I would say, would be better on rice than with pasta. The creamy carbonara sauce had a good cling to the spaghetti and the generous portion would serve to satisfy any ravenous stomach, but one would wonder what the side of potato mayo salad, which is usually served (and eaten!) cold was doing on a sizzling plate. It was good though, albeit strangely warm.

     If you’re pressed for time and need a good protein-laden meal, head down to stall number 5 for a plate of bloody good chicken rice. The Hainanese white chicken rice topped with Char Siew (Sweet red barbequed pork fillet slices) is certainly to die for. While the rice barely lives up to what I would term decent enough, the white steamed chicken was smooth, tender and most importantly, FRESH. And if there’s one thing that you have to try before you graduate (I mean this), it’s the Char Siew slices. Chewing into an ample chunk induced an explosion of flavours in my mouth: sweet, tangy and savoury all in one mouthful. This one is a must-try!

     Again, if you’ve got only 10 minutes to queue, wolf down your food and sprint to the lecture theatre 500m away, proceed to the chai png stall (stall no. 3) without further delay. Chai png (or mixed vegetables rice for the unacquainted) needs no introduction. Mr Lai, the stall owner, serves up a variety of home-cooked styled Chinese cuisine at prices so reasonable you wouldn’t have to ransack your wallet.

     For the adventurous, go for the kway chap (stall number 7). Kway chap lovers will be able to get their fix of pork stomach, stewed pork, tau pok, tau kwa and stewed egg here. The proteins had been well braised and are packed full of flavour. The rice noodle sheets were light and silky, and the soup wasn’t bland at all – for once I didn’t have to depend on the braised goods to salt my carbohydrates. It was actually quite fragrant and a pleasure to eat on its own. Interestingly, this stall doesn’t serve up the usual big and small intestines, and being natively Singaporean, I found it a little uncanny. The Japanese food stall (stall no. 6), I must contend, had the largest selection of dishes amongst all the Japanese food stalls I’ve tried here in NUS. The mixed tempura platter that we had was well done; the okra was still looked firm and bright green and tasted anything but raw. The sweet potatoes were also a welcome retreat from the savouries, and the prawns were juicy and ample.