Maxwell Food Centre: what to order, and when to go

Maxwell Food Centre is known for Tian Tian Hainanese chicken rice at stalls 10 and 11. The stall is closed on Monday and open Tuesday to Sunday, 10:00 to 20:00, and the last order is 19:30. It is in Chinatown at 1 Kadayanallur Street, with Maxwell station beside it, and it is listed in the Michelin Guide. When that queue is long, the centre has many other stalls, and two more halls are a short walk away.

NEA, which runs it, also calls it Kim Hua Market. The address is 1 Kadayanallur Street, Singapore 069184. NEA dates the centre to 1935 and counts 103 cooked food stalls, and no market stalls.

What to order

Tian Tian Hainanese Chicken Rice

This is the stall. It is at stalls 10 and 11, and it is listed in the Michelin Guide. The Guide's page marks it Bib Gourmand, the Guide's good-value tier, and the stall's own site says the same.

The stall's site says it started at this centre in 1986, under Madam Foo Kui Lian. The Maxwell menu is poached or roasted chicken with the rice, leafy greens, and the house condiments. The same company has other outlets, including one at Jewel Changi. The hours below are the Maxwell stall's, not Jewel's.

Ah Tai Hainanese Chicken Rice

Ah Tai is the other chicken-rice queue in this centre. A December 2023 AsiaOne article, which is a news report and not the stall's own site, says the cook, Wong Liang Tai, had been Tian Tian's head chef and opened Ah Tai here in 2012. Treat that biography as approximate. We could not find an official menu, stall number or hours page in October 2026, and the secondary listings do not agree on which day it closes, so read the board.

A few other stalls

Two more stalls in this centre are listed in the Michelin Guide, which is a stronger source than a blog roundup.

Maxwell Fuzhou Oyster Cake is at stall 01-05. The Guide says the cakes are fried when you order them, with minced pork, oysters, prawns and coriander in the filling. Its listed hours are Monday to Saturday, 09:00 to 20:00, and closed on Sunday. Monday is Tian Tian's day off, and it is a normal day here.

Rojak, Popiah and Cockle is at stall 01-56. The name is the menu. The Guide's hours are Monday, Tuesday and Thursday to Sunday, 11:30 to 20:30, and closed on Wednesday.

Jin Hua is the fish-soup name people attach to Maxwell. The Michelin Guide page we could verify is Jin Hua at Old Airport Road Food Centre, stall 01-120, 51 Old Airport Road, not a Maxwell address. That listing describes a grouper broth cooked to order, with milk if you want it, eaten on its own or with bee hoon, sliced fish, fried fish or fried fish head. Secondary write-ups also place a Jin Hua stall at Maxwell, and they do not agree on the hours, so we are not printing a stall number or a clock time for a Maxwell branch. If you want the listed bowl, use the Old Airport Road page. If you are already at Maxwell, confirm the stall is open before you count on it.

What it costs

Tian Tian does not publish prices on its site. We checked the outlets and menu pages in October 2026. The Michelin Guide marks the stall $, its lowest band, which for street food means a modest spend, not a dollar figure.

Secondary menus checked the same month are approximate, and they do not match. More than one puts a small plate at about S$5 and a medium at about S$6. A large shows up as about S$8.80 on a 2024 write-up and about S$9 on a page that claims a September 2026 board. Read the board at the stall. We are not printing Ah Tai's prices, or a price for the oyster cake, because we could not confirm them on an official page.

The queue, and the best time to go

The Michelin Guide tells you to expect a long queue at Tian Tian, and its hawker article on this centre describes that queue running out of the building along a covered walkway. The same article talks about crowds of office workers and tourists. The stall opens at 10:00. Arriving near opening is the best time we can justify from those sources. We did not time a queue in October 2026, so this page does not give a wait in minutes.

There is no booking. The Guide's page says the establishment manages its own bookings, and the stall does not publish a reservation link. You queue.

Hours and closure days

The centre does not publish one set of opening hours. Stalls set their own, and a stall can sell out and pull the shutter early.

Tian Tian at Maxwell, from its own outlets page: Tuesday to Sunday, 10:00 to 20:00, last dine-in order 19:30, closed on Monday. Phone 9691 4852.

Maxwell Fuzhou Oyster Cake, from the Michelin Guide: Monday to Saturday, 09:00 to 20:00, closed on Sunday.

Rojak, Popiah and Cockle, from the Michelin Guide: 11:30 to 20:30 on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday to Sunday, closed on Wednesday.

On top of those stall days, NEA closes the whole centre for cleaning. The closure list on data.gov.sg, which the catalogue marked as updated on 19 October 2026 and which we downloaded on 22 October 2026, gives the next closure as Monday 14 December 2026, a single day. Earlier 2026 dates have passed: Monday 9 March, Monday 15 June, and Monday 14 September to Wednesday 16 September. The remarks column for this centre is empty. Check the list again if you are travelling near a quarter's end, because NEA can move a date.

Getting there

The nearest MRT is Maxwell, on the Thomson-East Coast Line. LTA's factsheet for the line's third stage, which opened on 13 November 2022, says Maxwell station sits directly beside the food centre and across from the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple. LTA's TEL3 brochure puts the centre at Exit 2, about a one-minute walk, and repeats the address: 1 Kadayanallur Street, Singapore 069184.

What to expect

Find a seat before you order, or leave one person at the table. Singapore Tourism Board's guide describes the local habit: a tissue packet on a seat means someone has claimed it ("chope") while they queue. A packet already sitting there is not a spare. Sharing a table is normal.

You order and pay at the stall, then carry the food back. There is no single cashier for the centre.

Return the tray. From 1 June 2023, NEA and the Singapore Food Agency have officers ask for particulars when a diner leaves a used tray, crockery or litter, including tissues, bones and cans. A first offence is a written warning. A repeat offence is a fine or a charge. The return point is in the centre. NEA's notice does not print a dollar amount for the fine, so this page does not invent one.

Payment is stall by stall. IMDA's Hawkers Go Digital programme put a unified QR, SGQR, in hawker centres, and PayNow is one of the schemes on that label. NEA's own hawker digital guide names PayNow the same way. Not every stall joined. Carry cash, and look for the label before you order. We could not confirm, from Tian Tian's own site, whether the Maxwell stall takes cards or PayNow.

If it is packed

Chinatown Complex is the closer swap. NEA lists it as Smith Street Blk 335 (Chinatown Complex Market), at Blk 335 Smith Street, Singapore 050335, with 226 cooked food stalls. The two centres' NEA coordinates are about 260 metres apart. NEA's next cleaning closure there is Monday 16 November to Tuesday 17 November 2026, so it is not a fallback on those two days.

Lau Pa Sat is the other central hall, at 18 Raffles Quay. It is not in NEA's list of 123 hawker centres, so it does not follow that cleaning calendar. LTA's TEL3 brochure puts it about five minutes from Maxwell station Exit 4. The food centre itself is Exit 2. Its own site lists the hall as open 24 hours, with Satay Street on a separate evening clock.

Sources

Last checked: 22 October 2026.

• Tian Tian outlets: Maxwell stalls 10 and 11, Tuesday to Sunday 10:00 to 20:00, last dine-in order 19:30, closed Monday, phone 9691 4852. The menu page names poached and roasted chicken, rice and greens, and does not list prices. The story page dates the Maxwell stall to 1986 and says the Michelin Guide recognition is Bib Gourmand.
• Tian Tian in the Michelin Guide: stalls 10 and 11, the same hours, a long queue, price band $.
• Michelin hawker guide to this centre: the Tian Tian queue along the covered walkway, and office and tourist crowds. The article was updated in September 2024.
• Maxwell Fuzhou Oyster Cake and Rojak, Popiah and Cockle: stall numbers and hours as written above.
• Jin Hua in the Michelin Guide: Old Airport Road, stall 01-120, not Maxwell.
• Ah Tai, AsiaOne, 26 December 2023: secondary. The cook's name, the Tian Tian years and the 2012 opening. Not used for hours or prices.
• Prices, approximate only: a 2024 write-up and a page claiming a September 2026 board. They disagree on the large plate. Neither is the stall.
• NEA closure list on data.gov.sg: address, stall counts, coordinates, and the 2026 cleaning dates. Catalogue date 19 October 2026. Downloaded 22 October 2026.
• LTA factsheet, 13 October 2022: Maxwell station beside the centre. TEL3 brochure: Exit 2 about a minute, and Lau Pa Sat at 18 Raffles Quay from Exit 4.
• STB Little Black Book: tissue packet on a seat, and no reservations at a hawker centre.
• NEA and SFA, 31 May 2023: tray and litter return from 1 June 2023.
• IMDA, Hawkers Go Digital and NEA's hawker digital guide: SGQR and PayNow. Not a claim that any one stall takes them.