The main reason I did Whole 30 for almost all of February was because I knew I had an upcoming work trip to Singapore. That way, I could eat whatever I wanted and taste all of the local delicacies without feeling guilty.
Singapore is the most expensive city in the world so it makes sense that it holds 29 Michelin Star restaurants. But it’s easy to get a great meal without breaking the bank at one of the city’s many food hawker centers – essentially food stalls with seating areas.
The city developed in large part because of its position in the Straits of Malacca on the trade route from China to India and the Middle East. That rich history is exhibited in its cuisine –influenced by the people, spices and ingredients passing through the region.
Chinese, Malaysians and Indians make up the largest ethnic groups in Singapore and therefore dominate the local food scene. Indonesian food has a heavy presence as well and it is quite easy to find authentic Thai, Vietnamese, Japanese and Korean food. The Arab Street region of town is where to go for Middle Eastern Food. Given the large number of ex-pats working in Singapore, Western food is also ubiquitous.
Chinese
Nestled between Buddhist and Hindu Temples, busy shops and restaurants sits the Chinatown Food Center, where dozens of food vendors vie for attention of locals and tourists.
One of the stalls features a picture of something that looks intriguing—called a “carrot cake” but it looks somewhat like a crispy pancake. The sign explains that it is not a sweet dish like many Westerners come to expect when they think of carrot cake but rather it is a savory dish. And the carrot – it actually isn’t a carrot. Talk about “lost in translation.” The carrot actually is a daikon radish – a white and savory vegetable that looks like a white carrot. Pickled daikon radish is found on many banh mi. The “carrot” is softened by being rinsed in a bowl and then cut up and pan fried using egg as filler. It is flipped many times until it gets nice and crispy and comes out looking somewhat like a potato pancake. Served alongside the “carrot cake” is a spicy chili sauce. The spice from the sauce pairs well with the crispy outside and soft inside of the carrot cake.
In Chinatown, I also tried hokkien me, egg noodles and rice noodles stir-fried with egg, slices of pork, prawns and squid, and served and garnished with spring onion, lard, sambal chilli and lime. This is another savory dish and it gets better as you go along and the noodles have more time to marinate in the lard, sambal and lime.
The hokkien me was $8 SGD and the “carrot cake” was $4 SGD for a small and $6 SGD if you wanted to order a large.
The next day I ventured to the Golden Mile Food Center where I had a Vietnamese/Thai style iced coffee – a strong french press coffee balanced out by the creamy and sugary sweet condensed milk and served on ice and then a sliced fish soup – a creamy soup with vegetables served along side fried fish pieces which are to be added to the soup along with spices and chili paste. This dish originated from the Teochew region of China.
For a contrast from the Food Hawker Centers, my coworkers took me to Imperial Palace in the Marina Bay Sands complex to try the best Peking duck in town. The skin was crisp and the meat was tender.
One of the most popular Singaporean Chinese dishes is Haianese Chicken Rice. This is a slow poached chicken where the liquid from the poaching is then used to cook the rice along with oil, ginger and other added spices. The chicken is served deboned on top of the rice and comes along with many dipping sauces as the dish is relatively bland without the addition of sauces.
To be honest, Chicken Rice is not my favorite given all of the other options out there.
Also popular is dim sum as there are several prominent places serving dumplings such as Crystal Jade and Din Tai Fung. One of the most popular kind of dumplings is teochew, a steamed dumpling originating from southern china with chopped up pork, shrimp, garlic, mushroom and a variety of other ingredients. I also tried pork buns, which have a savory filling on the inside and are like a somewhat sweet Hawaiian roll on the outside.
At Din Tai Fung I really enjoyed a crispy duck springroll dish.
All regions of China are represented as food hawker stalls go from mild chicken rice to spicy Sichuan hot pot, which I also tried.
One snack my coworkers introduced me to at a food hawker stall is called Popiah. This is kind of like a cross between a spring roll and a burrito and was introduced as street food for poor people. The wrapping itself is like a very thin tortilla and inside is crunchy peanuts, fried shallots, sprouts, egg, carrots and sauteed turnip. All of the textures from the soft outer wrapper to the crunchy inside pair nicely in this light and refreshing dish.
Peranakan
Chinese settlers who mixed with local Malaysians formed a subculture known as Peranakan.
In some ways it reminds me of the Cajun and Creole of the US as they formed their own identity combined by the two cultures. And just like the creole are known for a signature soup, gumbo, the Peranakans in Singapore also have a hearty and savory soup they are known for — Laksa.
The Katong neighborhood on the East side of town is somewhat removed from the tourist hustle and bustle and the busy downtown offices. It’s a truly local neighborhood.
Katong Laksa is the go-to place to try the dish as it has a picture on the wall of one of its famous visitors – Chef Gordon Ramsay.
Laksa is a spicy seafood soup in a rich broth of seafood stock and coconut milk. It’s savory, spicy, hearty and affordable. A large bowl will cost you $7.50. A small bowl is enough to fill you up and that is $5.
Malaysian
For just $5 at a food hawker stall in Chinatown I tried Nasi Padong. It is essentially steamed rice with a meat dish and several sides piled on top. I had a curried chicken dish – very tender in a spicy red gravy along with begedil, a deep fried potato patty and acar, a spicy pickled vegetable dish. It also came with a fried sambal egg.
Sambal is a garlicky, spicy chili paste and basically the ketchup of Indonesian and Malaysian cooking – a very spicy one.
The rice soaks up the juice from the chicken and the spice from the sambal along with everything else on the plate.
Indian
Between the tourist trap of Clarke Quay and downtown Singapore sits Boat Quay – an area full of bars that are popular local hangout spots after work.
Two of my coworkers take me to a popular Indian bar that is known for its Indian snacks and tandoori.
I’m not sure what the first thing I’m eating is but it’s delicious. In a way it tasts like kung pao chicken. Turns out it is Gobi Manchurian – a spicy sweet and sour dish and it’s not chicken it’s friend cauliflower. The crispiness of the cauliflower with the spicy yet sweet and sour sauce is a winning combination.
Then comes out the tandoori chicken. I brace myself for the heat but it doesn’t come.
“Tandoori really isn’t supposed to be spicy,” said one of my coworkers from India.
….
After stepping off the Little India MRT station, the first stop is the Tekka Center, known for its fresh vegetables, spices and food hawker center with stalls serving biryani, dosas and other Indian dishes.
A former coworker of mine showed me around Little India and pointed out that most of the people there “are not locals.” The first thing that caught my eye that almost everyone was eating biryani by hand.
The streets are lined with temples, shops and restaurants.
The place we are going is a vegetarian restaurant called Gokul, as my former coworker is vegetarian and found her time working in Houston to be unbearable as a result.
Not only is it vegetarian but they also do not use garlic or onion there. I asked why and was told that garlic and onion excite the body which goes against the Buddhist principle of chilling out.
The dish I had – Palat Paneer – a spinach heavy dish with a rich paneer cheese was anything but bland and still aromatic despite not having garlic or onion. The rich heavy curry needed a fresh warm garlic naan to absorb all of it.
Many of the dishes on the menu had mock meat in order to uphold the traditional Northern Indian dishes without using meat.
Indonesian
Fried crispy duck with sambal was one of the best dishes I had eaten the whole trip.
Satay is another big Indonesian staple and there’s plenty of people who do it the right way in Singapore, paired with a peanut sauce.
I also enjoyed the Indonesian fried rice with seafood and fried egg. A
lso popular is tempeh, which is essentially fermented soy – I wasn’t a fan of that.
Spicy curry chicken, kari ayam, is a rich dish where the chicken is to the bone tender in a subtle spicy gravy.
Singaporean Seafood
Two of the signature Singaporean seafood dish are sambal stingray and chili crab.
Sambal stingray is prepared with the fins of the stingray being charcoal grilled inside of a banana leaf at high heat and coated in a sambal sauce with a lot of spice and garlic.
The meat falls apart easily with the touch of the fork and is a little bit darker than a typical white fish – kind of like dark meat chicken of the sea.
The stingray tastes fresh and very similar to a heartier white fish but the sambal prevails in the dish in every bite.
Unlike the name suggests, chili crab actually isn’t spicy. The crabs are large Sri Lankan crabs that are cooked in a sweet and savory tomato and chili sauce. The claws are huge – almost like that of a lobster and are quite a task to pry open. The meat from the shell body is taken out and served in the gravy while the claws and legs are left for the diner to work on.
This was a little bit too sweet for my taste though the Sri Lankan crab meat was very buttery and sweet.
I suppose part of the popularity from this dish stems from it being one of the few things non-adventurous ex-pats can eat.
Tasteful Texan 