Occupying a unique position on ocean trading routes enhanced by its importance to the British Empire, with Malaysia and Thailand to the north, Indonesia to the east and China to northeast, India to the northwest, Singapore developed a rich, diverse Asian cuisine. The result is a potpourri of spices and ingredients, bewildering to most Western visitors.
Hawkers
You can try an astounding variety of dishes at Singapore’s hawkers, vendors of its famous street food housed under open air roofs. Most stalls have a number of offerings, ranging from fried shrimp breads to complex rice dishes. It’s hard to know what you are ordering even though the signs are in English. If you have a knowledgeable friend to join you it’s all the better, which was the case for me.
You sit comfortably while dining on most days as fans keep the air moving. Thus well ventilated, the shaded space immerses you in aromas galore.
There is no table service. If that’s what you want choose a restaurant, though you will loose the extensive range of options you will find among the hawkers and you will usually pay much more. Both restaurants and hawkers follow modern hygiene practices so there is no advantage to restaurants in that regard. Hawkers are by far more popular choice of locals, especially for those who especially enjoy or need the budget prices and are willing to bus their own table- you must or you could be fined!
In the course of 11 days I sampled a couple of dozen dishes. Here’s a short slideshow video of what came my way:
Culinary influences include Chinese from multiple provinces including Peranakan (southern China), Malaysian, Indonesian, Indian both north and south, and Western traditions including the ubiquitous hamburger, English and the Portuguese-influenced Eurasian, known as Kristang).
The dishes often have a bit of hot spice, with extra on the side. The cuisine in general carries a bit of sweetness, often barely subtle enough for my taste. The Indian dishes include both northern and southern versions, a bit lighter on the hot pepper than you might expect. The Korean restaurant we visited offered meats cooked on the table mounted grills. The sides were for me disappointingly mild, adjusted to the local taste I suppose.
Singapore’s offerings include Chinese hotpots. You can order wheat noodles served in a soy or miso sauce. You can add sliced pork (chāshū), nori (dried seaweed), bamboo shoots (menma), narutomaki, and scallions.
Nearly every region in Japan has its own variation of ramen. One Japanese ramen we went to had bland offerings. Another ramen joint, Enishi is a tiny place with just 12 stools at the bar, cooks and workers flying about. They have ramen dishes more to my liking. This is not a sit and relax kind of place. A sign says that in busy times you may only be allowed 30 minutes. There was a line when we were dining, so I do not think we had even that long. Fortunately the ramen soup is served immediately.
Nearing the end of my visit my kind hosts asked me what I would like to have for dinner. I said I thought I was missing only the Chinese. None of the places we frequented I’d identified as such. He explained that labeling a eatery ‘Chinese’ here would be like labeling a restaurant as Spanish when in Spain. So I had been served Chinese meals that I did not recognize as such. That’s how little I knew about the scene in Singapore. At least I learned more about how vastly Chinese cuisine varies by province. In the west we get mostly Cantonese and Sichuan offerings.
Eggs galore
I’ve never seen so many dishes that come with an egg. Many are fried and laid on top, others hard boiled. The trendy breakfast is toast with a slice of butter with a soft boiled egg on the side.
The breakfast includes the local coffee called Kopi. It has its roots in Malaysia . It is made from Robusta beans, the least desirable coffee bean, versus shade grown Arabica, then roasted in (eh gad!) margarine and sugar and then strained. They add evaporated and condensed milk. Somehow I managed to avoid it, but if you like it please let me know and tell how that’s even possible. I did not care to give it a go myself.
Desserts
Aside from fruit you can order desserts that from my point of view are quite strange. I can only report on two. You can see my reaction to cendol. It’s a dessert made with green rice flour jelly, coconut milk, and palm sugar syrup. Here there are also red beans. It’s called “dawet” in Java and “lot chong” in Thailand. Despite my initial reactions to red beans in a dessert, they offered an interesting contrast to the crunchy sweetness of the rest. Mango sticky rice was pretty good too, although I am not fond of sticky rice, just because it’s so gummy.
Wikipedia has an extensive article on Singapore’s cuisine. Check it out at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singaporean_cuisine
