My first ever visit to Singapore, although for business, turned out to be a surprising foodie treasure trail, especially with my boss being an expert food guide in Singapore. Him being a true foodie, a permanent resident of Singapore, having spent 10 yrs living there, helped. The Singapore food scene is tremendous, and impossible to explore and understand in less than 48 hrs that I had in Singapore, yet, thanks to my expert food guide, I did quite a lot!
Before giving you the gory details of what I devoured, let me give you a brief background for Singapore’s food culture, if you do not know already – no one really cooks in Singapore. Subsidized by the government, Singapore is dotted with innumerable food courts (and huge ones) along with the stand alone restaurants, fancy joints and the luxury addresses. Locals seem to be eating ALL their meals outside, breakfast to post parties. There are hawker centers (Ref to the wikipedia link for better understanding – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawker_centre) and/or food courts. These “Hawker centers sprang up in urban areas following the rapid urbanisation in the 1950s and 1960s. In many cases, they were built partly to address the problem of unhygienic food preparation by unlicensed street hawkers. More recently, they have become less ubiquitous due to growing affluence in the urban populations of Malaysia and Singapore. Particularly in Singapore, they are increasingly being replaced by food courts, which are indoor, air conditioned versions of hawker centers located in shopping malls and other commercial venues.They are typically found in city centers, commercial hubs, near public housing estates or transport hubs (such as ports, train stations, bus interchange, etc..).”
Image Source: http://travelerfolio.com/singapore-tourist-attraction-chinatown/
Meal prices start at as low as SGD 3, and you can have a full, hygienic meal within that.
We started an early morning breakfast with a common traditional breakfast of kaya toast (toast with a special kaya spread, or sugared butter – totally yummy), soft boiled eggs and black coffee (the coffee here was so different, so nice – apparently, the coffee beans are toasted in butter and then ground for special flavors).
Next, in between breakfast and lunch (since I had very little time and so much to try) I tried the Nasi Lemak, a plate made up of various items including the pendang rice (rice cooked in coconut milk), anchovies, fish paste cooked in bamboo leaves, sambal, fried egg, pickled cucumber and a few other things. My plate was lapped clean and I am craving a Nasi Lemak as I write this blog.
For lunch (yes, I did have lunch after all that!) I had a seafood (specifically including fish balls) soup, ramen noodles and a Thai chicken with rice, again a happy experience! For dinner, we checked out the night life scene in Singapore, hopping between Clarke’s Quay and Brix, we had a couple of drinks and some fancy food like Chicken Satay, etc.
For breakfast next day, we walked upto a food court/hawker’s center (I am yet to learn to differentiate between the 2) near the port. Started off with Bak Kut Teh (pork cooked in broth), literally means “pork bone tea” along with youtiao (” a long golden-brown deep fried strip of dough”). It was one of the heartiest meals I have had in my lifetime.
For lunch, we went fancy and had the very famous Hainanese Chicken and rice as well as some Rojak (unique vegetable and fruit salad with a tangy sweet dressing, dotted with some youtiao). Rojak, every bite felt different, not exactly loved it, but could not stop eating it! Some say it is a Malay inspired dish, some relate it to Indian flavors.
http://www.yoursingapore.com/dining-drinks-singapore/local-dishes/rojak.html
The above dishes do not even cover 10% of the variety that Singapore has to offer. One reason I know would take me back to Singapore would be the food! It is unexpectedly awesome!
PS: Why I have had to use the web images is because I lost my phone just after the Singapore trip! And lost all data 🙁
