Eating Our Way Through Singapore

Singapore was an amazing city…a fantasy land mash up of Western culture, mixed with Asian influences of all kinds and a ton of high rise buildings! It was quite a site to see, and one of the cleanest cities I have ever visited. Now, one of the best things about Singapore is the food, so let’s get to it!

Through traveling I have found that to find great food the best thing you can do is TALK! Talk to your taxi drives, talk to the city workers, talk to the people you meet and ask them their opinion on the city’s best places to get local cuisines and they will give it to you. The local people are your best resource when trying to find delicious eats. Every place we went was a recommendation from a local that we had talked to, and let me say I have never had a better eating experience than I did in Singapore.

I decided to narrow down our favorite foods that we got to try on this trip and make of list of “must eat dishes” while visiting Singapore. (Warning: Singapore is an island and has access to some of the freshest seafood in SE Asia, so this list is very biased towards seafood! LOL) So here are the top 5 dishes!

1. Crab- Chilli Crab and Black Pepper Crabs

This dish is the most famous dish in Singapore- and for good reason! You cannot go wrong ordering either one of these crab dishes, it really just depends on what you’re in the mood for because they are both phenomenal! The chilli crab version is usually not very spicy like it sounds, however different places make their recipes quite different. I was told by locals that the most authentic version is a tomato based sauced that is made sweet and savory by adding  chilli spices and garlic…yum! Then they stir-fry the crab in the sauce and bring it out to you- steaming, fresh and ready to devour! The black pepper crab version turned out to be my favorite between the two. They make this version by cooking the crabs in butter, garlic and black peppercorns- yes, please!

Now, there are TONS of restaurants serving and claiming to have the best chilli crab and black pepper crab in the city, and I’m sure that they are all quite good, however it is all up to you to decide. Do you want to spend close to $150-$200 USD on your crab at a sit-down restaurant OR do you prefer the same great quality for a fraction of the cost $35-$45 USD dining outside at a hawker center? Well, we had heard great things from a bell boy at our hotel about the freshness of the seafood at Newton Hawker Center so we decided to check it out!

I could not think of a better way to eat crab than with your hands, outside, with a cold beer.  And don’t worry, in true Singapore fashion, they have sinks around their hawker center for you to wash your hands!

Remember how I said talking is one of the best ways to find food in a city? Well, that is exactly what we did to find the restaurant that serves up the next dish on my list…

2. Fish Head Curry

Now, I must admit this is not the most appetizing sounding or looking dish and I was hesitant in trying it, BUT am I glad I did! This was one of the most incredible Indian dishes I have ever had. The flakey fish meat just melted off the head, and was so sweet and tender it lit up my tastebuds. The curry was so fresh and spicy, yet not overpowering the flavor of the fish, and it was all served over hot, fluffy rice. Like I said before, INCREDIBLE!

After talking with a local Indian man at the Newton Hawker Center, we found out that the go-to place for curry, especially fish head curry, was The Banana Leaf Apolo. So we hopped on the MRT (which is so efficient and easy to use by the way) to Little India and walked around until we found this gem.

The plates here are traditional banana leaves, and they do provide forks but again the best way to eat is with your hands. They brought out fresh Naan bread with butter and garlic (to die for!), rice to eat with our curry, cabbage and other greens were also complimentary with our meal.

       

This meal was proof that you cannot always judge a dish based on looks, be brave and give it a try!

3. Chicken Rice

This next dish may give chilli crab a run for its money as Singapore’s most famous dish. Chicken rice is everywhere in the city, and once again, many places claim to have the best. Now, we had this dish at multiple places- hawker centers, food courts, restaurants- and the best place we found was a restaurant called Boon Tong Kee.

We found out about the restaurant from this amazing taxi driver we had. He was a born and raised 100% Singaporean (which is very rare!) so we knew we had to check this place out if he was recommending it.

Right when we walked in we saw all the boiled chickens being sliced up and ready to serve by the cooks. Once again, that overwhelming sense of smell of SE Asia spice filled the room and we could not wait to eat! We ordered both versions of their chicken rice- one was traditional style boiled chicken that was served cold, the other was a roasted chicken served warm- the traditional boiled style that made this place famous was the way to go. The silky texture of the chicken skin with just a slight amount of sauce and spice added, and the tenderness of how well the chicken was cooked was out of this world!

Boon Tong Kee has an extensive menu, and they make all of their sauces in house and use the freshest ingredients. We have tried many chicken rice dishes, but this one out shines them all!

4. Prawns

It does not matter how you eat them- steamed, chilli style, peppered, grilled, satay style, etc.- you MUST eat the prawns while traveling through Singapore. They were enormous, and delicious! Being from the South in the U.S., we thought we had seen our fare share of great seafood- shrimp/prawns especially- but we had not seen anything yet.

The prawns we saw at the markets were the size of lobsters in the U.S.! They were as big as your hand, and have a sweet, savoriness to them that we had never had. You can find them at pretty much every hawker center in the city, and on some menus in restaurants.

We tried the chilli prawns…WOW! Your tastebuds will thank you for the flavor of these prawns!

5. Satay

In the mood for meat?! Well my husband and I always are so Satay was an easy choice for us. Satay is skewered meat that has been marinated in spices and grilled on an open fire. Talk about delicious! The most typical meat is chicken and beef, but you can find pork and prawns as well.

We again went to the famous hawker stalls (see a trend here?) to try satay and of course, we couldn’t resist trying all the meats. Satay is typically served with onions and cucumbers on the side, as well as a spicy peanut dipping sauce. You must try it when visiting!

There is an abundance of truly great food in Singapore, that I feel we just hit the tip of the iceberg (albeit a delicious, memorable, and now I’m craving it tip of the iceberg). We cannot wait to go back, talk to even more locals and enjoy more cuisines!

Happy Travels,

Courtney