A History of Singapore in 10 Dishes
roadsandkingdoms.com
roadsandkingdoms.com
I have to disagree with that. Genuinely good vietnamese, thai or even japanese food is pretty hard to find in singapore, and believe me I tried. Its specialities are dictated by its influences - southern china, malaysia of course, india, to some extent indonesia. The rest is decent of course but I just don't think there's an adequate population of, say, vietnamese in the city to sustain a general standard of quality comparable to what's available back home. Just try and find a good pork Banh Mi in singapore, I dare you.
If I had to name the city with the best general variety and everyday average standard of asian food - believe it or not I'd probably say Sydney.
As for hawker food, the increasing cost of doing business in SG means that hawkers use cheaper ingredients and give you less meat/fish. For dishes of Malaysian origin, Penang is the place to go for the best of the best. Even many Singaporeans will admit this.
I'd go with Bangkok as my personal #1 food city in Asia, but Viet cuisine is lacking there is well. So maybe Saigon?
I honestly debated that. BKK is fantastic food-wise but it lacks viet, korean and northern China. Don't get me wrong, it's great. I live there!
I'm sticking with Sydney. It is all due to immigrants and students. I am pretty sure Sydney, or even Melbourne, Banh Mi is the best you can get outside of Vietnam. It's so ironic that the best overall cities for asian cuisine are all outside Asia but SYD, MEL, LAX, SFO and YVR are probably the best cities in the world for asian food, and it is all about immigration!
I agree with you on Vietnamese food, but both Thai and Japanese food are very common in Singapore. Did you try Golden Mile Complex for Thai food, or Robertson Quay/Liang Court/Cuppage Plaza for Japanese food?
> Just try and find a good pork Banh Mi in singapore, I dare you.
Many eateries here cater towards the halal market, so it's sometimes a little difficult to find the pork version of anything that isn't mainstream international cuisine.
Dumplings - Chinatown Noodle King (also ridiculously cheap, order the Fried & Spicy Pork & Chive ones), Ramen - Ryo's, Thai - Khao Pla (used to be amazing, not so sure about the quality now), Viet - Hello Auntie, Banh Mi - anywhere in Cabramatta, Izakaya - Yakitori Yurripi
Sydney is generally cheaper than Singapore in my opinion. What you get for $2.50 at a hawker centre is absolute junk. Ingredients have costs, and most of it is imported from AU anyway. Any price advantage you see in SIN usually means skimping on ingredients compared to what you would see in SYD.
It's super clean, well run, the public transport makes every other country look like a joke, the food is amazing, the laws are tied meaning it's a super safe place to live and wonder around, and everyone is lovely. We're considering a year of living there (and bracing ourselves for how expensive it is.)
If you haven't been: go. It's one of humanity's gems.
Edit: also, it has $4 Michelin Star food: https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/singapore-cheapest-mi...
1. Public transit: it’s good if you go where public transit goes. Try to get out to East Coast park, and you have a 45 minute transit ride vs a 15 minute Uber.
2. It’s clean for an Asian city and depends where you go. Try Little India on a Friday night (and then Saturday morning) but it does clean up amazingly well.
The food centers are amazing. I haven’t visited in a few years and miss it. Maybe you’re right, for a year it would be super fun.
I could get all of these in Wales, UK lmao
Personal story: my father came to visit me here in Singapore, when I was studying at the local university here in the early 1990s. He went to a hawker stall to order laksa for lunch and was surprised to be served by what he called 'curry noodles'. The laksa in our hometown in Malaysia was a completely different version [2].
The Peranakans also have a cuisine that they can call their own [3].
On the other hand, I've never had the "feng" curry mentioned in the article before.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peranakan
[2] https://www.todayonline.com/entertainment/arts/mr-lee-kuan-y...
~1500 A.D
http://viterbivoices.usc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/IMG_...
Singaporean here. I think Singapore and Malaysia tend to share ownership of many dishes.
What wasn't mentioned in the article is that the peppery Teochew style is far more common in Singapore. The herbal Hokkien variant is often known as "Klang bak kut teh" here in Singapore, after Port Klang in Malaysia. Malaysians also seem to like that version better.
Infact I'm going to have it for lunch tomorrow!!!
For instance, I really miss Roti Canai, but it has a different name in Singapore (Roti Pratha IIRC), so even trying to search for a good stall on Google Maps doesn't find the places that make it.
Roti prata.
I think you'll be hard-pressed to find bad roti prata in Singapore. I've heard Mr and Mrs Mohgan's is one of the best: https://goo.gl/maps/bv3b3sFwK1A2
The grandparent comment wanted to look for good stalls. I just tried doing a search for pratha on Google Maps, and it yielded results that were less relevant as compared to if one used the more common spelling of prata.
I live in Singapore, by the way, and I'm getting pretty hungry reading this. Any suggestions for good Indian food?
[Edit: Tried to make a clever regex to match all the spellings, but HN's editor thwarted me.]
Well, south Indian food is everywhere. One can't really go wrong with any place that makes their prata fresh.
(For really good prata, there's the usual suspects like Mr and Mrs Mohgan's, Casuarina Curry, Springleaf Prata Place, Sin Ming Roti Prata… I personally have a soft spot for the ABC King group of restaurants — their food is above average — since one opened next to the Singapore Hackerspace.)
If you're looking for north Indian cuisine, I'm thinking that the area immediately around Mustafa Centre would be a good bet.
Chicken Rice and Chilli Crab are regarded as the usual trademark dishes of Singapore. The article interestingly departs from usual practice.
Katong laksa on the other hand (which is in the article) is probably the famous hawker dish that is most uniquely Singapore.
Incidentally, the Katong laksa at Cassia in Santa Monica is probably as close to the real deal as you can get outside of Asia. But be prepared for sticker shock.
Funny enough, many of the chicken rice vendors in Singapore sell a Cantonese-influenced version (though many places continue to label their chicken rice as "Hainanese chicken rice").
From what I understand, the Cantonese-style steamed chicken gets dunked in ice to keep the gelatin in the skin. The rice also tends to be slightly wetter and more flavourful.
The chicken rice I've had in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and in some other "Malaysian" restaurants around the world, tend to be dryer and yellower.
I had a great tasting chicken rice, but it lost a couple points for having a head and spine laid across the side of the plate. Fine, just wasn’t expecting that!