Prepare to eat until you drop in the city where dining never stops
The traveller stopping here for a day or two, has entered a near-overwhelming culinary paradise where the national preoccupation is eating.
The humidity in Singapore is reaching nuclear reactor levels when we step out of the taxi – airconditioned to Arctic conditions – in the throbbing heart of the city. All around us, heat hangs like a blanket, almost visible, misty, pulsating with the rhythm of the place.
It has just gone lunchtime, arguably the favourite time of day in Singapore, or at least second-favourite to dinnertime, and the hawker markets are hopping. Crowds spill from the packed alleyways of these fabled centres as office workers and tourists pour in, anticipating the cornucopia of delicious things within. “You see here,” says our informative cab driver, positively bursting with civic pride. “This is very good hawker market. You go here first. After that, across there, you go there second. Also very good hawker market. And after that, across there, anther good hawker market, you go there next.” We follow his line of sight and agree this is sensible advice. There’s about 10 hours left in our day and three hawker meals really might not be enough.
I had not been to Singapore for a decade, mostly because to me it’s a stopover destination, and the airlines I’ve flown in recent years have been directed through the Middle East. More recently, attractive flight offers from other Asian carriers including Thai Airways have seen me transiting to Europe through Bangkok, with poor old Singapore lost in translation.
To be honest, flying through the Middle East becomes tiresome fairly quickly, the airports at times creepy and hostile, especially to women. They often force transiting passengers to leave the terminal and submit to repeated security screenings and customs checks, too, and I’ve had things confiscated from my bag (namely: expensive Italian olive oils) for no apparent reason. Bangkok airport can be fine but it depends on the terminal you arrive at. It’s pot luck.
Flying into Singapore, by contrast, is a traveller’s dream. Customs and security are all electronic, the process is absolutely seamless, the baggage delivery prompt, and you can be off the plane and into a taxi for the 15-minute drive to the city in a matter of minutes. As my friend puts it when we slip through the airport moments after touching down, “It’s possible Changi Airport is Singapore’s greatest export.” Why stop elsewhere?
For the traveller stopping here for a day or two, Singapore is a culinary paradise where the national preoccupation is eating. A number of Australian chefs have set up home locally, including Tetsuya Wakuda, who may have closed his Sydney restaurant but still operates Wakuda at Marina Bay Sands. Chef Dave Pynt, meanwhile, runs his wildly successful Burnt Ends on Dempsey Road. And indeed, while in Singapore I have a beautiful dinner at a pop-up restaurant in the Mandala Club, where Italian chef Armando Aristarco from the super high-end Caruso, A Belmond Hotel, is operating for the week. It’s a magical experience of pasta, risotto and lemon cake that sends me straight to Amalfi, or at least wanting to be there. You want high-end dining? Singapore has the visitors and the crazy-rich Asians to support it.
This is a lovely way to eat but for a real cultural experience our taxi driver is on the money.
I am thankfully not staying at Marina Bay Sands or in that rather soulless part of the city, but in the historic Joo Chiat district, with its old town centre that dates to the early 19th century.
This area is said to be the heart of Peranakan culture, a term that loosely applies to the Malay people who are indigenous to the island as well as the Indian, Chinese, European and Arab populations that have melded into the community here since the 1300s when Singapore became established as a central trading route. It’s a vibrant melange of cultures and spirits and in the days I am here, the Hindu festival of Thaipusam is occurring joyfully and noisily through the streets of Joo Chiat and around the Indian temples in the neighbourhood.
The district is a blaze of colour and heritage. Walk down any of the main roads, specifically Tembeling Road, Joo Chiat Road and East Coast Road (plus many more, just wander and get lost in the maze) and you’ll find brightly painted two-storey terrace houses and shopfronts. The English colonial imprint is strong here, architecturally, and the area seethes day and night with life. The district was afforded heritage protection in 1993.
From my hotel, the Mondrian Singapore Duxton, it is a three-minute walk to my cabbie’s favourite hawker market, Maxwell Food Centre, home to more than 100 hawkers. Under its tin roof you’ll find five or six rows of stalls with vendors selling every conceivable manner of Asian cuisine, mostly Singaporean and Malay, but also Thai, Korean, Indian, Cantonese and halal. There are also coffee and tea hawkers, and those selling juices and the sweet milky drinks beloved of Asian palates.
Each stall has a different offering, different clientele and different vibe. Usually the menus are printed in enormous size in front of each stall, with three or four staff toiling away inside. The markets are incredibly cheap, with the average price per dish about $SGD5-$10 ($5.90-11.70).
The biggest problem is deciding what to select. I like to be in a zone of challenging myself without being ridiculous, so on day one go for something called a “carrot cake” (traditionally called chai tow kway), a savoury dish involving neither cake nor carrots. Rather it is a stir-fry made from crispy chunks of radish with fish sauce, preserved vegetables, prawns, dark sweet soy and garlic. A completely delicious dish. But the options are endless. Reliably excellent are Hainanese chicken rice, Malay and Singaporean laksas, fish ball soups, Peking duck, satay sticks, nasi lemak, stir-fried stingray (a local specialty), and a thousand variants on rice and noodles. Cockles, cuttlefish and other local fish also feature heavily. Try the bountiful pastries and sweets, too.
Not far away is the Chinatown Complex, a multi-level hawker outlet that in the morning also operates as a fish market. It is full of intrigue and pungent scents. And if you have time, also excellent is Lau Pa Sat, in the heart of the city, probably the best known of the hawker markets; this beautiful 19th-century building has more than 80 stalls and a lovely seating hall (although I prefer the Maxwell Food Centre for its more authentic feel).
So over a couple of days I nearly complete my cabbie’s demands of eating six times a day. Even in the steamy equatorial air, the trek for a plate of salty, charred noodles or rice is worth it every time. For anyone who loves good food, Singapore is a dream stopover. I’m going to visit more often.
Checklist
Getting there: Singapore is a seven-to-eight-hour flight from Australian east coast cities (or five hours from Perth). Changi Airport to the CBD is about a 15-20-minute drive.
Eat: Hawker culture was Singapore’s first inscription on the UNESCO’s “intangible cultural heritage of humanity” list, ratified on December 16, 2020. The Maxwell Food Centre is at 1 Kadayanallur Street, Singapore (maxwellfoodcentre.com). Lau Pa Sat is at 18 Raffles Quay, Singapore (laupasat.sg).
Stay: The Mondrian Singapore Duxton, 16A Duxton Hill, Singapore (mondrianhotels.com/singapore-duxton) is a very comfortable hotel in a fantastic location in the Joo Chiat area. Rates from about $500 a night.
Do: Explore the streets around Joo Chiat and Katong, for their fantastic heritage architecture. It is the best part of the city. Another nice activity for a transit holiday is to visit the Singapore Botanic Gardens, famed for its tropical flowers. It’s a hot walk though, so aim to go in the evening (nparks.gov.sg/SBG).
More Coverage
To join the conversation, please log in. Don't have an account? Register
Join the conversation, you are commenting as Logout