The 15 Best Things I Ate In Singapore
The places the Singapore Tourism Board wanted me to see weren't all about freezing ice cream with nitrogen and sourcing lamb from the Isle of Man. Instead, the spots touted $2 piles of noodles the size of my head, mountains of durian so powerfully odiforous I nearly died and went to hell, and slingers of barbecued pork jerky, frog porridge, satay and oyster-packed fried omelets too numerous to count. This is the real Singapore food.
I ate white pepper crab and black pepper crab (the difference is...well I'm not going to walk straight into that one), as well as the famed Singaporean chili crab. I had noodles, curries and dumplings of every incarnation imaginable. I had kaya toast and kopi-c — ultra-strong margarine-roasted coffee inexplicably strained through a sock and splashed with sweetened evaporated milk — every morning. Seriously, nobody was able to explain to me why this coffee is strained through a sock. Not a used sock, just a sock.
I only scratched the surface during my brief time in Singapore. But here are the 15 best things I ate over the past week.
Kaya toast, the essential Singaporean breakfast, lunch, snack: Lunch In Singapore: Kaya Toast
Sticky-sweet, chewy, highly addictive barbecued pork jerky, a.k.a. bak gua.
Half-boiled eggs with a splash of dark soy and dusting of ground white pepper, typically served with kaya toast. When punctured, runny egg yolk porn at its finest.
Ceviche-cured diver scallop, pressed cucumber, yuzu soy, radish, green apple and horseradish snow at the Botanical Gardens' Pollen restaurant.
Wonderfully crunchy Peking duck, all wrapped up with somewhere very important to go.
The prawns I got wasted and set on fire, pre-head sucking: Lunch In Singapore: Drunken Prawns, A Video
Classic spicy fermented shrimp and rice noodle soup, laksa. A squeeze of fragrant, Calamansi lime on top is essential.
The holy grail of Singaporean street food, Maxwell Hawker Center's Tian Tian Chicken Rice.
By far the eggiest and densest egg tarts I've ever eaten, puts Chinatown's to shame.
Razor clam, glass noodles, toasted garlic, rice wine, cilantro, butter at Singapore's famed Long Beach.
Gangsta Ice: shaved ice with chopped mango and oozing pods of sweet and stinky durian. When I asked how it got its badass name, I was met with stares.
Chendol: shaved ice with a thick, reduced syrup of almost-burnt ground palm sugar and pandan, a grassy-flavored herb. It's like crunchy, frozen crème brûlée.
Fresh from Long Beach's ample tanks, the incomparable chili crab.
Chicken and mutton satay with steamed, pressed noodles on a late-night hawker crawl with famed Makansutra author K.F. Seetoh.
Deep-fried soft shell crab topped with chicken floss at the Singapore Food Festival.
More travels in Singapore on Food Republic: