Singapore is a cosmopolitan city-state in a Southeast Asia. It was founded as a British colony which since the independence has become one of the most prosperous countries in the world. It combines modern and chic districts like Riverside, Marina Bay and Orchard Road and traditional neighbourhoods like Chinatown and Little India. The first impression of the country is that is extremely clean, green and lacks the chaos of other Asian countries. In fact, Singapore has been named the greenest city in the world, as 50% of its area is covered in greenery. It is a multi-cultural and multi-racial country, with Chinese representing about 75% of the population, Malays about 15% and Indians about 8%. The remaining population is formed by people from many other countries. It has four official languages, English, Mandarin, Malay and Tamil.
Accommodation
The Scarlet
The hotel is in a very good location, right next to the Chinatown and Maxwell Hawker Center which offers a great variety of local food. There are also plenty of bars and restaurants nearby. The room was small but well equipped and comfortable. You also get a complimentary mobile phone with free internet to use during your stay.
Address: 33 Erskine Road, Singapore
Best spots for foodies in Singapore
Jumbo Seafood Riverside
No trip to Singapore would be complete without trying the iconic Chilli Crab. It is one of the most famous Singaporean dishes. The crabs are served in a thick, sweet and slightly spicy tomato-ish sauce. They are usually eaten along with fried mantou, deep-fried mini buns which are dipped in the delicious sauce. Jumbo has several outlets in Singapore; we tried the Riverside one. The location overlooking the stunning Singaporean river and Clarke Quay couldn’t be better. Crabs are charged by weight and prices vary slightly by the season but expect to pay around $80/kg. Reservations are highly recommended since Jumbo is always packed during dinner time. If you walk in, you will need to get a queue number from a self-service machine, and once your table is ready, you will receive a call.
Address: 30 Merchant Road, Riverside Point Floor 01 Unit 02 01, Singapore
Song Fa Bak Kut Teh
Song Fa Bak Kut Teh is one of the best restaurants in Singapore serving Teochew style Bak Kut Teh. It is a pork ribs soup with an intense, clear, garlicky and peppery broth. It’s a typical breakfast dish, but you can have it any time of the day. Enjoy it with some dough fritters, salted vegetables and plain rice. Andrew particularly liked the dough fritters, soaked in the broth. The braised beancurd and steamed veggies were also very good. Keep in mind that it’s not a vegetarian-friendly place, you will find some form of pork in almost every dish.
Address: 133 New Bridge Road, Chinatown Point 01-04, Singapore
Yum Cha Restaurant
Yum Cha is an old-school Chinese restaurant specialising in dim-sums located in the middle of the Chinatown. They have a vast selection of dim sums that are delivered to your table by traditional pushcarts. We opted for a dim sum buffet including refilled jasmine tea which costs 23.80$/pax and is served on weekdays between 3-6 pm. You can order as many different dishes as you like, as often as you want. You order by noting how many of a particular dish do you want on a paper list. The server will then collect your order and deliver freshly made dim sums to your table. It wasn’t marked on the menu, but a waitress was very informative about which dishes don’t contain meat. We managed to try a lot of the dim-sums, and they were all very tasty.
Address: 20 Trengganu Street, Singapore
Swee Choon Tim Sum Restaurant
Swee Choon is a solid place if you are looking for an after-hours food, as it’s open until 6 am in the morning! Established in 1962, it is a very popular place, so there is always a queue. We arrived there around 11 pm, and there were still quite a lot of people waiting for a table. The queue system is very efficient, you place your details with a self-service machine, and you will receive a message once your table is ready, we waited about 20 minutes. The food itself was good and affordable. The setting is very casual, and we recommend it to anyone who wants to have a feel of the local dining.
Address: 185 – 191 Jalan Besar, Singapore
Tim Ho Wan
Tim Ho Wan is a Chinese dim sum restaurant chain originated in Hong-Kong. It is famous for being named the cheapest Michelin star eatery in the world. In 2010 its original Hong-Kong branch earned one Michelin Star. Tim Ho Wan began expanding overseas in 2013, with the opening of its first international location in Singapore’s Plaza Singapura. The overseas branches didn’t receive an award, so don’t expect a Michelin Star food here. With almost 40 locations you really cannot expect freshly made, unique dim sums. Their signature buns are baked rather than steamed resulting in a crispy coating; they were quite nice but too sweet. Other dishes were just ok.
Address: 68 Orchard Road, 01-29A/52 Plaza Singapura, Singapore
Pizzeria Mozza
Pizzeria Mozza probably serves the best pizza in Singapore. The crust was delicious, the ingredients were high quality and the flavours well balanced. The restaurant is quite busy and has a good vibe; the service was friendly and efficient. Only negative is that the pizzas and cocktails are quite pricey. However, you have to take into account that it is Marina Bay Sands after all.
Address: 10 Bayfront Avenue Marina Bay Sands, Singapore
Wing Seong Fatty’s Restaurant
Wing Seong Fatty’s is a nice place to enjoy authentic local dishes in a simple atmosphere. It is always packed with regulars and locals. There is nothing fancy about this restaurant, just good food served on plastic plates. Fried tofu with crab meat was very nice. We also tried a Char Kway Teow, one of the locals favourite noodle dish. Flat wide rice noodles are stir-fried with seafood, egg, bean sprouts and sweet dark soya sauce. The pork lard and Chinese sausage are often added to this dish, so make sure to ask the staff to leave them out if you are a pescetarian.
Address: 175 Bencoolen Street Burlington Square, Singapore
Hawker Chan
Hawker Chan is the world’s first hawker to be awarded one Michelin Star. Since then the original stall who won the award in 2016 has closed down, and new “fast food” style, air-conditioned restaurant has opened opposite the Chinatown Complex where the original stall was once located. It serves Chinese style roast meats with rice or egg noodles and a few side dishes. Its signature dish is a soya sauce chicken. The prices are still very low, but the taste is nothing special, as you would expect from a fast food restaurant.
Address: 78 Smith Street, Singapore
168 CMY Satay
Although satays are originally from Indonesia, they are very popular throughout Southeast Asia, and commonly found at hawker food centres in Singapore. 168 CMY Satay is located at the Chinatown Complex Food Centre. It specialises in cooked to order satays served with slightly sweet peanut sauce, fresh cucumber and onion. Their menu is quite simple; you can choose between three types of satays, pork, chicken or mutton, with a minimum order of 10 sticks. If you want to make it a complete meal you can also add a ketupat, a Malay rice dumpling. The satays from this stall were very well marinated and nicely grilled, and the sauce had excellent flavour.
Tian Tian Hainanese Chicken Rice
Chicken rice is Singapore’s most famous hawker dish and one of the nation’s most iconic dishes. The whole chicken is first poached, and the remaining stock and fat are used to cook the rice along with aromatics like ginger and garlic. Tian Tian stall in Maxwell Food Center is the most famous food stall for Hainanese chicken rice in Singapore. It has been popularised by celebrity chefs like Anthony Bourdain and Gordon Ramsay, who they beat in the cook-off competition. Therefore expect a long queue during peak hours. Tian Tian chicken was very moist and tender, and the rice was very fragrant and full of flavour. Maxwell food court has a typical hawker centre ambience; it’s crowded, it has big shared tables and no air conditioning. But it’s in these food centres, where you can find some of the best food in Singapore.
Address: 01-10 Maxwell Food Centre, Singapore
Old Nyonya
Aside from the well-known stalls, there are many other food stalls serving utterly delicious food in Maxwell food centre. If you are looking for pescetarian option, try laksa from Old Nyonya. Laksa is a Peranakan, coconut-based noodle soup consisting of a savoury, rich and spicy broth and rice noodles. The Laksa from Old Nyonya was creamy and fragrant, and the noodles bouncy. It was topped with prawns, slices of fishcake, egg and tofu puffs. If you like spicy food, don’t forget to add some chilli paste.
Address: Maxwell Food Centre, Singapore
Drinks & Co
We were pleased to find a nice bar in Chinatown, only a few minutes from our hotel. Drinks & Co offers a very good selection of wines, beers and spirits at very reasonable prices for Singapore. All wines and spirits are displayed on the shelves for the customers to browse. They also serve bar snacks and small plates which ware 2 for 1 during happy hour. We tried mini wagyu burgers and truffle fries, and we enjoyed them. The service was excellent, and we really like the casual ambience of the place. It’s fairly quiet during the happy hour, but it becomes packed later on, especially on Fridays and Saturdays as the road closes in this area.
Address: 44 Club Street, Singapore
