Eating on a budget in Singapore

Joanna Lobo

This is the most dangerous place in the world for two reasons: our obsession with food and shopping.” I’ve barely stepped out of Changi airport in Singapore and my guide is already settling me into the island state’s lifestyle.

Singapore’s obsession with food can be understood by how 70 per cent of the population eats out, how some pockets of the city are open and buzzing till 5 am, how you can find a meal to suit every budget, and how one tiny region can boast of 55 Michelin-starred restaurants.

Tips for travellers

• Use forex cards to pay and carry Singapore dollars for the markets and hawker centres.
• Buy EZ Link card at the nearest rail station. Top up the $10 (non-refundable) card, and use it on local transit systems like MRT, LRT and buses. Don’t forget to tap on entering and exiting.
• Drinking out is expensive, so either buy your own booze or look for happy hours.

I have been there twice, and on both visits, it was the food that has surprised and impressed me — diverse, multi-cultural and rich in history and flavour.

At small, unassuming shops, confectioneries and bakeries, I find sweet or savoury bite-sized snacks called kueh. To my delight, many of the kueh have rice, jaggery or palm sugar and coconut, similar to the snacks found on the Konkan coast in India. There’s ondeh ondeh (spongy pandan-infused balls with palm sugar and coconut), the tapioca flour and coconut milk kueh lapis, layered like the Goan bebinca; and steamed sweet potato with shredded coconut, priced between $2 and $4 (1 Singapore dollar = Rs 63).

In Joo Chiat, I get a taste of some of this kueh at Kim Choo Kueh Chang. The shop is also famous for its rice dumplings or nyonya. Wrapped in leaves, these dumplings contain pork or chicken and glutinous rice mixed with wintermelon (nyonya chang/chicken, $4.80).

In the residential estate of Everton Park is a traditional confectionery, Ji Xiang Confectionery, known for its ang ku kueh: oval-shaped, red Chinese pastry with a glutinous rice coating and a sweet stuffing ($1.20). These ‘tortoise cakes’ are patterned to resemble a tortoise shell, and I indulge in a few varieties: stuffed with red bean, coconut and yam.

There’s an abundance of coconut in Singaporean food, from its snacks to its curries. My favourite coconut treat is kaya — a creamy spread/ jam of coconut, eggs, pandan and sugar. Kaya is typically spread on buttered toast and eaten with soft-boiled egg and coffee. One of the best places to sample this ‘national breakfast’ is in Chinatown at Nanyang Old Coffee ($5). Nearby, a life-size pineapple beckons me to kele (a pineapple tart), a bite-sized biscuity pastry ($3). And, across the road, I step into the historic Tong Heng: a century-old institution and one of Singapore’s oldest pastry shops, known for their diamond-shaped egg tarts ($1.90).

To indulge my midnight cravings, I pick up a box of kuih bahulu ($6 per box), a traditional Malay sponge cake.

The best food in Singapore isn’t just found in its Michelin-starred restaurants or establishments crowding Best Bars’ lists. It is at the hawker centres, offering good, cheap food; many of them Michelin recommended.

Chinatown’s hawker centre is indoors and it is where I sample some unique food. Ann Chin Popiah offers kueh pie tee: a crispy tart cup with chopped veggies and prawns ($3). Pan Ji Cooked Food is the only hawker stall in Singapore making sachima or honey crackers ($7.50), a Chinese pastry of flour batter that’s deep fried, tossed in egg, and coated in syrup. It’s a pastry with history that goes back to the 1600s. At Old Amoy Chendol, I have my first taste of chendol ($2.50), a shaved iced treat with rice-flour jelly, cold-pressed coconut milk, Japanese red beans, and a syrupy gula melaka (palm sugar).

Chai Wee Cuttlefish is where the Tan family makes salty crispy cuttlefish — marinated in fish sauce, prawn paste and chilli, and roasted in the oven — and ear biscuits (made of water, flour and fish sauce).

Over at Lau Pa Sat, a hawker centre set inside the architecturally beautiful building, I get a taste of Michelin-grade food. Nasi Lemak Ayam Telang has been on the Michelin Guide for three years and serves a mean nasi lemak ($7.8) — coconut and pandan-infused rice, fried, dried anchovies, an egg and fried chicken.

As I sit and enjoy my wholesome plate, surrounded by the daily buzz of people enjoying their dinner, I cannot help think of the many ways in which Singapore helps feed my obsession for food.