All the Food in Singapore

We’ve broken up our Thailand adventures with a few days in Singapore. This place is very different from Thailand – it’s much more orderly, cleaner, and more expensive. To learn about the food and culture of Singapore we booked a food tour through Singapore Foodsters. Our guide, Gerry, picked us up from our hotel in a van, and five other guests from their respective hotels. Most were here for cruises that had not begun yet.

Chinatown was our first stop and it’s starting to become a theme in these tours. As in many other cities, Chinese laborers came to the city to perform work that was undesirable or fulfilling a labor shortage. In Singapore’s case, it was performing the unloading of ships. Backbreaking work led many of them to opium dens in the evening in an attempt to escape their pain. Gerry led us through the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple where they have a museum of artworks and relics.

“Singapore has rules” is an understatement. In comparison to Thailand, one of the most noticeable is “no touting”. Touting is using personnel in the street to advertise, usually aggressively” to drive business to a particular establishment. It can get frustrating fast and the best way to handle it is not to engage and focus your attention in another direction. Here in Singapore, it’s nice not to have to deal with this. Funny enough imbibing in alcohol in the street is fine. Gerry starts handing out beers at 10:30 in the morning.

Our first food stop is at a Hwaker Center. From an American point of view, a Hawker Center is like an open-air food court. Vendors surround the outside of the hall and there are tables and chairs in the middle. Gerry has been fantastic with the pacing and information and keeps up this trend as he takes orders for fruit juice, beer, and water before he goes and orders a bunch of food for the table.

I’m writing this a few days later so I’m a bit fuzzy on the details of everything we had to eat. There was chicken and rice (so many cultures have a chicken and rice dish), dim sum dumplings, carrot cakes, egg pancakes, and much more. You might think that carrot cake feels out of place or I made a typo but it is basically the English translation of a white radish dish with soy sauce that ends like a hash.

To get to the next area of Singapore Gerry was going to take us on public transit. Specifically the train. This is extremely rare in tours. Probably because it adds a layer of complexity and can be chaotic. As it turns out Singapore’s transit system is really well done and easy to use. Gerry handed us cards that we would tap on the terminals just like in NYC. We were headed to Little India.

Our trip to Little India took us through a fresh market, a clothing market, and finally Sakuthal’s Restaurant. Gerry had us order our drinks and then proceeded to order a small feast that included Biryani, Chicken Tikka, and various breads and dips.

The last destination required another public transit ride but this time we took the bus. We used the same cards as the subway but you can also use credit cards or digital wallets. Our destination was Haji Lane a trendy area full of restaurants and shopping. Historically it used to be full of brokers for pilgrims making the trip to Mecca. Our last and final stop was at a Gellato place for dessert. I had a scoop of Maple and Pancakes and Devin had Korean Strawberry Cheesecake and Butterscotch Roasted Hazelnut. All were fantastic and an excellent end to a terrific food tour!