Hawker Food in Singapore

Singapore has the best food in the world. Everyone has an opinion on the best food court in Singapore, and Tiong Bahru Market (near this bookstore) is one of the good ones.

The food court is above a wet market, which can be a little hectic to navigate if you come at prime market time. Singaporean aunties buying their fish and veggies can be fierce. Upstairs you find dozens of stalls, each with their own specialty. There are sometimes multiple stalls offering the same speciality, but just find the one with the longest line and join it (queues mean good food in Singapore). Even though the place could be cleaner and have air conditioning, the price makes up for it, with each dish costing around $3-4 SGD.

Don’t worry, I did not eat all the food in the pictures alone. Although I definitely wanted to. In my “Introduction to Singaporean Cuisine” for my out-of-town friend, I dumped on her Hainanese Chicken Rice, Char Kway Teow, Black Carrot Cake, Bakcang (glutinous rice dumplings), Lime Juice, SugarCane Juice and soursop on shaved ice. These don’t even cover half of my favorite dishes. I’m not quite sure how to describe the flavors; Singaporean food is a mix of the best of different countries’ dishes so it can be hard to generalize. All I can say is Singaporeans love their chili sauce.

If you go to Marina Bay Sands or Tanjong Beach Club, you might get a very different sense of the country. However, in my opinion, food courts are the most traditionally Singaporean. Instead of street food or high class restaurants, you can browse the regulated food stalls selling Chinese, Peranakan, Indian, Malay, or Indonesian dishes. And after stuffing your face with these unhealthy and mouth-watering concoctions, no other food will taste as good.