Today's Topic: Food and Singapore

Singapore’s variety on dishes is just as numerous as its cultural background. It is a hotspot for Chinese, Malay and Indian food. And the best thing about it – it is cheap and so tasty, just like you are in the country itself!
The first thing you have to know about Singapore is: nobody cooks itself! Because it is so cheap to go out and grab some food, it would not be worth it doing it yourself. Even if you get something different everyday, it would take forever to make the round. And cooking all these dishes would be too complex and extensive – it will be very hard to be as good as what you get on the street. Though the consequence is, you hardly find someone (academic) who actually can cook. Not even a morning egg. But because here a morning egg barely sees any hot water… you eat it rather raw poured into a bowl ;)
The second thing you have to know about food in Singapore is the place where to get it! The best places are the hawkers (open halls with only fans) and food stalls (halls with aircon). Of course there are tons of them in Singapore and you’ll soon find your favorite ones. But for all you can be sure that the food you get there is cheap, fresh cooked and delicious. Please do not expect an nice neat restaurant with dimmed light and a waiter, it is rather crowded and it happens frequently that you share your installed table with total strangers. But be sure, they are usually locals!
I like the Maxwell Food Centre and the hawker in People’s Plaza, both located in Chinatown having all the typical Chinese dishes. It is nothing compared to the menue we know from German Chinese restaurants. It is so much more, more than you actually would have thought of… chicken feet, fishball soup, bean sprout salad, chicken in all imaginary pieces, sea food, minced noodles, fish heads, innards, new kinds of vegetables, fresh juices with strange flavors, great spices and the best rice I ever had! There something for everyone. You have to love it.
In the business district and in Vivo City, an awarded shopping center, you can find some fancy food courts. A very nice and pretty hawker I can recommend is Lau Pa Sat Festival Market, which is constructed only out of iron, imported from Glasgow about a hundred years ago, and usually is crowded by business men around lunch time. For eating right under the clear sky try Newton Food Centre. Since they are not in Chinatown, you can find all different kind of food – Chinese, Malay, Indian and even some Burgers (for I don’t know who ).
All these food places have in common that you find round tables and usually 6 chairs around them all being fixed on the ground in the middle of the place. Surrounding the tables you find many little kitchen shops selling and cooking different kind of food and drinks. You leave your used plates and glasses on the table, there are workers to pick everything up. A nice detail and orientation is a blue DIN-A4 paper being displayed in every shop, letting the consumer know about the status of cleanliness. An A means the highest possible standard, but you can easily buy food until a C. Most hawker stalls have an A or a B, so it is rather safe to eat in those places. So, there's nothing in the way for a great food experience!
Going out to have good Indian food is just a bit different. The best place to go is, of course, Little India. There you don’t have hawkers, it is similar to restaurants. You have one kitchen/counter, where you usually can choose your food by picking it right off the counter and then you sit down on plastic chairs, and depending on how full it is, it happens that you share your table with a local. But to mention it, who were so far all very very friendly and interested. Little India never sleeps, so if you go there by 11 pm, the streets and food places are full of Indians. You should pick a place with lots of locals in it! The less glass the more local. The food there is generally good, but it’s best in the bit shabby looking places. And of course, also the cheapest. Don’t think, “oh, there are many tourists in, it must be good!” in little India they start to make their place more attractive to the tourists by putting in glass in the windows, having nice chairs and offering aircon (what of course makes it very comfortable). But the prices go up as well (still cheap though) and cooking becomes second placed. If you don’t find a menue, that’s a good sign ;). So far we’ve tried 4 or 5 different places and all were superb. Just pick one of these many along the streets and you won’t get disappointed.
One last place I would like to introduce is the seafood centre at the East Coast Park. Here you can go out in fancy and a bit pricier restaurants along the beach getting the best seafood of Singapore. There, Holger ordered the popular Pepper Crab, prawns and sweet & sour fish and I really liked it – me having almost no experience in seafood. The best place to make your first steps ;).

So far no fast food yet, hurray! Only a Sunday at Mac Donalds when Holger needs to use the bathroom. However prices are cheaper here. A Sunday for 75 cents and a meal for 3 Euro. Starbucks is really nice if you want a place to chill and something to cool down. A large frappuccino for about 3,70 euro.