Singapore: Streets of delight

Buns and a crab dish in Singapore's China Town. Photo / Erwin Verbruggen

The city state's food stalls are delicious and fabulously cheap, writes Nicholas Jones.

Flash cars, helicopter rides or having a pirate ship interrupt a night shift on a commercial fisher.

Those Lotto fantasies aren't mine. For me, it's to never say, "I think I'll go straight to the main" when the waiter arrives, or rub my stomach in false fullness when they suggest a dessert menu.

That dream can be lived in Singapore.

For a city-state where a beer costs about $20 in a bar, the cheapness of quality food is a surprise. Eating out is up there with shopping as a local obsession and reflects Singapore's ethnic make-up of Chinese, Malay and Indian.

Open-air food halls with dozens of stalls, known as hawker markets, are never far away and draw in locals and tourists alike — the affordability and apartment living mean locals eat most meals out.

Our first taste is China Town Food Street, a pedestrian-only street with colonial-era buildings on either side and a newly constructed glass canopy overhead.

Karl from Singapore Airlines and our guide Suhail pile the table with plate upon plate of food — pork and beef satay sticks, bowls of laksa, and the national dish, chicken and rice.
While they are gone we are swooped on by women selling Tiger Beer, brewed in Singapore. It's mild, watery perfection, given the heat.

It's not until we're at Newton Circle market and host-less that the cheapness of the food dawns on me — about $5 for a standard meal.

We feast on beef satay sticks (70c each) and carrot cake (neither carrot nor cake, but a delicious mix of rice flour and white radish fried with garlic, eggs and preserved radish).

At 10.30pm on a Friday night, the round tables surrounding the food stalls are filled mostly with locals, and while the Tiger is flowing there is an after-movie vibe.

The pricing means it's effectively an all-you-can-eat situation but such are the servings that a meal each is frustratingly enough.

There are slightly more expensive seafood options too — an Australian tourist carries his tray back to a table, the plate on it invisible under an enormous red crab.

The high degree of Government control that has banned chewing gum and jaywalking means Singapore is a good option for anyone too scared of parasites or Delhi belly to try street-style food elsewhere in Southeast Asia. All stalls are regularly inspected and those that fail hygiene standards shut down, no matter the local reputation.

For those wanting a local-style breakfast, avoid the hotel buffet and head for Ya Kun Kaya Toast coffee stall, which has been in operation since the 1940s and now has dozens of locations.

The eatery serves up the local breakfast of kaya toast — toasted bread filled with butter and kaya, a jam made from eggs, sugar, coconut milk and pandan leaves.

It comes with half-boiled eggs and kopi — very strong coffee mixed with condensed milk. I hope the trendier of Wellington's cafes soon accept an order of a "condensed milk flat white".

Sitting at an outside table as the city hums by, Singapore feels slow, languid, and more than the skyscrapers overhead.