Singapore Part 1 - The Restaurants

I was fortunate enough to be in Singapore recently and I'm looking forward to share with you some of my foodie experiences. In this post, I'll be running the rule over restaurants serving up famous local dishes such as Hainanese chicken rice and chilli crab. For those of you who love food from Singapore's hawker centres, I'll be turning my attention to cheap eats in the next post.

Hainanese chicken rice

What is Singapore's national dish ? A strong contender is Hainanese chicken rice, so it was a bit of a no-brainer when I was asked what I wanted for dinner on my first night in Singapore. I left it to my colleagues to choose the venue, as I'm a great believer in tapping into local knowledge.

I had no idea where I was going to be taken when we left the office and the CBD behind us. Normally, I am intolerant of taxi drivers who don't know where they're going but strangely I took it as a good sign that he got lost. I had visions of being taken to some illicit backstreet chicken rice shebeen.

I was therefore a little disappointed that we ended up on the East Coast Road, about 10km from the CBD. Just how the cabbie got lost is beyond me, as this was a brightly lit main road. My disappointment soon faded when I was told that the East Coast is a great foodie area. As we left the taxi, I could see a row of eateries jostling for our attention. My colleagues then pointed out where we were going to eat and all was well with the world again.

Our destination was Boon Tong Kee, a mini-chain of Chinese home-style restaurants specialising in chicken. This place seemed strangely familiar and then it dawned on me that Su-Lin of Tamarind and Thyme had already sung the praises of this place. That's just bloody typical of Su-Lin, not content to be the first to blog about London's more interesting eateries; she also gets there first in Singapore too !

white-cut poached chicken

We went for their signature poached chicken aka 'white-cut' chicken, which was served separately from the rice that was cooked in chicken stock. The bird was juicy and moist and actually tasted of chicken; it went really well with the ginger paste and the special chilli sauce. One minor grumble was that the chicken soup wasn't served with this dish. That said the rice was that tasty, it probably didn't need the broth.

sotong sambal

Other dishes included sotong sambal (stir-fried chilli squid), deep fried tofu, and stir-fried gai-lan. These were all OK but you only really come here for the chicken. They also do a crispy fried chicken but we didn't try that. By the way, they also sell jars of the sauces such as ginger paste and chilli sauce (I am now a proud owner of both). Highly recommended but try to get a cabbie who knows his way round Singapore.

The other contender to be Singapore's national dish is chilli crab. Whilst Hainanese chicken rice is a dish that originated from China, chilli crab is an indigenous Singaporean creation. In common with Hong Kong, chefs from China that settled in Singapore utilised Western ingredients to create dishes long before the term 'fusion' ever came into use.

chilli crab

deep-fried mantou

The crab is served with rich gravy made with chilli sauce, garlic, rice vinegar, soy sauce, and good old tomato ketchup. Egg is swirled in at the last minute to make it even richer, this gravy demands to be mopped up with deep-fried mantou (Chinese buns). Mixing my food metaphors, this is the Asian equivalent of soul food.

My Singapore colleagues really know the meaning of hospitality and they took me to the No Signboard Seafood restaurant to sample this dish. This mini-chain has a number of outlets and we pitched up at the Esplanade branch but if possible, try and get to the Geylang branch, which is the most atmospheric.

Their chilli crab is renowned and the meat just eased out of the slightly pre-cracked claw. I loved it and couldn't get enough of the gravy, which I ended up spooning into the shell before eating it with the hai-gou (crab innards).

butter crab

In comparison, the butter crab was a bit boring but it would still better most crabs served in western restaurants. They also serve crab with ginger & spring onion as well as white pepper crab but strangely not the more renowned black pepper crab.

cereal prawns

I also liked the cereal prawns, which is another Singapore creation, big fat prawns deep-fried with cereal. I could pick out cornflakes but maybe they were Frosties, as they were quite sweet. Actually, such is the popularity of this dish, a special cereal meal has been developed to be used in cereal prawns (or so I've been told!).

steamed bamboo clams w/garlic

Many of the dishes here aren't exactly healthy so I was glad that we ordered steamed bamboo clams w/garlic. The just cooked sweet clam meat with garlic was a joy. Whilst crab is their signature dish, they also serve lobster, steamed fish, and a wide range of seafood. Another must visit.

Despite most of Singapore's population being ethnic Chinese, the Cantonese community is relatively small. However their influence on the local food scene is massive with many of the classier eateries being Cantonese.

One such example is Lei Garden, the Singapore outpost of a renowned Hong Kong restaurant group. This elegant restaurant is located in the Chijmes complex, a converted convent. Sometimes food in opulent surroundings can disappoint but the dim sum here didn't. In fact it was amongst the finest I've had in ages. Just look at how translucent the har gau wrappers are.

har gau (prawn dumplings)

black sesame balls

This exceptional quality ran through nearly all of the dim sum with the highlights being soupy Shanghai xiao long bao, silky smooth cheung fun, an amazing gingery cha siu bao filling and last but not least, wonderful black sesame balls. Oh and let's not forget the pork and century egg congee that was so tasty, we ordered an extra bowl. The dim sum menu is a bit on the short side but who cares when it's this good. If only London had a Cantonese restaurant of this quality.

PS: I've also been moonlighting and you can check out my guest post on The Grubworm by clicking here. Don't laugh but it's a recipe.