Top Singapore Dishes! What to Eat In The Merlion City!

[Read in 6 mins.]

Singapore is the place to be to eat many different type of cuisines. From Chinese, Malay, Indian, and any other type of cuisine even fusion. This great food city can satisfy any person’s palette. They have so much to offer and if you’re into food like me, you should definitely do a food crawl like I did when I went to Singapore for 5 days. Their diverse culture blessed them with amazing dishes which means you can pretty much get anything here. The three main races Malay, Chinese, and Indian and the other ethnic groups that resided in the country pretty much shaped the Singapore culinary scene. Each Singapore dish from the races are so great that they have so many Bibi Gourmand places and they’re located inside hawker centres! So if you’re on a budget but you want to do a food trip, go to Singapore.

You can get almost all the dishes if you stay at one hawker centre. Each stalls serve specific with one or two add ons. So there’s a stall for laksa, bak kut teh, popiah, etc. Plus, if you’re with people, you can order a lot of dishes and share so you can try a lot. If you want to eat all the Singaporean dishes all at once and when you’re tight in time, go to one hawker centre and try them all. I also ate other things besides the authentic traditional ones. I had ramen at Nansuttei and durian pancake at Honeymoon Dessert but I want to share with you specifically Singapore dishes because that’s what you usually do when in Singapore!

There are loads of Singaporean dishes to try but these are the top ones that I highly recommend from the trifecta cultures. They are all good and some are my personal favourites that I even get even if I’m outside Singapore. I curated for you 14 popular Singaporean dishes and one amazing drink.

Chinese

Popiah

Popiah is this rolled-up dish in a spring roll wrapper in Fujianese/Teochew-style. The ingredients inside can be anything but in hawker centres it is mainly meat, shrimp, bean sprouts, carrots, and green onions.

I would put this similar to the lumpiang sariwa (literal translation is also fresh spring rolls) that Filipino cuisine has. The difference is the inside ingredients and texture.

Chai Tow Kway

Commonly known as carrot cake (though no carrot were used to make it), it’s like a pancake made with radish, rice flour, and eggs. There are two versions of this dish: white and black. The black version has a dark sweet sauce on the dish.

Egg Tart

A popular snack or dessert from Cantonese cuisine. It’s a puff pastry with custard inside in a tart. I really like egg tarts specially the Portuguese kind. I highly recommend going to Chinatown and visit Tong Heng to grab an egg tart.

Xiaolongbao

Yummy soup dumplings made right dim sum or non dim sum time, I will definitely go and eat. When you pick it up from the steamer, it should still hold together with the wrapper made as thin as possible. Those are considered quality buns. They’re really hard to make the wrapper really thin. Dimsum is a popular meal in Singapore and Taste Paradise in ION Orchard makes soup dumplings pretty well.

Hokkien Prawn Mee

This is a very popular Singapore dish that you can find almost anywhere food court, hawker centres, and restaurants. Hokkien prawn mee is made with two noodles: white rice noodles and egg yellow noodles. Together with prawns, squids, bean sprouts, eggs, and green onions makes the dish. Adding peanuts on top and sambal on the side.

I love noodles and I really like this dish. One of my personal favourites, the prawn stock used to boil the prawn is used to cook the noodles. This makes the noodles super flavourful.

Hainanese Chicken Rice

Another personal favourite, this fall of the bone chicken dish is a popular rice meal in Singapore. It is typically served with cucumbers, garnished with cilantro, and chilli sauce on the side.

You can find a stall that serves the chicken in any hawker centres. The best ones are found in Ang Mo Kio 628 Market and if you are lucky (no line ups and not sold out), go try Tian Tian Chicken Rice at Maxwell Food Centre. Luck was on my side and super happy I got to try it because this has been part of my Singapore food bucket list ever since it was featured in Bourdain’s Singapore episode.

Malay

Kaya Toast

Kaya toast is what you should get everyday in the morning when you are in Singapore. This is a super popular and a typical Singaporean breakfast paired with a kopi and you can also order a soft boiled egg to dip it with.

It is two bread slices toasted with a think slab of butter and kaya jam (coconut jam) in the middle. The bread slices do not have crusts. The sweet and salty taste combination makes it super hearty. I take my kopi as kopi-c (coffee with evap milk) and pro tip is don’t be a noob ordering coffee here and learn the different kinds of kopi.

Ice Kacang

This Malaysian dessert hits a sweet spot to Singaporeans specially after a great hefty meal. Many cafes serve this dessert and there’s a good one in Chinatown. Go to Mei Heong Yuen Dessert which is a popular hang-out spot to eat ice kacang. They come in different flavours so you can order a bunch and share with your group of friends.

Chwee Kueh

Chwee kueh is a rice flour dessert with preserved radish on top. It round in shape and has pudding-like texture. It’s sweet and chewy and I would eat this first as an appetizer then eat a chicken rice or Hokkien prawn mee (or both haha). I found this similar to the Filipino dessest kutsinta and inverted colour haha.

Bak Kut Teh

Bak Kut Teh, translates to prok rib tea or meat bone tea, is a pork rib herbal soup dish served with rice. It is also a very popular Singapore dish with a peppery soy sauce taste and tender fall off the bone ribs. Boiled and simmered for a long periods, the Singapore version is peppery. They use light soy sauce so it’s less salty. The spices that make the bak kut teh are star anise, cinnamon, cloves, dang gui, fennel seeds and garlic.

This is also another one of my favourite Singapore dishes. I love this dish so much that I ended up going to a Singapore supermarket so I can buy the pre-packed bak kut teh spices to bring home and make.

Laksa

I love noodles in a soup. This is my guilty pleasure soup that’s not ramen and another personal favourite. Laksa is a spicy coconut noodle soup originated from Peranakan cuisine. The main ingredients are the rice noodles, laksa spice which consists of lemongrass, dried chillies, shallots, galanga, turmeric, spices, dried shrimp and shrimp paste all grinded together, and coconut milk. Served with either chicken, shrimp or tofu for meat and green onions, bean sprouts, and sometimes zucchini for vegetables.

I love the familiar shrimp paste and coconut milk taste in the soup. There are multiple varieties of laksa. I have tried the ones in Malaysia too but I personally like the Singaporean version.

Indian

Biryani

Biryani, a traditional Indian food well-loved by Singaporeans. It is a rice dish which uses long-grain rice cooked with Indian spices such as saffron, turmeric, chili powder, and cumin. The most common one is chicken biryani though also served with lamb, beef, vegetables or fish.

There are many places that serve this dish and can be easily found in Little India. I got mine at Tekka Centre, at the heart of Little India, which has all great things Indian.

Fish Head Curry

Fish head curry is a popular curry dish in Singapore with Chinese and Indian roots. You can call this one a fusion. Though the spices used are Indian, fish head is not regarded as an Indian ingredient but it is for the Chinese. It has a very strong curry taste on the soup and fish head with a sour flare because of the tamarind.

If you’re pretty adventurous, you can try this Singapore dish. The most famous place to eat fish head curry is at Muthu’s Curry. This is where I tried it. They have two locations: Race Course and Suntec. I went to the Race Course because it was close to my hotel in Serangoon.

Roti Prata

Roti prata is what I’d call the Indian flatbread. You usually eat this dough pastry with curry or dal. Made right, you can easily tear the dough apart with a spoon and fork (like a local). Pair this with teh tarik and life is good.

Sugarcane Juice

From all that food, we need a drink. Quench the thirst with an ice cold sugarcane juice. I really like sugarcane juice and it’s my go to drink when I’m eating. The stalls in the city make it very fresh. They squeeze the juice from the cane using the juicer with ice in a cup. It was really refreshing to drink to take off the Singapore humid heat.