Singaporeans take their food very seriously. The famous city of hawker centres is a true feasting island, with Michelin-starred fine dining and cheap hawker food. Singaporeans are always lining up at coffeeshops and local hawker centres to devour some of the island’s best meals. Simply follow the crowd or stop by any of the food centres you come across because whatever morsel awaits you at the end will be delicious. Here are 15 Singapore street foods to try.
1. Ice Kachang
This tasty Malaysian dessert translates as ‘iced beans.’ This cold dish, popular with both children and adults, consists of shaved ice, red beans, grass jelly or agar-agar, sweet flavoured syrups, and toppings such as sweet corn and other goodies. Condensed milk and red rose syrup are also poured on top to create the multicoloured effect.
2. Bak Kut Teh
Bak Kut Teh, which translates as “meat bone tea,” is a popular Singaporean street food. This dish is a soup of pork ribs in a herb and spice broth. The soup contains pork, offal, mushroom, choy sum, tofu, and puffs and is spiced with cinnamon, cloves, garlic, fennel, and star anise.
3. BBQ Sambal Stingray
Sambal is a spicy sauce made with chilies, shrimp, fish sauce, shallots, sugar, vinegar, and ginger. The palate is exquisite when combined with the soft, delicate, and distinct stingray meat. This dish tastes best when grilled. This popular Singaporean street food is inspired by Malay culture because it was discovered that Sambal on top of Stingray is delicious.
4. Wanton Mee
Wanton Mee is a perennially popular Singapore street food. Some people enjoy the dumplings, while others enjoy the texture of the noodles. The vendor sells Wanton chilly and soup.
5. Bak Chor Mee
This delicious dish is soupy, meaty, and noodle-y all at the same time. This Singapore street food consists of fish cake slices, liver, minced pork, and a signature sauce that makes it steamy.
6. Satay
This Singapore street food is a local delicacy made of candied and skewered pork, chicken, beef, or mutton. The meat is marinated in turmeric before being barbecued outside. This snack, served with peanut sauce, onions, and rice dumplings, can be eaten all day.
7. Roti Prata
This Indian delicacy is a must-try Singaporean street food for all visitors. Crisp, crunchy, doughy, and soft Pratas dunked in a delectable and tangy curry should have your mouth watering and your stomach grumbling for more. This Indian flatbread/pancake is made of wheat flour and served with beef, chicken, fish, or vegetable curry.
8. Laksa
This traditional Peranakan dish is a popular Singaporean street food for good reason! Laksa, which is made of flat noodles, coconut soup, fish cakes, prawns, and cockles, goes best with Otah, which is a fish cake served in banana leaves.
9. Kaya Toast
There are many variations of this Singapore street food favourite, such as round buns or brown bread. It’s basically a white bread loaf slathered with egg kaya or coconut, toasted on a bread grill, and slathered with butter. The dish is sometimes combined with pepper and dark soya sauce, and the Kaya Toast is dipped into the egg mixture for extra deliciousness.
10. Char Kway Teow
This Singaporean street food, literally translating to “stir-fried rice noodles,” is a hawker centre staple that sells out quickly. This combination of noodles, flat rice and egg noodles, stirred proteins like egg, Lap Cheong, which are Chinese sausages, will appeal to your taste buds. It’s also seasoned with Chinese chives and bean sprouts.
11. Fried Carrot Cake
Fried Carrot Cake, a popular Singaporean street food, is ironically a black and white dish rather than the bright orange dessert carrot cake. It’s made with eggs, chai ooh, and white radish flour cake, which is basically a white carrot (radish), which gives rise to carrot cake. The fried carrot cake, known as ‘chai tow kway’ in Teochew, is served with a sweet sauce on top of a beaten egg to form a crust and chunks of cake.
12. Fish Head Curry
This dish consists of a marinated and cooked fish head with vegetables such as eggplants and okras. This Singaporean street food has origins in Kerala and Malaysia and is best eaten with rice or roti. Red snapper, either whole or half a head, is cooked in curry with boiled vegetables. It contains a number of potent spices.
13. Chilli Crab
CNN Go ranks Singaporean chilli crab as the 35th most delicious food in the world. It is a stir-fried crustacean dish drenched in sweet, spicy, and savoury tomato sauces. This Singapore staple, served with deep-fried buns called mantou, is a must-try for seafood enthusiasts. Crabs are cooked in two ways in Singapore: with a sweet, spicy tomato-ish chilli sauce or with black pepper sauce.
14. Hainanese Chicken Rice
Hainanese Chicken Rice can be found at almost every dining establishment in Singapore, whether it’s a fine dining establishment or a humble hawker centre. It’s the unofficial national dish of Singapore. It is bite-sized slices of chicken or whole chicken served with fragrant rice, ginger paste, and spicy chilli, adapted from early Chinese immigrants from Hainan Island.
15. Tau Hua
Tau hua is a savoury version of the Chinese donhua. In Singapore, however, it’s topped with ginkgo seeds and drizzled with a sweet syrup infused with pandan leaves. It is made from grainy bean curd tofu and can be served hot or cold.