Singapore Food Trip Galore – in the time post COVID

First trip abroad and of course it’s to Singapore!! Supposedly, so many Filipinos are going to Singapore for vacation and who can blame them? For my family, we chose Singapore because it seemed like the safest place to go during this time of chaos – as it’s relatively near, no quarantine restrictions, and we trust their government has their act together and will provide ample warning in case COVID case status and regulations change.

Anyway, as we’ve been to Singapore many times, you can check out my other SG articles below, this trip was really meant for food tripping only. I kind of regret it now that I’m back in Manila because I really gained weight AND I still feel kind of queasy (I haven’t eaten at all today and don’t feel hungry still. Uh oh, I definitely overate…)

But first, some minor logistics to discuss to help fellow travelers to SG:

• Only two “extra” requirements needed: (1) VaxCert as proof of vaccination (required by SG and PH), you can check out my article about that here; (2) One Health Pass registration which the Philippines requires when you’re re-entering the country.
• Data: Who can live without data now? I remember before when we travel ,we’d lug around physical maps and subway maps. Not anymore. This time around, we bought a Starhub sim card for SGD 12. This gives you 100GB data, 500mins local outgoing calls, 30mins IDD call, 100 local SMS, and unlimited incoming calls. After 3 days of use (mostly Messenger, Instagram, Google Maps), my family of 5 had only used up 3GB worth of data.
• Logistics of travel: We have an EZ Link card from before (note: this expires after 5 yrs of non-use). Trips costs between SGD 0.90 to 2.20 depending on the distance. If you think you’ll be taking the bus/trains a lot, you can also opt for a Tourist Travel Pass (SGD 10 for 1 day, SGD 16 for 2 days, SGD 20 for 3 days) — giving you unlimited travel for those days (note they count Day 1 start as starting from 12:01AM of the day you purchased the pass). EZ Links and Travel Passes can be purchased at the airport and the metro stations
• Where to stay: Depends what you plan to do in Singapore, but we usually stay at Orchard Road, Chinatown, or Bugis – as these are the most central locations
• Where to get money exchanged: I find Chinatown’s People’s Park Complex provides the best USD:SGD exchange rates!
• Pasalubong to buy: Lim Chee Guan (Signature Sliced Pork, BBQ Chili Pork), Bengawan Solo (Kueh Lapis), Fei Fa (Salve Relief), Ya Kun Kaya
• Other activities to do aside from eating: Do the MacRitchie Tree Top Trail! You need to justify your eating somehow.
  • Logistics: Take the bus to Opp Flame Tree Park bus stop
  • Total walk – roughly 7km, mix of boardwalk, dirt walk, stairs. Uphill, downhill also a mix

Trails are very clearly marked so no fear of getting lost. There’s a bathroom with water refill at the start of the trail, and another bathroom midway before you get to the MacRitchie Tree Tops.

For nature lovers, you’ll love this trail. It feels like you’re walking under the canopies of a rainforest because you are! Be surrounded by the natural chirps and rustling of the forest. Be astounded by monkeys and squirrels and butterflies and turtles galore. If you’re quiet (which we weren’t), you may even see more exotic animals!

Multiple placards are also dotted along the trail with nice information about the forest you’re passing through. It’s great to read, and also a good reason for a rest stop haha.

The MacRitchie Tree Top itself is great. Relatively short but you really do feel on top of the world! It’s one-way only so make sure to snap all your shots before moving on because you can’t go back!

After the Tree Tops, be prepared for a gruelling 10mins stairs workout. But trust me, it’s worth it. Super amazing to see how big and how tall these canopies can get and be able to peer down on them! From afar, you can even see a water of body (no idea what this is) haha

Kudos to Singapore for saving this nature reservoir and protecting a green lung of the world. Sadly we didn’t have time to go to the  Jelutong Tower (only 400m from the Tree Tops – so near yet so far) as we had to rush back to Jumbo for our dinner reservations. Ohwell, good reason to come back!

Overall, the 7km hike took us roughly 2.5 hrs to hike. From the city center to the MacRitchie Venus Carpark took around 1hr via bus, and same going back. So, just keep those timing in mind when planning your itinerary. I will say doing the hike in the afternoon was quite nice because the sun didn’t seem as withering. But I dont know, that might be the case at all times of the day in a rainforest.

Okay, boring stuff done. Now let’s discuss food! I shall break down the places we visited by food categories to make it easier for you, my dear readers

Breakfast / Bakeries

Tiong Bahru Bakery

• Area: Tiong Bahru
• Expect to spend: SGD 15-20 per person
• Accepts international credit cards? Yes

What to order:

• Almond Croissant: Dense and moist and chewy, didn’t taste like bread at all, was actually more similar to cake in taste (probably because of layered in almond paste), especially because of the icing sugar and almonds on top.
• Kouign Amann: Round crusty cake made of butter and sugar and caramel (all the great unhealthy stuff). Sinful and delicious. Hear that crunch!
• Chocolate Kouign Amann: Same texture profile as the Kouign Amann, but taste similar to Coco Crunch
• Apple Crumble: yummy, although not something I’d come back here for again and again. This was my brother’s favorite though
• Chocolate Tart (Didn’t get to try this one actually but heard good reviews)

Consider skipping:

• Exclusive Salted Egg Brioche: Wonderfully pillowy in texture, salted egg filling (but this was sadly lacking)
• Vanilla Flan: egg tart-like texture. This was the most common of them all. Should have gotten the Chocolate Tart instead which is supposed to be excellent too, and layered with orange, figs, and apricot
• Capuccino: normal brewed coffee

Chin Mee Chin

• Area: Joo Chiat
• Expect to spend: SGD 15 per person
• Accept international credit cards? Yes

What to order:

• Kaya toast – this is really what you come here for. Unlike the kaya toast of Ya Kun, Chin Mee Chin’s kaya toast is made with traditional style charcoal roasted bun. Its kaya itself is slathered generously onto the bun, and is not too sweet. We bought several jars for our grandparents.
• 2 eggs with pepper and soy sauce: Quite average, and I suggest not putting the entire pepper and soy sauce packet in as it can get pretty salty. I’d be happy skipping this on my next visit but you should try at least once. Supposedly you can dunk your kaya toast into this concoction, but that didn’t seem like a smart idea as the soy sauce egg mixture would completely overpower the kaya
• Kopi O and C: Goes down well without any hint of acidity. I prefer the one with evaporated milk
• Milo dinosaur: Very generous milo powder on top, not too sweet.

Consider skipping:

• Chocolate cupcake: I thought this rather dry and quite frankly forgettable.
• Cream horn: Very rich cream inside a flaky horn pastry. Not bad, but nothing too special
• Sugee cake: moist soft cake bakee with semolina. This was ayt.
• Cheesecake brownie: Savory marble cheesecake atop a rich thick brownie. Quite good. But again, not something I would come looking for specifically
• Gula melaka coffee chiffon cake: Very fluffy but I thought the flavor was rather lacking – both on the gula melaka side (sweetness) and the coffee flavor
• Chocolate peanut butter tart: Satisfyingly rich chocolate with a tinge of saltiness from the peanut butter. But, nothing too out of the ordinary.

Killiney Kopitiam

• Expect to spend: SGD 8 per person
• Accepts international credit cards? Yes

What to order:

• Kaya toast set

The toast bread I’m more familiar with, but I found the bread a bit thick and more dry compared to the one in Chin Mee Chin. I found the kaya spread thick and the butter generous however.

• French toast set

Hmm my family preferred this because it wasn’t as dry but I thought the butter and egg overpowered the taste of the kaya

• Chor chee Fun

Rice roll essentially. Simple but good. The rice roll was firm, and the hoisin sauce was yum

• Kopi

Very good actually! This is Colombian Arabica Coffee!

Barcook Bakery

• Expect to spend: SGD 5-10 per person
• Accepts international credit cards? No

OMG. Order the Raisin Cream and Mashed Potato Nachos. So so so good!

Chili Crab

Jumbo Seafood

• Expect to spend: SGD 300-350 for a group of 5
• Accepts international credit cards? Yes

An institution. This restaurant had humble beginnings in East Coast, which is really the place to go for seafood. I jeard the hawker center there is our Dampa equivalent but way better.

What to order:

• Chili Crab (mud crab 1.1kg)

Always excellent. Jumbo’s chili crab makes use of 10 different spices (chili, turmeric, lemongrass, candlenut to name a few) in order to create a sauce that’s sweet and sour and spicy, with an eggy fragrance that’s very addicting and best paired with mantou.

• Black Pepper Crab (mud crab 1kg)

Hmm. This was not to my taste. Their black peoper crab sauce is made by stir frying sweet butter with their roasted pepper mixture. To my untrained tongue, it tasted like regular pepper steak sauce haha! I do agree though that this sauce really brought out the fresh sweetness of the crab.

• Mee Goreng Small

Not bad. Strong tomato base but it didn’t overpower. Fine balance of sweet and spicy. Noodles were springy. Generous toppings of scallops and prawns.

Others I also really like:

• No Signboard
• JB Ah Meng (want to try this one!)

Hawker Stalls

Tiong Bahru

• Tiong Bahru Lor Mee

This dish is bewilderingly good! Thick yellow noodles (very springy) blanketed under a gunk of brown gravy-like sauce (that is SUPER delicious), with toppings like fried wonton, steamed fish, stewed pork slice (with a thin layer of fat), fishcake slice, hardboiled stewed egg, ngor hiong (five spice spring roll). If you’re looking for the traditional lor mee, you’ve found it here

• Kampong Carrot Cake

Black carrot cake done in the traditional style. Sweet in flavor, springy and soft textured, it breaks apart in your mouth and tastes yum yum. Don’t forget to have egg added!

Maxwell Food Center

Make sure to arrive before the lunch crowds (11:30AM-12:30PM)to avoid the long lunch queues.

• Tian Tian — Hainanese Chicken Rice

Very tender. The chicken itself doesn’t have taste on its own, but the sauce coupled with the tender white chicken makes for a healthy and delectable lunch. Add chicken rice for SGD 1 – simmered in chicken broth, it’s extremely flavorful and pairs well with the chicken

• Marina South — Char Kway Tyeow

Chewy in texture, which is how I like it, Marina South’s char kway tyeow doesn’t reinvent anything but adheres faithfully to the traditional char kway tyeow recipe

• Yi Jia Chao Zhou Yu Chou Yu Tang — Teochew fish soup

This clear soup base is boiled using blue ginger, sea bream, shrimps and a mixture of over 10 spices. The soup on its own is delicious and just very clean and sweet tasting. The fish (whatever fish this was. Pomfret? Batang?) was extremely tender and just the cherry on top

• Fu Shun Roasted Meat Specialist — Char Siew

Char siew is what they’re known for and they delivered. Very tender pork all around. I will say nothing too out of the ordinary though

• Special Shanghai Tim Sum — Steamed Dumpling

Super thin skin and fair bursting with minced pork, ham, fresh prawns and chives

• Lao Ban Soya Beancurd

A classic. Been eating this ever since I first came to Singapore

Chinese Cuisine

Swee Choon Tim Sum

• Area: Bugis
• Expect to spend: SGD 20-25 per person
• Accepts international credit card? No

Over 50 yrs in the business, Swee Choon Tim Sum actually take up a whole block. Crazy! That’s how much demand they get. To get a table, go to the central store, queue up and get a number and they’ll assign you a seat table. To order, scan the QR code on your table, order on their app, and they’ll print out the order and place on your table. They provide wet tissue which they will have you pay. If you won’t use it, I suggest returning it. At the end, to pay, go up to the cashier and they’ll tally your bill. Reminder that there’s a 10% service charge and 7% GST in addition to the menu price. Also, they accept cash, Nets and Grabpay only. No credit card sadly.

Food-wise, this place does fried dimsum really well because they fry it upon your order, so I definitely recommend those!

What to order:

• Salted Egg Yolk Custard Steamed Bun: Really well made custard filling. The bun is also rather thick (similar to the char siu bao), but here it complements the salted egg custard filling very well. Would reorder
• Shanghai Xiao Long Pao: wow this was very good. The skin is expertly done, firm enough to hold the soup, but thin enough that it breaks easily once nipped. Soup also delicious and the pork meat was on-point
• Red Bean Paste Pancake: pretty common but what sets this version apart is how thin the pancake skin is, so that with each bite, you really get to savor the red bean
• Swee Choon Mee Sua Kueh: this is their signature carrot kueh, and is a must-order! It’s crispy mee suah paired with the fluffiness of the kueh, which makes for a very interesting texture. This was my brother’s favorite dish, and the one I found the most unique
• Prawn and Banana Fritter: Surprisingly interesting combo. Crispy skin, soft and sweet banana flesh, firm prawn meat. You get all these flavors in one bite and it’s delightful
• Fried Prawn Dumpling with Mayonnaise: they do fried food very well indeed. What I liked about this was the very generous amount of prawns. The dumpling is really bursting with it. Delicious!

Consider skipping:

• Char Siew Bao: generous sweet pork filling, but I found the pau skin while bouncy and soft, a bit too thick. Would probably skip this next time
• Rice Roll with Prawn: the sauce was delicious, the rice roll expertly done, but seriously lacking with prawns. Would suggest skipping this
• Yam Paste with Ginko Nut: this is a dessert and I had it served later. It’s really just taro with coconut milk, with a consistency that’s thicker compared to the taro sago I’m used to in Manila. There was just one ginko nut too. I’d skip this.
• Japenese Cucumber & Black Fungus Salad: bah, the worst dish of the night. Not bad per se but definitely not stellar
• Water Chestnut Drink kind of tastes like sugarcane juice
• Barley Drink: very subtle in flavor. This one is easily overpowered if you’re pairing it with some drink or food that’s very strong in flavor
• Grass Jelly Soya Milk: this really just tastes like soya milk, with grass jelly in it. Hmmm so-so lang

Peranakan Cuisine

Guan Hoe Soon

• Area: Joo Chiat
• Expect to spend: SGD 30 per person
• Accepts international credit cards? Yes

This is Lee Kuan Yew’s favorite takeout place and is the oldest Peranakan restaurant in Singapore. Peranakan referring to the Malay-Chinese cuisine. Ok, I had Peranakan cuisine before in Melaka and didn’t like it, but decided to give it another try here. I think it’s conclusive now though, Peranakan isn’t for me. The taste and flavor profile just doesn’t agree with me

What we ordered:

• Achar or spicy pickle. This was the appetizer that’s immediately served when you enter (nope it aint free, but you can return it if you don’t want it). I liked it though. It’s essentially pickled cucumber of sorts, with chicken offal and bagoong (?). Very interesting, very flavorful!
• Ayam buah keluak: an icon of Peranakan cuisine. The chicken was fall off your bone tender, the buah keluak (black nuts) were stuffed with minced pork, fish and black nut pulp – lending itself a slightly sweet and bitter undertone, and the rempah (spicy sauce) was well done. But I don’t know, I ate it, thought it was interesting, but definitely was not craving for seconds
• Otak otak: Never a fan of otak otak, but ordered it for my family to try. It’s essentially a thin slab of mackerel fish paste, spices and coconut milk. Again, nothing offensive with its flavor but just not something I’d crave for.
• Crab foo yong: tastes like egg omelette, barely tasted any crab
• Ngoh hiang: this is our kikiam equivalent. Vegetable and pork filling inside, crispy fried bean curd skin outside. Best paired with honey in my opinion
• Nonyah chap chye: Essentially mixed vegetables (cabbage, black fungus, black mushroom, bits of pork) stewed in soy sauce and soy bean paste. The sauce is really fantastic – mildly sweet and perfect when paired with rice. Veggies were crunchy too, not soggy at all
• Itek team: Hokkien duck and vegetable soup – mild, sour, tangy flavor and you can really taste the richness of the duck. The duck itself was flavorless but still tender.
• Chen dool: very strong gula melaka taste (makes sense as the gula melaka ice is made for 8 hrs supposedly). I find the gula melaka overpowers the actual chendol however
• Water chestnut with coconut milk: Generous with water chestnuts. An inoffensive dessert.

Violet Oon

• Area: ION Orchard Road
• Expect to spend: SGD 29 (per person, for high tea set)
• Accepts international credit cards? Yes

What’s included in the high tea

• Scones with calamansi jam, pineapple jam and butter: to be fair, I actually liked these scones! Not too dry, interesting calamansi jam flavor!
• Egg salad tartlet with pineapple pacharee: tasted like regular egg mayo
• Coronation chicken on wanton skin: yum, this dollop of chicken curry
• Cream cheese and cucumber openface sandwich: super nonmemorable, but the dill was good
• Otak on Belgium Endive: never a fan of otak otak, but this was ayt
• Kuay pie tee: I actually really liked these julienned bamboo shoots, and the prawn bisque on top was on-point
• Tauhu goreng: lol I like the peanut sauce hehe
• Chili crab tartlet with quail egg: spicyyy!
• Kueh Koh Sui: so-so. Not memorable
• Kueh Beng Ka: Yum! Hehe I like anything with gula melaka
• Sugee Financier: essentially sugee cake. Oks naman
• Orh Nee Cream Puff: I like the yam cream
• Pandan Coconut Agar Agar: Essentially pandan jelly. Sakto lang
• Unlimited coffee and tea refills

Overall, interesting experience. I find high tea food quality is usually not so great, but it’s good for catching up with friends and just enjoying the experience of having everything served on pretty plates

Dessert

Mei Hong Yuen

• Expect to spend: SGD 5-10 per person
• Accepts international credit cards? No

Good shaved ice!! I particularly enjoyed the sesame, durian, and chendol flavors