Singapore Popular Food

What to eat in Singapore?

Singapore is Asia's food capital. When it comes to food, Singapore is one place where East meets West. This lens looks at popular Asian food in Singapore: bak kut teh, chai tow kway (fried carrot cake), char kway teow, chilli crab, curry fish head, Hainanese chicken rice, pepper crab, satay and laksa.

Bak Kut Teh

 

Bak kut teh in the Chinese Hokkien dialect means "meat bone tea". The "meat bone" here means pork ribs and the "tea" means soup, so bak kut teh is pork rib soup. The dish consists of meaty pork ribs in a broth of herbs and spices (including star anise, cinnamon, cloves, dang gui, fennel seeds and garlic), boiled together for hours. One can add other ingredients such as offal, varieties of mushroom, choy sum, and pieces of dried tofu or fried tofu puffs. Also, Chinese herbs may include yu zhu (rhizome of Solomon Seal) and ju zhi (buck thorn fruit), which give the soup a sweeter, slightly stronger flavour. Light and dark soy sauce are added to the soup during cooking. Garnishing include chopped coriander or green onions and a sprinkling of fried shallots.Bak kut teh is commonly eaten with rice and sometimes served with youtiao (strips of fried dough) for dipping into the soup. Soy sauce (usually light soy sauce, but dark soy sauce is also offered sometimes) is preferred as a condiment, with chopped chilli padi and minced garlic added.

Chai Tow Kway (Fried Carrot Cake)

 

Fried Carrot Cake in Singapore is known as "carrot cake" or Chai Tow Kway in Teochew (a Chinese dialect). "Chai Tow" means "carrot" but it must be noted that this "carrot" refers to white radish. "Kway" means "cake". Chai Tow Kway is a common dish of Teowchew cuisine. "Chai Tow Kway is made from rice flour and white radish.Fried carrot cake in Singapore is cut into pieces and stir fried with soy sauce, eggs, garlic, spring onion and occasionally dried shrimp. There are two variants: the 'white' version does not use sweet soy sauce, and the carrot cake is fried on top of a beaten egg to form a crust; the 'black' version uses sweet soy sauce, and the egg is simply mixed in with the carrot cake. For those who like it sweet, they ask for the black variant.

Chilli crab

 

Chilli crab iis made with hard-shell crabs, and cooked in thick gravy with a tomato chili base. It is a favourite at seafood restaurants.The dish comes packed fresh spices like galangal, ginger and turmeric, some are sweet-sour and rosy with tomato, others are ribboned with beaten egg, and still others carry the sting of chili oil. Chilli crabs are often served with a few slices of French bread or mantou (Chinese buns) to aid the eater in soaking up and eating the tomato chili sauce. Normal white bread may be used.