Places to eat in Singapore's East

We had the privilege to travel to Singapore during Chinese New Year to spend some time with family. Undoubtedly, we took the chance to fill our bellies with the great Singaporean cuisine. Most of our meals centered around meeting friends in the East. If you're going to Singapore for a short stop-over, here are quite good places to fill up with the local cuisine.

For the first time visitor  to Singapore, there are basically 4 types of eating outlets.

1. Food Courts - These are large air-coned eating outlets normally with 8-10 stalls with a common seating area.
2. Food Centres - These are like Food Courts but normally run by the government and are normally non-air conditioned. They are also normally larger and can have up to 50-100 stalls.
3. Coffee Shops - These are privately run eating outlets normally on the ground floor of a block of government flats.
4. Restaurants. This includes fast-food restaurants, cafes and bistro.

Meal 1 - On the Plane
We traveled from Sydney to Singapore on Qantas Airlines. Known for its excellent safety record, it was reassuring taking Qantas to Singapore seismically after the multiple air crashes in the area lately. However, the down side was clearly the food. The rice noodles were so dry, it was crunchy. The roast chicken and vegetables looked like a sick mush and was equally inedible. The best of the trio were the beef sliders. It was edible, but nothing better than a McDonald's hamburger. We were definitely hoping to get much better food once we touched down!

Meal 2 - Loyang Point Food Court
On our first morning, we head to Loyang Point for a Singaporean breakfast. Loyang Point is a local mini-mall in Pasir Ris. We had one of my favourite breakfast (or recess rather) foods, when I was growing up - Fried Bee Hoon 炒米粉 (Fried rice vermicelli in soy sauce), topped off with a gooey sunny-side fried egg and stir fried cabbage. Simple, but very yummy. We also had a Roti Prata (flaky flat bread fried in ghee) with a vegetable curry.

Meal 3 - MOF (at Tampines 1)

Our next meal was a lunch catch up with my best friend from Secondary School and Junior College. We met up at Tampines 1, a large shopping mall in the East. MOF is a Japanese restaurant. Japanese sencha was served and was kept warm over a tea candle. We had a enormous bowl of Chirashi ramen. The fish was acceptably fresh (but not comparable to the freshness we have in Sydney). It had an interesting crunchy addition of black fungus. Dessert was a red bean paste with mochi balls and topped off with a green tea ice cream.

Meal 4 - East Coast Lagoon Food Centre

We next met up with another Junior College friend for dinner. We headed to East Coast Lagoon Food Centre. This is a very large food centre to try local hawker food in an outdoor setting. The food centre is located in a large beach side park (East Coast Park). There are roughly over 100 vendors at this food centre. With it being outdoors, it is a particularly good place to have BBQ chicken wings and Satay. Satay here is marinated minced meat, grilled over a charcoal fire. You will also get a chili peanut sauce to accompany your satay. We also found the rare Roxy Centre Soup Beef Kuay Tiew 牛肉果条汤 (Rice noodles). We also had Hokkien Mee 福建面 (Seafood with stir freid rice and egg noodles). You would also be able to get drinks like fresh coconut and freshly pressed sugar cane juice here. Just remember, you have to clear your tray onto the racks when you are done here.

Meal 5 - Sushi Tei (at Tampines 1)
Lunch with just Dad and Mum is always special. Dad took us to a local Sushi restaurant. It was definitely more than just sushi as you can see here. For sashimi, dad got us a very special platter of sea urchin sashimi, and tuna, yellow tail, salmon sashimi. We also had grilled shishamo (pregnant fish), grilled cod and grilled yellow tail jaw. We also had soft shell crab and a waygu beef shabu-shabu. Finally, we had a cha-soba (cold green tea soba with a dipping sauce). Going to a sushi shop without eating sushi? It was still a great lunch.

Meal 6 - Awfully Chocolate (at Tampines 1)

Craving for Chocolate? This is a great bakery for that! We picked up a Chocolate Creep Cake and a White Chocolate Butterscotch Roll. A key feature of most cakes in the health conscious Singapore is that they are significantly less sweet than that in Sydney. However, there's no scrimping on chocolate here!

Meal 7 - Ponggol Choon Seng

Ponggol Choon Seng is a Chinese Restaurant originated from Ponggol, but is now located in Changi. We went there as a family on the 2nd day of Chinese New Year. We had the traditional Lo-Hei (Chinese salad where the whole family toss during Chinese New Year), which is only available at this time of the year. We had 2 renditions of Singapore Chili Crab - One spicy and one not so spicy. I would argue that both were still spicy, but very yummy! Finally, we had pulled roast duck. No gourmet trip to Singapore is complete without Chili Crab. The one here is pretty good. Just be careful to always ask the price after they weigh the crab to avoid a bill shock!

Meal 8 - Suki-ya (at Bugis +)
One of the amazing things in Singapore is the All You Can Eat meals. They are not necessarily a buffet. Sometimes you find them in the form of an ala carte - buffet, which is really eat anything off the menu for one set price. On Chinese New Year, my family, all dressed in red visited Suki-ya  in Bugis +. This is a Japanese Hot Pot (they call it Steamboat locally) All You Can Eat. There are 5 different selections of soup base here. Here we had 4 soups between 7 of us - Shabu Shabu, Sukiyaki, Tonyu Miso and Butaniku. Vegetables and noodles were from a buffet, while all meat were ala-carte. We stuffed ourselves with thin slices of salmon, pork. chicken and beef. The beef in Australia is definitely much better, but hey, this is all you can eat for $26.90. Just be careful,  most of these buffets are time limited. So hurry!

Meal 9 - The Coastal Settlement
The Coastal Settlement is a Asian-western fusion style cafe-bistro tucked away in Changi.  Here we enjoyed a meal of deep fried chicken wings, beef and mushroom 'pizza' and a stir fried beef cubes. To top it all off, we had beer served to use from an 'Eiffel' tower. Was definitely an interesting experience.

Meal 10 - Ding Tai Fung 鼎泰丰 (at Tampines Mall)

To prove the point, eating at Ding Tai Fung in Singapore, was nearly exactly the same as in Sydney! There are minor exceptions. We had a lunch with mum, my brother and his wife at Ding Tai Fung. To be honest, I wasn't too excited, but I went along. The sweet and sour soup 酸辣汤, prawn dumplings, Xiao-long bao 小笼包 (pork dumplings), and cold oriental salad 小菜, were close to identical to what you would find in Ding Tai Fung in Sydney. However, the drunken chicken was very different. This is likely due to the locally sourced chicken used. Like most people in Singapore living in high rise apartments, chickens bred in Singapore are housed in high rise 'apartments' (cages rather). As this highly restricts the movement of the chook, the meat tends to be significantly more tender. This definitely makes the chicken a lot more yummy, however these are ethical considerations too. It's the same reason why Chicken Rice in Singapore is more tender. To finish, we were given a free dessert of sesame and peanut tang yuan 汤圆 (sesame or peanut stuff in a glutinous rice flour ball).

Meal 11 - Mr Prata (at Century Square)

Time for a quick lunch during my shopping expedition! We headed to Mr Prata @ Century Square. Here we managed to find Roti Prata (of course), as well as a very yummy Mee Siam (Rice vermicelli fried in chili and in a tangy spicy soup topped off with fried tofu and and egg). I love Mee Siam, but I can't seem to find it in Sydney. Do leave me a message if you know where to find one.

Meal 12 - Paris Baguette (at Tampines Mall)

Busy shopping and feeling hungry? Why not get a quick snack here at Paris Baguette.  This place is known for its milk custard. The milk custard comes in little old fashioned milk bottle and in 3 flavours - Original, Caramel and Mango. All 3 were very creamy and smooth. My favourite by far was the caramel flavoured one.  Was ridiculously getting photos here as apparently, the shop bans all photography! 

Meal 13 - Hai Chang Fish Head Steamboat (at Tampines Round Market)
Our last meal on this feature was something very local - and somewhat hidden gem too. We ventured into Tampines Round Market - the first wet market in Tampines. Adjacent to the market is a food centre. Our family feasted on a Fish Head Steamboat 鱼头焒 (Hotpot). Unlike the Japanese hotpot, this is hotpot Chinese style. More specifically, this is a Teochew dish. Eating fish head might seem daunting thing especially if you aren't part of the culture. However, the fish head is merely used to make this creamy soup. A large pot of soup fueled by a charcoal fire boils on your table and you will be given thin slices of raw fresh fish to cook in this soup. It was simply delicious! In the heat of the non-aircon food centre and the steamboat, we washed it all down with the local Tiger beer.

As our trip drew to and end, we remember all the simply yummy food we had this Chinese New Year in Singapore. Somethings we can replicate here in Sydney, but something we simply can't.  We hope to visit the hot tropical country again to savour all those yummy food again!

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