JW: Well, if you’re not shy, just grab a local and be like, “Hey, what do you think about this versus that down the road, check it out.” And then they will probably have an opinion. Singaporeans are very opinionated about our food, but otherwise honestly we are very competitive as a culture. You can’t really go wrong. I think the statistic is 300 new restaurants open a day in Singapore, and so to last because we have limited land space, they have to really prove their worth.
LA: Singapore’s food scene has such a vast global reach. I mean even here in New York, I can try all different types of foods like Malaysian satay and my favorite Indian curry puffs. You’ve got such a range of people and chefs and types of food. What should people order in the hawker centers? I know some hawker centers have Michelin stars.
JW: Oh, yeah.
LA: I mean it’s like a whole scene unto itself. What should people be ordering?
JW: So chili crab is part of, it’s our culture, so you’ll want to go to a hawker center that does have a sort of specializes in that, and you don’t just have to do chili crab—you can do black pepper crab, you can do steamed crab, you can do garlic butter crab. There’s just so many types. It’s so, so good.
Other dishes that are really popular in a hawker center would be laksa. I really love that. It’s like a kind of noodle soup. Prata is basically kind of light bread, carrot cake, which is not the same as an English carrot cake. It’s really just like stir-fried turnip and egg. It’s really, really, really good.
It’s impossible to kind of narrow down what you should try because for any taste palette, if you wanted something peppery, for example, you could have bak kut teh, which is kind of pork bone and pepper soup, which is amazing. If you’re feeling a little under the weather, you could have herbal soups, you could have, oh, I love congee, I love fish soup, which is really amazing. I think really the limiting factor is not where to find food, but your stomach space.
LA: I think often you think if you’re going somewhere on your own, you have to be on your own. But actually part of the joy of it is having time to connect with new people and finding some locals to be like, “Is it weird if I sit at your table and can you tell me what to order?” And then next thing you are getting to try everything.
JW: As a solo traveler, it’s so enjoyable to really just get to meet other solo travelers. I really recommend trying to make friends or look for other solo travelers and be like, “Let’s split a meal,” because it is common when my friends come and visit that we go to a hawker center and three people go out and get five different things each and come down and put them family style at the table, so you get to try as many things as possible because otherwise you’re just not going to be able to finish eating.
