Singapore Living

Local Food
Hawker food is unique to Asia and Singapore boasts one of the widest varieties of hawker fare in Asia. In times long past, hawkers (food peddlers) would set up makeshift stalls along the sides of roads selling piping hot food at very low prices.

Today, the hawkers have been moved off the pavements into fixed stalls with running water, lights and permanent seating in places called "hawker centres" or "food centres".

Here are some of the most well-loved local dishes (taken from Life!eats):
Noodles
Beef Kway Teow
Thin slices of lean beef cooked with broad, flat rice noodles. You can also add beef balls (balls of beef), tendons and tripe to the beef slices. Beef kway teow can be "dry" (without soup) or in a soup. The soup is usually made from a rich stock of beef bones, meat and herbs. The "dry" version comes with a thick, black gravy poured over the noodles and soup served in a separate bowl.

Fried Beef Kway Teow
Seasoned beef slices fried with flat rice noodles in black bean sauce.

Char Kway Teow (sometimes known as "char guo tiao")
Flat rice noodles fried with thick black soya sauce, together with lap cheong (Chinese sausage), cockles, egg, beansprouts, fishcake slices (fishmeat which has been deep-fried and cut into slices) and crispy bits of deep-fried lard.

Fishball noodles
A common Teochew noodle dish. Fishballs (balls of fishmeat) and a choice of noodles. Many hawkers also include fishcake slices (fishmeat which has been deep-fried and cut into slices) in the dish.

Hokkien noodles
Hokkien noodles (thick round yellow egg noodles) and beehoon (thin rice noodles) stir-fried together in prawn and pork bone stock. Other ingredients are prawns, squid, strips of fatty pork, egg and beansprouts.

Laksa
Thick rice noodles served in a spicy soup. Different versions are made by different ethnic groups. The most common versions are: nonya laksa, Penang laksa and (for lack of better description) normal/plain laksa. The difference lies in the soup and the toppings. Normal laksa comes in a thin, coconut-based spicy soup and is usually served with prawns, slices of fishcake, cockles and chopped daun kesom (laksa leaf). Nonya laksa has similar toppings, but the soup is thicker with more coconut milk. Penang laksa is very different from the other 2 versions: the soup is made from fish and tamarind and does not contain coconut milk. It is topped with sliced vegetables.

Minced Meat noodles
Minced meat noodles come in 2 versions: "dry" or in soup. The former is tossed with chilli sauce and vinegar. There is usually a choice of either egg or rice noodles. Both versions include mushrooms, pork slices, fishcake slices, fried flatfish, seaweed and, sometimes small prawns, on top the minced pork.

Mee Goreng
Depending on the ethnic origins of the cook, there are many versions of this dish: Chinese, Malay and Indian. Indian mee goreng is most common: yellow egg noodles fried vigorously with ketchup, chopped mutton, peas and beansprouts. It is common ask for a fried egg to eat with the dish.

Mee Rebus
Traditionally a Malay dish, now cooked by the Chinese as well. Yellow egg noodles serves in a spicy gravy thickened with potato flour, together with a hard-boiled egg, beansprouts, beancurd and a dash of lime.

Prawn Mee (sometimes known as "prawn noodles")
Your choice of egg noodles, kway teow (flat white rice noodles) or beehoon (thin white rice noodles), done either "dry" (tossed with chilli sauce with the soup on the side) or in a soup. The noodles are cooked in aromatic prawn stock and served with fishcake slices, slices of lean port, a sprinkling of beansprouts and a good serving of succulent boiled prawns.

Wonton Mee (sometimes known as "wantan mee", "wanton mee" or "yun tun mian")
"Wonton' is a Chinese dumpling made by wrapping minced pork in a thin sheet of wheat flour dough. The wonton is then steamed or deed-fried and served with char siew (roasted pork) and thin yellow noodles tossed with chilli or tomato sauce.