Singaporeans love food and there are many local varieties of Malay, Indian and Chinese foods! Some of the new things I’ve tried so far

My absolute favorite – Hainanese Chicken Rice. It looks (and sounds) pretty plain but it is super delish! You can get either the steamed version or the roasted chicken version, I like the steamed version better. The white chicken is steamed until it is just cooked making it super soft. The rice is cooked in chicken broth and the dish is usually served with a chili sauce made of chilies, chicken broth, garlic and ginger.

Nasi Lemak (left) – The national dish of Malaysia and literally translated it means “rice in cream.” The rice is soaked in coconut milk, then steamed and is then served with a variety of things including cucumber slices, fried anchovies, roasted peanuts, hard boiled eggs, fried chicken, and hot spicy sauce called Sambal (a chili based sauce).

Mee Siam (right) – Means “Siamese Noodles”, it’s a soupy noodle dish in a sweet and sour gravy, with things added like soy beans, dried bean curds, hard boiled eggs, chives and onions.

Chicken Murtabak – A Malaysian/Indonesian dish (and also pretty popular in the Middle East), Murtabak derived its name from the Arabic word ” Motabbag” which means “the folded”. It is basically a big prata, stuffed with curried minced meat (chicken/mutton/beef) and garlic, eggs and onions and served with a curry sauce (which I never eat since it looks too oily)

Local drinks – Kopi means coffee and teh means tea. Look at the varieties below! At first I felt like ordering coffee/tea here was more difficult that ordering at Starbucks! I can still pretty much only order “Teh C” without messing up, I even mess up when ordering “Teh C Peng” since I forget if I’m supposed to say “Ice” or “Cold” (obviously a big difference…)

kopi oh = hot coffee (sweet)
kopi = milk coffee (sweet)
kopi peng – iced milk coffee (sweet)
kopi ‘c’ – hot coffee with evaporated milk (sweet)
kopi ‘c’ kosong – hot coffee with evaporated milk (unsweetened)
kopi ‘c’ peng – iced coffee with evaporated milk (sweet)
teh oh = hot tea (sweet)
teh oh peng = iced tea (sweet)
teh oh kosong = hot tea (unsweetened)
teh oh kosong peng = iced tea (unsweetened)
teh = milk tea (sweet)
teh peng – iced milk tea (sweet)
teh ‘c’ – hot tea with evaporated milk (sweet)
teh ‘c’ kosong – hot tea with evaporated milk (unsweetened)
teh ‘c’ peng – iced tea with evaporated milk (sweet)

White peach lassi (yogurt based drink)- Not Singaporean but I’ve never heard of it before!

Most of these foods are found at local hawker centers, below is a picture of one near my house. It even has TVs to watch the Chinese soaps or sports games during dinner time and they serve beer so a nice place to relax and hang out in the evenings for cheap

So many more things to try! I will have to try my best to not make this into a food blog 🙂