Soaking up Singapore

On South Bridge St, there is a string of late night places frequented by a mix of hungry bankers spilling out of the uber-trendy bars on nearby Club St, the sizeable local gay community and grizzled locals.

Further to the south, around Tanjong Pagar, there is a slower, more family orientated vibe in the coffee shops with cuisine reflecting the ethnic Chinese groups that initially settled in Singapore, including Hokkien, Hakka and Teochew, along with the better known Cantonese.

In the mornings, Singapore turns to comfort food, and two of the most popular venues for kaya toast are Ya Kun Kaya Toast at the top end of Chinatown and Nanyang Coffee House.

Both offer the coconut flavoured kaya toast, which comes with soft boiled eggs, and syrupy Singaporean coffee, with the eggs traditionally doused in soy sauce and topped with white pepper.

Nanyang also offers bak kut teh, or pork bone ‘tea’, a complex, medicinal soup studded with tasty morsels of pork, best enjoyed with a cool kopi peng, or iced coffee on the side.

Across the other side of town, in Little India, there is also a lot of delicious hawker food, naturally centring on the sub-continent.

With the majority of Indian workers hailing from the south, there’s a swathe of vegetarian thali options around the area as authentic as anything you’ll eat outside of Tamil Nadu.

There’s more upmarket options too. Kebabs’n’Curries may sound like a balti house on a desolate English high road, but in fact it commands one of the greatest views in Singapore from the top of the buzzing Mustafa centre, where it is possible to duck down at 3am and buy yourself a TV should you have the urge. Down below, the ex-pat Indian labourers pack out the area on a Sunday afternoon like so many worker ants, but from up high it is all calm amid twinkling lights and greenery.

Upstairs, it’s an Indian greatest hits parade, including succulent kebabs, as the name suggests, and that great Indo-Singaporean classic, fish head curry, this version featuring a meaty chunk of sea bass.

Soaking up Singapore