February 21, 2026
Eating in Singapore A few food reccs so you don't just eat conference food in your Sentosa hotel.Although I'm now based in the US, a surprisingly large number of my friends tend to visit Singapore for one reason or another. They often ask me for food recommendations, and this little listicle is an attempt to guide them.
At the heart of Singapore's food scene is the hawker center. Maybe you'll skip these entirely and stick to sit-down restaurants. That's fine; you do you. But you should feel at least a little bad because then you ain't quite doing SG right.
Where to go? If you want the encyclopedic treatment, my buddy Austin has you covered: in this map, he documents his meals at every single hawker center. He also has specific notes about what he got at those places, but caveat emptor: his adventures were a few years ago and some of his notes may be out of date.
A word of warning: it's easy to play the game too hard. Sure, there are famous hawker centers and famous stalls within those hawker centers, and sure you could go eat at that one stall that won a Michelin star. But really I think you should just go to a hawker center, any one really, and you'll begin to get it. Maybe you'll spend hours doing research and you'll guarantee yourself a transcendent wanton mee or char kway teow or hokkien mee or chicken rice. Or maybe you'll go there on point-and-shoot mode and end up with something less sexy. It doesn't matter. It will cost five bucks and it will be delicious. And you'll know you're doing SG right.
My personal favorite hawker center is an unusual choice because it's just a sleepy little neighborhood place, not one of the more glamorous ones. It's Pek Kio. I'd bike there early in the morning and have chee cheong fun for breakfast. For a few weeks it was my secret mission to convince the kopi aunty at Pek Kio that I lived in the neighborhood; I actually lived in Beauty World.
While not particularly exciting to me personally, chicken rice is a simple, tasty dish in which Singapore takes a lot of pride. It's probably against the law for a hawker center to be without a chicken rice stall, so I'm sure you'll run into this dish along the way. In fact, Singapore's most iconic chicken rice comes from Tian Tian, which is in a hawker center and costs five bucks.
However, in my opinion it's sometimes illuminating to see what happens if you take a hawker classic dish and throw a little more money at the problem. Boon Tong Kee (many locations) is one option, and you can explore further on Maps. But my point is just that it's maybe worth spending a little time and money on superlative chicken rice.
Pro tip: most places will offer both roasted and steamed chicken. Steamed is generally harder to do right. If I'm going somewhere I trust, I'll get steamed; if I'm not sure, I'll get roasted. If a place only offers steamed, then I assume they know what they're doing.
If you're near the National University of Singapore for whatever reason, or if you're particularly interested in a slice of my life from 2013 to 2020, here are some places to eat in that area.
And now, a few other beloved places.
Generally Singapore is one of the world's great food cities. If you're craving something, poke around a little on the Internet and give Singapore a chance. You'll obviously do great with Southeast Asian food, and you'll do well with North/South Indian, Japanese, Korean, and specific regional cuisines of China. What's more, even further-afield restaurants (Italian, Greek, you name it) are often very strong. I'm excited that you're there, and I hope you eat well. If you really are following this guide, please send me pics!