Dining in Singapore City

Diversity of Singapore Cuisine, a Food Paradise

The popular medical tourism destination of Singapore is a gastronome’s paradise with a varied selection of international flavours and a smorgasbord of local delicacies worth sampling.  Local Singaporean cuisine has strong Malaysian, Indian, Chinese, Indonesian, and even British influences.  Flavours and ingredients cultivated with great élan in Singapore, adding to the unique taste of its cuisine.  It’s normal here to find chefs of Chinese ethnicity experimenting with Indian ingredients like tamarind and ghee, and Indian chefs using large amounts of galangal in their curries.  Be sure to try out street food at one of the numerous hawker centers spread across the city.  Street food in Singapore is safer than in most medical tourism destinations, so tuck in without fear.  However, it’s always best to stick with food that has been prepared in the last 30 minutes (i.e. avoid buffets).  The best time to enjoy local cuisine in all its splendour is during the annual Singapore Food Festival, hosted by the Tourism Board.

Seafood and Meats

The variety of seafood here includes crabs, oysters, squid, clams, lobsters etc.  Chicken, meat, and pork are also consumed in large quantities.  Try the famous sweet and sour pork, oyster omelette, black pepper crab, and chilli crab.  You may have tried all of the above in other locales, but few destinations can compete with Singapore when it comes to these enviable delectables. 

Vegetables and Fruits

There’s a sizeable chunk of the population that has purely vegetarian dietary habits, and as such, the city boasts of a great number of vegetarian restaurants.  Most of these are Indian vegetarian eateries where a single meal consists of several mini courses, and is served on a plantain leaf.  

Be sure to scour the markets for tropical fruit – they are always in plentiful supply and include familiars like pineapple and banana, and more exotic varieties like rojak, mangosteen, logan, lychee, and rambutan.  The most popular fruit in Singapore has to be the “durian,” also called “the king of fruits.”  This fruit has a strong odour and creamy yellow custard-like flesh encased in a spiky green or brown shell.  Most people either love or hate it, but no medical tourism vacation to Singapore would be complete without at least one sample of this strange creation.