Devouring Singapore—from Hawker Centers to Michelin Stars

Singapore is a relatively young city-state. It's about 74% Chinese, 14% Malay, and 9% Indian. That means they have no single official language and very little in the way of official national symbols. But because the culture of this area goes back at least a thousand years, the one thing you'll find that is purely Singaporean is food. And our family is out to sample the full range, from authentic food stalls to Michelin-starred dishes. This is the 8th country, 3rd continent, and 18th culture we've experienced so far this year, and we brought our appetites. So let's start devouring. Singapore hawker centers are basically large food courts with stalls around the perimeter serving everything from full meals to snacks and drinks. You'll usually find selections of local dishes as well as flavors from across the world, including Chinese, Malay, Indian, and Western food. Okay, what do you guys want to start with? A rice bowl. All right, let's start with the pancakes. They have granny's pancakes over here. They're like stuffed pancakes. You can get them with chocolate and peanut butter and stuff like that. So let's start with the kids and get them something that's going to get them excited about eating. One red bean and one peanut butter, please. This is beans. It's red beans. I thought red beans was like a jam. Like pancakes. These are just beans? Very sugary. That's like crunchy peanuts in there. Very interesting. I'm going to try a bite of Brooklyn's. I like the texture. It is like black beans. It just gives it a little bit more of a savory taste. That was the best thing I've tried in the entire trip. How about this napkin? That was so good. I'm really excited about what I found out about this next stall, Mad Roaster, because it's coffee with a cause. They take works of art that's made from refugees and they incorporate it into their logos and their cups and then they give proceeds to the refugee community. So I think it's a beautiful cause and I heard they have a really special latte that I'm going to order. I got an iced honey butter latte and I see what they mean by having their art incorporated into their logo. Each of them are different and colored by a different refugee. Oh, that is good. That's yummy. And I really like strong, strong espresso lattes and that's strong. Yummy. The main business hours of this place are Monday through Friday. We're here on a Saturday. That's why you see a lot of the stalls being closed, but there's still plenty of selection. And in fact, all of the places that we wanted to come today are open. So we're happy about that. We're going to Fried Kway Teow and I want to apologize for the construction. I know it's really loud, but Fried Kway Teow has been known to have the best fried noodles in Singapore. And they're also really well known for having a wok hei, which is the wok aroma. And they use cocker shells in their cooking, which gives it that amazing aroma. So we're really excited to see what it's all about. Oh, and best point of all, it has a Michelin bin. Look at that. I didn't even know what I was ordering because she didn't speak English. I just asked for one and I was trying to convey just their best dish. And I see lots of seafood in here, which we love. And I did make out that she asked if we wanted it spicy. And of course we wanted it spicy. That means I'm not eating it. Let's be honest, I'm not actually gonna eat it either way. Oh good. Seafood for sure. Yeah, such a flavorful sauce. So it looks like it's made with two different kinds of noodles. A really thin egg noodle and then there's like a flat, it's like a rice noodle. So two different kinds and then wok fried up. So they give us this little key lime and all it is is like sliced off on one side. So I'm guessing we can squeeze it and all the juice is going to come out. Yeah. It's like a little squeeze bottle. I am so hungry and this looks fantastic. This is absolutely delicious. So this actually started as a push cart in the 60s and then they made their way up to getting a stall and they've been perfecting this recipe ever since. We're not going to eat the whole thing because we have to pace ourselves as always. But we are going to clean up because if you don't clean up your table you can get a fine. You can get fined for a lot of things in this place. And I don't just mean the hawker stalls. I'm talking about Singapore in general. But I love the laws they have here. I love how they enforce the laws because people actually follow them. Which is a pretty amazing change of pace from what we experience in the States. Our cab driver on the way over here was telling us about some of these laws. And by the way he said that about 90% of cab drivers here are ex-military. He used to do booby traps during the Vietnam War. A lot of people know about the Singapore law related to spitting on the ground. You can get a big fine for that one. But did you know you can't buy chewing gum here either? All because some teenagers would put chewing gum on some of the sensors in the underground train station and it would throw everything off. So they said all right, lost that privilege. No more gum. I'm on board though. I like it. Let's go get some. What type of drink is the rose syrup? We mix it with the milk and the topping we put a milo powder. It tastes like the sugariest falafel I've ever had turned into liquid. We're eating another Michelin Bib bite. I'll be doing the show from now on. Oh please. She's drunk off of her rose water. Her mouth is covered in chocolate dust. We're gonna do whatever I want. And what she wants to do is get a famous crispy puff. Curry puff. Oh shoot. Darn it. They're one of the ones that's only open Monday through Friday so we're gonna miss out on that. We're gonna go across across the street here. They have really great fish fish balls. Fish ball soup. Fish cakes. Fish balls. I'll figure it out. Yeah so it is Teochew fish ball noodles. It started by a Chinese immigrant who came to Singapore in the 50s and they are handmade daily. So this water stuff is juice? It's soup? I'm gonna try this broth first. Yeah I don't know how to describe it. Yeah it's like it's just a very mild fish broth. I've got to try these famous famous fish balls. It's like an egg. I don't know. Well the texture is like a hard-boiled egg but it does it has a very mild I'd say fish taste to it. And it's all like caked and condensed in there. That definitely tastes like crab. Crab? Crab. Okay. From the sea. Delicious. A little overpowering with that red pepper though that you put in there. That would be the perfect broth to have if you were sick at home or on a really cold day. You can tell it has medicinal properties. You're right. It's basically the texture of the white part of a hard-boiled egg and it's really good. Delicious but more food. Next is Hong Kee beef noodles. They've been recognized by the Michelin guide for their Hainanese style beef noodles. And look we got a little hot sauce. I'm going to try a pinch first. Oh that's very flavorful. Like a lot of vinegar a little a pinch sweet and a lot of spice. This looks good and very different than the other noodles we had. Very aromatic. That is delicious. This is what I would want on a cold fall day. This is so delicious. This beef is so tender and you can almost see it's so thin and you can tell there's like a little pinkness in there. It's not like fully well done. I'll bet that this was cooked in the broth maybe or like flash cooked in the broth because it's so thin so tender and just perfect. Yum. Yeah that's like a pho right? Yeah. Wouldn't you typically get really at least shaved meats like that and then they would just cook in the broth. Those noodles are really good. There's a lot of flavor to them unless that's just being picked up by the broth. Hong Kee beef noodle has been around for over 50 years. They actually started at two different hawker stalls before they ended up settling here at Amoy. All right let's just go to one more place. We're actually going to go back to the Mad Roaster because the kids saw some bread that looked really yummy and that's what they want to get next. It's like an Now we have the Singapore hawker stall experience. We're going to move on to something a little bit more upscale. You may not guess it by looking at us but we really love high tea. We've had high tea at Brown Palace in Denver. We've had high tea at the Plaza Hotel in New York City and now we're going to have high tea right here in a place called National Kitchen by Violet Moon. It's in the National Plaza and this is a Peranakan restaurant. Peranakan being one of the native ethnic groups of Singapore. Violet Moon is a well-known chef in Singapore. She has several restaurants but they rave about the tea service here. This tea set looks so pretty. It's pretty as this building. There's so much detail in the tiles and the ceiling and everything and in this food. It's $59 per set. It serves two people and you get all of this plus your tea and we're going to start from the bottom and work our way up. This is their pulled pork bao bun and I have a little boy over here who can't wait to try it. So you try it first Cole. Best bao bun he's ever had. It is a really good bao bun and it's spicy. The spice really kicks in. It's really really good. And this, the bun itself, it's like a cloud. It just kind of dissipates when you bite into it. Yeah like a spicy sloppy joe almost. That hits the spot. Really good. I'm gonna have Brooklyn try this pineapple upside down cake. Looks incredible. You got any? Oh that's good. Next is the laksa. It's fresh rice noodles tossed in Violet's laksa gravy topped with prawns, tau pork, and bean sprouts. I'm gonna try the prawn. Really aromatic and I taste peanuts in here. This is really delicious too. Yeah the sauce and gravy, it's kind of like a really spicy, again spicy, peanut sauce. Yeah it's like a little pad thai. And of course their tea. This one is their blend and it has kind of a lemony scent. Very subtle. Now we're gonna try their signature savory bite, kawaii pie tea. It's got julienne bamboo shoot and turnip poached in a prawn bisque and served in a deep fried top hat. Topped with prawn chili sauce and a sweet fruit sauce. I don't even know how to eat this. Like do I just take a bite off the top or do I cut into it? This is seriously good. I'm trying to compare it to the flavor. It is really seriously good. I think it's because it has that juice, that fruit juice in it with the savory bisque and prawn. It's really good. Yeah I'm with you. It's delicious and it's kind of hard to place. It looks like it would be minced up so much more but you have to get those really big chunks of whatever it is in there. And I think I get a lot of onion flavor. But really good texture on the shell too. Not too crunchy. What's the opposite of crunchy? Soft. I like that a lot. It's almost like the inside of a lettuce wrap. Chicken lettuce wrap. Coronation chicken on crispy wonton. So it's basically a curry sauce and raisins with the chicken on the wonton. It's really good but they're very familiar flavors. Different than the other things we've had so far where it really wowed me. It's like something new I've had. That's good curry. I just ate that whole thing. I was supposed to share it with Cole. Here Cole. There's just seasons in there. A lot of seasons. Yeah because it's curry sauce. Comfort food right away. Didn't even touch my tongue. You just get the aroma as soon as you bring it close to your mouth. It just feels like sitting on the couch on a fall day having Indian night. Chili crab tartlet with quail egg. Tartlet's really good. It's almost like a shortbread. A lot of like really condensed flavors. That one's hard to pick up. So this is our last savory bite and it is Otak on Belgian endive. Belgium endive. It's a spiced coconut cream fish quenelle served on the endive. This is another favorite bite of mine. This is really good. It's like a fish cake almost. Really good. I really liked it. Oh my god that's good. That's good. The lettuce stuff just got me. Yeah because it's really bitter. Oh my god that's amazing. I guess we saved the best for last. The best savory bite for last. It's such a strong finish. You just sit there and wait and these flavors keep coming and coming and coming. I'm going to start off with one of these in a glass because they look like little green beans, I don't know, growing on some dirt. But it's actually a chendol pudding. Chendol, red bean, and gula melaka atop a coconut pudding. That's trippy. Yeah good subtle flavors. Like you do get a little bit of the coconut flavor but everything is super subtle. The red beans are like literally red beans that you're eating out of there. And these, it almost looks like it would be frosting or something that you could bite right through. But you can't. These have body to them too. Like little jello worms. Rippy indeed. There's something in there that has gelatin for sure. This is a coconut pineapple tart. It's really cakey. I think I was expecting it to be custard but it really tastes like a cake with a jam at the bottom. It's really yummy. I've got to use my fork to get this one because it is the flourless chocolate cake. It's kind of like a brownie. That is really really rich. That is good. Very bitter. This is the sweet potato kueh. So it's basically a chewy sweet potato on the inside and coconut flakes all over the outside. This is trippy. Really good flavors. I don't think I can get on board with this texture. It's like a spongy gelatin. Have you ever had those donuts that are made of gelatin? It kind of tastes like those. It's so spongy. I figured it would have like some real tension to it but it's so spongy. This is a bandung agar agar and it looks kind of like a stone or a crystal or something. It's rose and coconut milk layered jelly. Crumbles right off. Jelly, not anything like jello. It like crumbles. It's crazy the texture. That is very odd. Very odd. So that's the opposite of the sweet potato one. I expected this to be way softer. That's like finger jello. Even beyond finger jello with the firmness. That's very interesting. Great tea, great food, great experience overall. I agree this is a great place for tea. Look I'm rhyming now. I can write a book now. I agree it's a great place for tea. Look at me rhyming. Dinner tonight is really something special. We are at Candlenut. It is the world's first and only Peranakan Michelin starred restaurant. They received their Michelin star in 2016 and have been going strong since. I think it's going to be hard to beat those hawker stalls today because that was a very authentic local experience and we're trying to do more and more of those. And by the way if the idea of getting seafood and poultry from like essentially a little garage stall creeps you out at all, know this. The stakes are so high for those vendors. If anyone gets sick from any of the food there, they actually get fined ten thousand dollars and they're shut down for a month. So it is very important to them that all of that food is super high quality and I think it's probably one of the most trustworthy meals you can get in the city. But right now at Candlenut we are probably going to do their tasting menu. They have this set up for you because you don't have to think, you don't have to choose. I mean it looks like 16 horses. So it's kind of like our lunch because we eat so much. It is 128 dollars per person and they do have a 150 Singaporean dollar minimum per adult at the table for the kids. They have a 50 dollar Singaporean dollar minimum for the kids. I don't think you're going to hear from the kids too much tonight. They're still a little jet lagged. We've got lychee cocktail mocktails for the kids and I got a vodka martini with a twist. It's actually a lime twist. It's really good. It's not American style martini. It actually has more ingredients in it than just the vodka and vermouth. So it has a lot more body, a lot more character really. We were legit all asleep by five o'clock last night and it is now 6 25. So we're gonna beat our record, last night's record. But I'm sure we're all hitting the sack as soon as we get back to our hotel room. That's the plan. Each day we're gonna try and stay up a little bit later, a little bit later until we get adjusted right in time to go back home and have to get readjusted back home too. The kids got something a la carte and it is a pork neck satay and some white rice. For the first dishes from our tasting menu we have these cool little pastry cups and these have Boston lobster in there. I don't know if that means that the lobster is from Boston since that's on the opposite side of the planet. That doesn't sound terribly efficient. But what's on top here is this nut mixture that is indigenous to this particular area and what's cool about it is that it's actually poisonous in its natural form. It has cyanide in it so it has to be treated so that it's even edible. Wish me luck. Oh man that's very good. It's almost like a ginger kind of feel to it and I think that's all from that nut component. It is delicious although I really don't get it much lobster flavor at all. But I do like the crispiness of the little basket on the bottom. I'm still glad that Phil went first. I know I'm glad that Phil went first. But dad dies after he tastes it. Yeah everything that Phil described it as but I get a lot of spice. There is something like really kind of subtle in the back there that comes as an aftertaste with a lot of spice but really good. I love food like this that is different. It's unique and it has a story behind it. Really cool. And this is basically duck on a crispy base here. Really moist. Really good bite too. It has kind of a tuna consistency to it to be honest but really moist and flavorful. Like a little old duck bruschetta. It's delicious. I love it. Okay the next bite here is a Japanese shrimp bite with some dried scallop and oyster. I expected crispiness and there really is none but so much seafood flavor. It's kind of like those little crispy Japanese seafood crackers, seaweed crackers, where you just get that very intense concentrated seafood taste. That's what this is like. My gosh that makes me so excited to try it. That is really good. It also has a seaweed taste to it. I think what was on top there might have been seaweed based or something similar but it's really yummy. Really good. This is satay. It is different than the kids who had pork and this is a lamb neck satay. Really delicious. It has like a little bit of that sweetness from the sauce but then some like charcoal in it too so it has like a little contrast of that smoky charcoal taste and that sweetness. Really good. Everything's been good so far. A bit of a Christmasy flavor to it. I mean actually I think it's the same thing that the kids have in terms of what they cook it in and yeah definitely charcoal because it is cooked on open charcoal. This is the young tofu soup. It is a very traditional soup for Peranakan cuisine and it has chicken and fish. You know what it reminds me of the miso soup. This little cake here I think is what has chicken and fish in it. That's delicious. Wow really really impressed with everything so far. Again the soup is delicious. I feel really bad about the kids. They're really having a hard time staying awake and I can't blame them but they're such little troopers. By the way we're only one third of the way through. There are 15 bites total I counted up including desserts. A little family secret. I always talk about how I've never had a sip of coffee in my life but technically it's maybe not true because I've had many sips of espresso martinis. Maybe we need to get the kids one of those. So proud of them. That's a lot to travel halfway around the world yesterday and be such troopers and go to the hawker stalls with us and taste and enjoy. I wouldn't want to travel with any other group. The next round here we have a sweet corn and honey pineapple caribou but there's no caribou in it and I see some cashews and this is going to be one of four out of five spicy dishes in front of us right now. There's only one that's not spicy. A lot of sweetness from that pineapple right away and a lot of spice from the spices right away. Kicking pineapple. One thing I love a lot is street corn and this kind of reminds me of it with the it's right off the cob. Real strong kick but it's a cool dish and it's really good. Next is an udeng gulai. It's got prawn, japanese, tofu, haflaxa leaf and this is another spicy one. This next one is okra and star fruit and baby squid and it looks phenomenal. I expected that one to be cold but it's hot and it's delicious. The squid is so thinly sliced it's not the big tentacles and it's not the big steaks. It's really good. That sauce is an incredible flavor. Oh they brought a pillow. They're so sweet and understanding that the kids are so tired. They keep bringing them new drinks to help them wake up and now they realize they just need some pillows. Now we've got ikan chan chan and I'm gonna apologize. Pronouncing things has never been easy for me so I'm trying. This is a chicken dish. I have never had chicken so soft in my life. It's a completely different texture than I expected for sure. That is cooked so interestingly. It is so soft. It's hard to believe that's chicken. That whole dish is one of those that just like takes you back to some period of time decades ago. As soon as I took a bite of that I felt like I was transported back to high school and I'm not sure why because I never would have tasted anything like that in high school. That's really good. Almost the tenderness of a fish. Okay and for what I think might be our final savory dish of the night. Slow cooked beef cheek in a curry sauce with candle nut and lots of amazing little spices. This is going to be a very good bite. I get a lot of ginger in that. Is there ginger in it babe? The meat is really tender. The cheek is really tender. So many flavors. This is our only of one of the main courses that's not spicy. It's the only one that's It keeps getting more and more elaborate. They keep bringing them blankets and pillows and spare chairs and everything else. I'm just waiting for them to like bring up the eye masks, earplugs. We have five little bites for dessert. I'm gonna start with the black sesame seed cream coconut and a butter crust. It's like a wicked flavorful whipped cream is what it tastes like. That's pretty cool. I'm gonna have them all with my fingers because they're just little finger bites and this one's a ginger cake. That's really interesting to put something so savory like that in a sweet dessert. It's like a ginger vanilla cake. And before it melts I'm gonna try this really delicious looking little dish which is the wolfberry sorbet on a chrysanthemum shaved ice. Oh that's unique. The honey flavor. There's honey in there right babe? Look it's like shaved ice soaked in honey. Can you see the honey and the ice? Phenomenal. So this one is a vanilla crepe. Oh I love that. Almost has like a little molasses flavor to it. I loved it. I love the size. That tiny little bite size. Perfect. And now the last one is a snow skin moon cake. Tara paste, coconut and blue pea flower. And it's soft. I thought it was going to be hard but it's really soft. That's going to do it for this episode but we're not done with food here in Singapore so be sure to subscribe to the channel so that you catch our next episode where we're crashing Singapore and we're going to take you to a few other places.