Seafood
The tom yum arrived first, and the first spoonful hit sour and hot at once, lime and chilli chasing each other down the throat. This classic Thai dish features a spicy sauce and aromatic herbs that awaken the taste buds straight away, setting the stage with its bold flavors. Then the pineapple rice came, sweet…
I built this list around a very specific feeling: that first bite where the room goes quiet for a second. I’ve tried enough Japanese restaurants in Singapore over the years to know that “best” does not always mean the most expensive, the rarest, or the hardest to book. Sometimes it is the warmth of the…
Japanese cuisine has long been admired for its attention to seasonality, precision, and respect for ingredients. However, behind every piece of sashimi or carefully prepared seafood dish lies a story that begins far away from the dining table, often with fishermen, coastal communities, and generations of knowledge passed down through time. At Araya Shouten, seafood…
There are few meals as satisfying as Nasi Padang, a colourful feast where you choose from a variety of dishes to create your perfect plate. Over the years, I’ve explored Singapore’s Nasi Padang scene, especially in Kampong Glam, sampling everything from humble hawker stalls to renowned spots. This list highlights the best halal Nasi Padang…
There’s a dish I order when I want to know a kitchen quickly. Not the specialty. Not the thing the menu is proud of. I order the fried rice. Because nasi goreng has nowhere to hide. It’s rice, chilli, chicken, egg, a few crackers, some cucumber. Everyone thinks they can make it. Most people can.…
There’s a specific kind of hunger that a chirashi don answers. It’s not the hunger for a full sushi omakase, with its slow ceremony and its quiet counter watching. And it’s not the hunger for something thrown together and forgotten by three o’clock. It sits somewhere in between — fish and rice in one bowl,…
It was raining the afternoon I went. Not the polite kind, the sort that drums against the glass of Guoco Tower and makes you glad you’re already underground. I hadn’t planned on soondubu. I’d planned on something quick, something I could eat between the errands piling up in my head. But the rain does something…
The first time I ordered kimchi jjigae in Singapore, I made a small mistake. It came bubbling in a stone pot, and I ate it like soup, spoonful after spoonful, straight down, until my mouth was on fire and the bowl was half gone. The auntie across the counter watched me for a moment, then…
I didn’t grow up eating eel. But I grew up watching my grandmother turn one thing into another — gluten into “duck,” beancurd skin into “fish,” mushrooms into something that tasted of the sea without ever touching it. Buddhist vegetarian cooking does that. It doesn’t pretend so much as it remembers, building familiar shapes out…
Let me clear up the first puzzle right away. The name “Isshin Machi” sounds unmistakably Japanese, and I’ll admit I walked in half-expecting ramen and gyoza. What I found instead was a Taiwanese kitchen, plates of lu rou fan, braised beef noodles, and golden fried chicken that trace straight back to the island’s home cooking.…